Our National Geographic Expedition

 Fanged Wilds' "Expedition Granted" entry:

As the climate corrodes civilization, maternal instinct is key to avoiding chaos. Even little girls' love for animals is a force with which to reckon. Bloodthirsty predators empower their saviors: for instance, the female rangers at Gir's lion reserve thrill gender-biased rural India, where women often literally don't have a place at the table.

Leopard print is already everywhere, a sexy fashion divorced from its original owner. Let's make it a symbol of feminine fierceness rescuing biodiversity.

Women make powerful choices when we identify with dangerous carnivores. 

From the lion rangers in Gujarat to a jaguar champion in Costa Rica, I cheer on women who protect charismatic megafauna. I'd like to recycle leopard-spot apparel from National Geographic readers to those brave animal advocates, be they on the steppes, in jungles, or in the 'burbs of our most famous national parks. Winning fifty thousand dollars from the "Expedition Granted" Contest could let me give real meaning to leopard-print clothing!

Who am I? I wrote a novel, "Pax of Wildly Women," and blog about my low-carbon solo forays abroad (thanks to free airline benefits from a friend.) Think globally, Grizzly Mamas: look where even someone as aged and squeaky as I dare explore alone. I personify the possibility that "weakness is strength": I'm embraced by strangers in foreign cultures. (Do women talk too much? I'm a polyglot. I spoke Hindi in January, Spanish in April, French and German this week... and I hope Russian by December!)

Me with Kurdish Syrian Refugees

Humor and giggles are weapons against Global Warming. "Fanged Wilds and Women Program" is inherently funny. In some countries, it's revolutionary for women to wear what they want. What if they wear fangs? 

I'd like to visit Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to encourage their tiger reintroduction projects and get more women involved. Turkey and Iran have leopards who need my love. I'd hike, bike, or crawl to save species. What will you do to help me?

National Geographic filled a bookshelf in a room where something happened... that should never happen to a child. Metaphorically speaking, your magazine's iconic photos of bare-breasted Africans suckled me as a little girl. You defined my horizons... and my escape. From a battered victim to an international adventurer, I've become a "fanged woman." Feed me!

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Fanged Wilds and Women Program is a 501c3 Tax-Exempt Organization