We are a little slow posting these photos but they are worth the wait . . . kids in Denver and Boulder classrooms learning about black-footed ferrets up close and personal. Kids in a Castle Rock classroom had the same opportunity to meet a burrowing owl (though we don't have any photos of that). Lots of the Castle rock kids had just read or seen Hoot (the Carl Hiaasen book and now movie), so the burrowing owl had special significance. The irony of the Bureau of Land Management leasing critical black-footed ferret habitat on the very same day – May 11 – that the U.S. Senate had designated as Endangered Species Day is almost too tragic to point out.

But the kids had a great time and learned a lot.