WILD WISHES® grants wildlife encounters to children and teens with a critical illness or loss of a parent or sibling.
Part of the outreach of Chester and Lisa Moore’s nonprofit Kingdom Zoo Wildlife Center® outreach, the 100th child received a life-changing wildlife encounter in Sept. 2019.
Higher Calling Wild Wishes Expeditions goes to a new level by taking teens from the program on expeditions to teach wildlife conservation through mentorship in wildlife photography, social media awareness raising and fundraising skills.
“We noticed that many of the young people we work with who face these great challenges are looking for a way to help and give back. We are creating these opportunities to give young people an avenue to not only understand conservation but a way to get involved,” said Chester Moore.
Two pilot projects initiated the program in 2019.
Wild Wishes girl Reannah changed her degree and school (now a Texas Tech student) to work with conservation after her wish encounter as a high school senior in 2018.
In December 2019 she got to participate in a desert bighorn sheep capture and translocation at Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area courtesy of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.
“It was an incredible experience!,” Reannah said.
“It gives me even more inspiration to pursue a career in working in wildlife conservation.”
Wild Wishes boys Amos and Jaxon got to take part in a special catch-and-release conservation mission for Guadalupe bass in west-central Texas. The trip was featured in Texas Fish & Game magazine and the boys learned how using the photos they took on the trip could raise awareness to problems facing stream fisheries.
Special challenges usually disqualify young people for experiences like this. We are creating special opportunities for them only.
In 2020 the group was doing its first expeditions into Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain National Park as well as the second annual Guadalupe bass trip.
If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to help make these trips possible for some special young people go to kingdomzoo.com and click on the “Higher Calling Wild Wishes Expeditions” link.
—from TPWD
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