Animals

Several people emailed yesterday wondering what a loonie was. My apologies to the people outside Canada. A "loonie" is a Canadian $1.00 coin. (You can see a list of Canadian money here - http://www.vancouver.hm/money.html ). It has the nickname because there is an image of a loon on the back of the coin.

This morning I am sending two photographs of animals taken at Salmonier Nature Park when I visited there in August.

The lynx is a fairly large wild cat that lives in the forests of Newfoundland. I have only seen one in the wild once in my life, but I didn't have a camera at that time. These are beautiful animals but very difficult to photograph in the wild.

The woodland caribou are found on the island of Newfoundland and there used to be a herd of 6 000 animals just two hours drive from my home. I was told recently that the herd has been decimated by a parasite known as the brainworm and there are only around 300 animals there now. I have photos with thousands of caribou in one photo. Unless the herd rejuvenates soon, those photos have just become more valuable.

Have a great day!