Adopt-A-Dragon Week…

Tags

Adopt-a -Dragon, Climate Change, Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Dragons for Beginners, Endangered species, Month of the Dragon, WAFDE, Weyrs

Every year, as Month of the Dragon winds down, the folks at WAFDE and the Dragon Conservancy reach out to dracophiles young and old with the Adopt-A-Dragon Program.

For those of you new to MotD and all it entails, a bit of history:

An integral part of Dragon Conservation, the Adopt-A-Dragon program was started as an offshoot of WAFDE and the Dragon Conservancy in the relatively peaceful decades following WWII. Growing steadily year by year, it came into its own at the end of the last century.

Modeled after the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s National Wild Horse and Burro Program and the American Bear Association’s Friend of the Cubs, AAD is a way for Dragon lovers around the world to stay connected to these marvelous creatures and contribute to the continuance of Dragon welfare on a global scale. For a reasonable annuity (sliding scales available), Dragon-loving individuals can “adopt” a Dragon anywhere from the Himalayan Quad to the forests of Belize. You get a certificate of fosterage and a weekend pass to the Dragon Sanctuary of your choice.

A recent adjunct is the KFD (Kids for Dragons) school outreach program, geared at students from the 6th-grade (first form, for our British friends) on up.* With parental consent – of course! – school groups can pool their resources and adopt a young Dragon. The fee is virtually nominal and AAD tries to hook classes up with Dragons from nearby Sanctuaries to facilitate visitations. As a scientific teaching tool and dispeller of negative PR, the program is without equal! And, for field trips, nothing beats going to see the class adoptee, watching her grow through the years from gangly dragonlet to full-winged, fire-breathing adolescent. If you or your school are interested in partaking of all KFD has to offer, contact your local chapter of WAFDE.

Throughout this week, we are going to highlight certain weyrs which are especially distressed due to climate change and human interference – wars, habitat destruction, etc. Each has a story to tell, Dragons to treasure.

If you are interested in adopting a Dragon, take a tour of Dragon Nations, pick a weyr that appeals, and contact me here or through WAFDE’s Facebook page. Your certificate will be e-mailed to you, tout de suite.

* Dragons can be a little too terrifying for very young children.
There are enough obstacles to our friends well-being without adding irate parents and the wrath of the psychiatric community worried about youthful nightmares to the mix.