Florida Luxury Resort Week, Tribe Suite, Diamonds, Browns Tix Up for Grabs At Benefit

Preparations for our fiesta-themed annual benefit are heading into the homestretch and the growing collection of "el mercado" auction items is stunning this year! A week at the beautiful Saddlebrook Golf & Tennis Luxury Resort in Tampa, Florida and tickets to the November 30 Cleveland Browns Games against Indianapolis are the most recent additions to the exciting list. You can check out all the details for a few of the items on our website, but keep in mind there is much, much more that we can't fit on the web page, including salon spa packages, restaurant certificates and birthday party packages.
Silent Auction items will be out for preview in the week leading up to the event, but your best chance to put in the winning bid is to be there! Make your reservations now using our online donation form (scroll down to Annual Benefit Reservations. Tickets are $50 each or $300 for Event Patron status which includes 4 tickets.)

A few other choice items up for bid:
Cleveland Indians Luxury Suite
Cleveland Cavaliers Court Level Seats
Pittsburgh Getaway including Pirates tickets & family membership to the Carnegie Museums Vivid Diamonds and Designs $500 certificate
Walt Disney Park Hopper passes
Sarah Brightman Concert Tickets
Fly fishing trip for two (2) at Sunnybrook Trout Club near Sandusky.

See you September 13!

Star Gazing At NASA Glenn

We hope you've marked your calendar for a special astronomy event coming up in September. The NASA Glenn Visitor Center, in collaboration with the Lake Erie Nature & Science Center and the Cuyahoga Astronomical Association, is hosting the fifth annual Star Gazing event on Saturday, September 20. Learn about the stars and identify the constellations in the StarLab Dome. Look through solar and night telescopes, weather permitting. View pieces of the Moon and meteorites, plus kids' crafts, "Picture Yourself in Space" digital photographs and plenty of handouts -- all free!

Please note that because Lake Erie Nature & Science Center planetarium staff will be helping to lead Star Gazing Day activities at NASA, the regularly scheduled (and previously published) planetarium shows in the Walter R. Schuele Planetarium for September 20 are cancelled for the entire day.

Our Take On Lionfish In the News

Many of you may have seen a picture of one of our animals, the Lionfish, featured in an Associated Press article printed in the Plain Dealer late last week. The article detailed how this common pet trade fish, normally found in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, is appearing more and more in the Caribbean. This would be presumably from people releasing the fish from their aquaria into local waters after they get too big or after they start eating other fish in the tank. Any time people start altering the natural ecosystem, unforeseen and sometimes negative results may occur.

While Lionfish are not an overly aggressive fish, they should not be kept in the same tank with anything smaller than themselves as they can fit fish almost as big as they are into their mouths. Lionfish are considered a venomous fish and have the ability to inflict a venom-tinged spine into a bigger animal trying to mess with them, but as we said, they are not an overly aggressive fish. In fact, we (and many other fish keepers) have our hands and arms in the tanks with Lionfish with no concern about the fish attacking us. Almost all human stings from Lionfish are from accidentally cornering the fish until it feels threatened enough to strike out at us.

We particularly enjoyed the sentence in the AP article which stated "The red lionfish, a tropical native of the Indian and Pacific oceans that probably escaped from a Florida fish tank, is showing up everywhere...." We couldn't help but immediately have a mental image of a Nemo-like escape scenario occurring but with venomous Lionfish. We believe rather than "escaped" Lionfish, it's much more likely to be "released" Lionfish.

Dave Wolf
Director of Wildlife Education & Rehabilitation

Adopt-a-Beach Huntington Beach

Nothing beats a gorgeous sunset over Lake Erie! If you love our great lake and want to keep our beaches clean and healthy, join our team! Lake Erie Nature & Science Center is enlisting the help of families to clean and monitor the health of Huntington Beach in Bay Village. The Center is leading an official Adopt-a-Beach clean-up on Saturday, September 6. Children ages 8 and up with at least one adult are encouraged to join the cleaning crew from 10 a.m. to noon.

Carla Roth, who’s leading the effort for the Center, says volunteers will spend the morning picking up garbage along the Lake Erie shoreline and counting and tallying the litter. The finished data will be sent to the Chicago-based Adopt-a-Beach program spearheaded by the Alliance for the Great Lakes. "The final tabulations compiled by Adopt-a-Beach will give us insight into how healthy our lakes are, and what else we can do to take action,” said Roth. “During the morning, we’ll also be assessing the quality of the Lake Erie water using both simple and sophisticated tests, including a screen for E coli bacteria.”

The guided volunteer program is free, but you are encouraged to let the Center know you’re planning to be part of the crew in advance. Call 440-871-2900 with questions or to sign up.

Q:Best Place To View Perseids in 2008?

A: Inside the Walter R. Schuele Planetarium.
The peak of the annual Perseids Meteor Shower coincides with a full moon this year, making the "shooting stars" more difficult to see. The Schuele Planetarium will host its annual Perseids Night Viewing Party Tuesday night (August 12) at the height of the shower, but Planetarium Director Jay Reynolds says the best views may be inside during a special 7 p.m. star show. Reynolds discussed the Perseids today on WTAM-Radio. Check the Planetarium Public Shows listings on Lake Erie Nature & Science Center's website for information on Perseids-themed planetarum programming.

More Coverage of Governor's Tour

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, young Joseph West and our Nature Nuts classroom toad made the front page of this week's edition of WestLife news. Check out Assistant Editor Jeff Gallatin's write-up of the Governor's visit here. Jay Reynolds snapped our photo of Joseph's "toad exchange" with the Chief Executive. You should know that the Governor wasn't a bit phased when the nervous amphibian "released water" right in his hand. This week's West Shore Sun has a page A5 photo of the Governor holding our red-tailed hawk and there's a similar photo up in the Ohio Channel online newsroom. Look for great front-page coverage in the August 7 edition of Villager News as well.