While following TV shows like Lost (yes, I am in love with Sawyer) over 6 seasons and staying up late to watch playoff basketball seems like the obvious best choice for weeknights, watching TV appears to have taken over as Americans’ #1 past time.  While I always knew that watching TV wasn’t exactly healthy, a myriad of studies suggest that the more you watch, the more likely you are to develop a host of health problems and die at an earlier age. 

The Journal of the American Medical Association published an eye opening study this week that made me question if I really should have hung in there for the 121 episodes learning about “the others,” spending 94 hours glued to the TV.  Researchers concluded that for every additional two hours people spend glued to the tube on a typical day, their risk of developing type 2 diabetes increases by 20% and their risk of heart disease increases by 15%. 

Sure I instinctively knew that too much TV is not a good idea, but are Americans aware that the increase risk of disease tied to TV watching is similar to those associated with high cholesterol or high blood pressure or smoking?  Across the globe, people spend more time engaged in this pastime than in any other activity except working and sleeping.  While smart phones, Ipads, and flat screens are certainly hard to resist, I refuse to be a couch potato and fall subject to a lousy statistic! 

While, Jeopardy, Seinfeld and Who’s Line is it Anyway will still be a part of my week (TV in moderation isn’t necessarily a bad thing now), I am ready to not only scale back on my couch time but get my nature on!  I am roping in family and friends to participate in Get Your Nature On by setting challenges and getting active and healthy.  NWF’s Nature Find makes it easy to find new areas to explore and by participating on facebook, I am able to compete with my friends while sharing photos.

In addition to the health benefits of avoiding my TV, there are all kinds of great mental, physical and emotional health benefits of spending time in nature.

The Get Your Nature On challenge is a project of OAK, the Outdoors Alliance for Kids.  OAK is a national alliance working to reconnect children, youth and families with the outdoors for their health and the health of the planet.  OAK’s Get Your Nature On challenge supports the First Lady’s Let’s Move Outside campaign to end childhood obesity within a generation.    

So join me and Get Your Nature On!  Let’s defy the average American sedentary statistic… I challenge you! 

Follow me on Twitter @PetersNY

As NWF’s naturalist and media personality, part of my job is to do TV appearances with “ambassador animals” to get our conservation messages out to millions of Americans.  Few things inspire people to protect wildlife than getting to see the real thing, and that goes for professional conservationists as well as the average person.  So for yesterday’s celebration, I brought in some of my animal pals to give my fellow NWFers a chance to meet the wildlife they work so hard every day to protect.

As you can imagine, the animals were a big hit.  The video below is a behind-the-scenes glimpse backstage at the event to show you what it’s like to work with live animals:

Click here to view the embedded video.

As always, I emphasize that no matter how much we work with these ambassador animals so they can be part of education programs, they are still wild animals and are not pets.

In captivity, these animals need to live in facilities with the proper permits, veterinary care, enrichment programs and professional handlers (in this case, provided by the good folks at Nickel City Reptiles & Exotics).  The cougar cub’s natural rambunctiousness as it “attacks” the buffet table, captured in the video, perfectly illustrates why.  Could you imagine this animal living in your house?  Not a good idea.

I hope the beauty of these animal inspires YOU to get (more) involved with NWF’s conservation efforts.

The animals were squirmy, but Dave demonstrated his expert handling skills!

NWF naturalist David Mizejewski will be making a live appearance on the Today Show tomorrow morning (June 23rd) to promote the Great American Backyard Campout, happening in backyards across the country this weekend, June 27th.

Dave will be interviewed by Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kopt between 10:30-11 a.m. ET for a segment about the animals you might see–or hear–during your backyard campout.

Expected On-Air Animal Talent:

• Great horned owl
• Bullfrog
• Big brown bat
• Baby opossum
• Groundhog
• Snapping turtle
• Lynx (to represent rarer animals you might see if camping in real wilderness)

Campout Links:

• Register your backyard today for the Great American Backyard Campout June 27, 2009.
• Visit Ranger Rick’s CampZone

Dave will be corralling some cute animals onstage, including a burrowing owl, Arctic fox, Canada lynx and a two-month-old baby spider monkey.

Burrowing Owls live in North, Central and South America. They can be found in the desert southwest and western grasslands in the U.S. northward into Canada, as well as a population in Florida. Ground-dwelling owls that use burrows for safety and to lay their eggs.

They live in open country with sparse vegetation that allows good view of landscape. The owls are only about 10″ tall and only weigh 6 or 7 ounces. They eat large insects such as beetles and grasshoppers, as well as small mammals (mice, rats, gophers, ground squirrels, young rabbits, bats). Other prey includes reptiles and amphibians, scorpions, and smaller birds.

Arctic Foxes live in the Arctic tundra. They have a white coat in winter which is shed in spring to a gray-black-brown coat in summer, keeping them camouflaged in all seasons. Their winter coat is extremely insulating and keeps fox warm. They also have tiny ears, a short muzzle and limbs that help them live in the Arctic (less surface area for heat to escape), as well as hairy foot pads for insulation and grip on snow and ice.

Foxes only weigh about 10 lbs. (about the weight of house cat).

They are monogamous–a fox pair digs a den where the female has 4-10 kits each year. Some dens have been used for hundreds generations over the centuries. They live usually only 4 years, but in captivity live longer (10-12 years).

Canada Lynx are found in the boreal forest in Canada and the northern U.S. (upper New England, upstate NY, upper Great Lakes region, Northern Rockies/Yellowstone, Northern Cascades and Alaska). They weigh between 20-30 lbs.

They are similar to the more widespread bobcat, but are taller, have larger feet, grayer fur and tufts of fur on its ears. The other way to tell them apart is that bobcats have striped tails but lynx just have a black tip.

These cats are adapted for living in snow. They have large feet act as snowshoes and pads are covered in fur for insulation.

Their primary prey is the snowshoe hare, but they also feed on other small mammals like red squirrels and birds such as grouse and even sometimes deer.

They are a threatened species in the U.S. due to habitat loss and fragmentation (logging of boreal forest), hunting and trapping and getting hit by cars.

Black-Handed Spider Monkeys live in tropical forests from southern Mexico and throughout Central America. They are highly arboreal and spend most of their time high up in tree canopy, rarely coming to the ground. Spider monkeys move through the trees by jumping and swinging from braches using their long arms and prehensile tails (which act as a fifth limb and for balance). Their fingers are almost like hooks to catch the branches.

They live in loose social groups of 20-30 individuals, but forage in smaller groups groups of 5-6 individuals. The groups are led by dominant females who decide where to forage. They eat primarily fruits, but will also eat nuts, young leaves, bark, honey, insects and bird eggs if fruit isn’t available.

These monkeys “bark” when threatened and often throw branches, jump up and down and shake tree limbs when approached by humans.

Spider monkeys are endangered species, threatened by the destruction of tropical forests and hunting.

Find out what you can do to celebrate getting outside with your family and enjoying nature and wildlife. National Wildlife Week is your chance to Be Out There™!

Some other highlights of the special include:

–Interviews with the cast of the movie (Jodie Foster, Abigail Breslin, Gerard Butler)
–Contest to find a “reel life Nim” – find out more here
–The commercial-free special will also be broadcast directly to schools across the country in partnership with Cable in the Classroom from the National Cable Television Association.