June 30, 2021

Interviews Week Park Ranger Rick Jenkins Night (6-20-2021)

by Chompers

Background show artwork for Chompers

We're back on the trail with park ranger Rick Jenkins on tonight's Chompers!

Where to Listen

Transcript

>> Rachel: Welcome back. It's time for more Chompers, your morning and night toothbrushing show. Tonight our friend Jasmine is here with a special interview. Jasmine lets go.


>> Jasmine: Thanks! It's Nature week, and tonight we’re back on the trail on a nature walk with park ranger Rick Jenkins. 


>> Rachel: But first, start brushing on the top of your mouth on one side, and make sure to brush the inside, outside and chewing side of each tooth. 


>> Kids: 3, 2, 1 brush!


>> Jasmine: Ranger Rick I see some people down here at the end of the trail. what are they doing? 


>> Rick: So these are volunteers who work with our Terrapin turtles and what they do is they follow the Terrapins as they come up to lay their eggs. And when they lay their eggs they build a cage around them and they do that to keep raccoons away from those eggs because raccoons really love turtle eggs and they'll eat just about all of them if they get the chance to do it.


>> Jasmine: Switch your brushing to the other side of the top of your mouth, and make sure you get the molars all the way in the back 


So where are we now? 


>> Rick: All right. So right now we're looking out at the salt marsh. There's a big platform with a large nest on top of it and a fairly large bird on there it's about two feet long and that an Osprey 


>> Jasmine: What's an Osprey?


>> Rick: An Osprey is a large raptor that eats fish.


>> Jasmine: Switch your brushing to the bottom of your mouth, and make sure you get your front teeth too. Wait. OK. Is that a dog poop or is that turtle poop. 


>> Rick: I think we think that we might have some raccoon poop on the trail and it sounds really fancy we call poop scat. We have some raccoon scat on the trail. There's a raccoon here, not too long ago by the looks of it….


>> Jasmine: Looks pretty fresh. Switch to the other side of the bottom of your mouth, and give your tongue a brush too 


>> Jasmine: What can kids do at home to help protect nature. 


>> Rick: So there some really easy ways that people can protect the environment and enjoy the parks. One is if you're brushing your teeth right now and the water's running you can turn off the water to use less but probably the most important thing is for everyone to get out and enjoy your parks. So if you have a park near you you haven't been in a while. Go out and enjoy the park


>> Jasmine: That’s it for tonight. Special Thanks to Park Ranger Rick Jenkins and to the National Parks Service. Until next time, 


>> Kids: 3, 2, 1 spit