Sam Liest in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada.  Photo Courtesy of Sam Leist.

St. X teen returns from Canada
with up-close polar bear experience

 

Sam Leist, 16-year-old Saint Xavier High School junior, just returned from observing polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada.

The Louisville Zoo selected Leist to be the Zoo’s teen ambassador during Polar Bear International’s recent week-long Polar Bear Leadership Camp. He joined 15 other high school students from around the world to study polar bears during their fall migration and collect field data with scientists.

“We are excited we could provide Sam with this opportunity,” said Louisville Zoo Director John Walczak. “He is bright, passionate and extremely knowledgeable about the world around us. Through this experience, Sam truly understands our Zoo’s mission of bettering the bond between people and our planet, and I know he will inspire and educate others to make a difference.”

The camp, which was founded in 2004, includes intense field work that exposes students to all sides of the issues facing polar bears and humans in the Churchill region.

Leist said he came away from the experience thrilled and enthusiastic, ready to tell the world about what he learned. He hopes his experience will inspire others to become more energy-efficient and environmentally concerned.

“It is an act of injustice that this species, along with many of Earth’s other wonders, are dying out so rapidly,” he said. “Human impact is more deadly than any plague or natural disaster, but we can change that. I believe that it is possible for humans to fight an effective front against the effects of global warming, and that we can reverse the damage done in the past. The key to our success is conservation.”

Leist described seeing a polar bear up close in his Oct. 7 online journal entry: “We were literally, oh, two or three feet from the world’s largest land predator. As un-manly as this may sound, they were adorable. The cubs were so curious and were sniffing around and bumping into each other and their mother.”

And one of his favorite moments (also recorded in his blog) was when the teen ambassadors ventured outside in the middle of the night to see the northern lights.

“It was about 20 degrees outside and we huddled together like penguins in Antarctica to protect ourselves from the cold,” Leist said. “Depending on each other for warmth brought us closer together than I ever would have thought.”

 (To view all of Leist’s journal entries during his trip, visit  http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/student-journals/leist/)

During the camp, Leist was required to create a forward action plan to help educate his peers and the Louisville community about conservation issues. He plans to educate people about taking simple steps to reduce household carbon footprints and in turn help save polar bears.

“And all of the teen arctic ambassadors from the trip are still in contact with one another, and we are even discussing the possibility of a television lecture, which basically means that the girls are trying to get us on Oprah,” Leist said.

For more information on Polar Bear International’s week-long Polar Bear Leadership Camp, visit www.polarbearsinternational.org. For more information on the Louisville Zoo, visit www.louisvillezoo.org.

 

BACKGROUND

Leist, who has been a teen volunteer at the Louisville Zoo since 2006 and an active Zoo Youth Board member, said he has always been interested in the conservation of wildlife.

Leist is on the honor roll and principal’s list at Saint Xavier, has been awarded many awards including the Saint Xavier Freshmen Mock Trial Award (2007) and the Louisville Zoo Youth Award (2008). He was also elected into the Order of the Arrow, a Boy Scout Honor Program, in 2006. He likes spending his free time camping, backpacking and sailing. 

 

MEDIA OPPORTUNITY

If you would like to interview Sam Leist, please contact Louisville Zoo Public Relations Manager Kara Bussabarger at 502-238-5331.