By Annali Kench
Chris Evers rescued his first animal aged three.
Spying a yellow-spotted salamander attempting to cross the street outside his Darien home, the young naturalist acted quickly, scooping up the rogue amphibian and helping it to the other side before a car got there first.
“It sort of set the tone for my life,” Evers said in a recent interview. Though small, that simple act of childhood kindness sparked a lifetime of globe-trotting wildlife advocacy and environmental education for Evers.
Today, the native salamander stars as the emblem of Evers’ organization, Animal Embassy, which is on a mission to promote kindness — through critters.
At a recent educational experience hosted by Grace Farms, Evers introduced an enthralled audience of children to some of his top “ambassadors,” including a South American red tegu, a caiman, an armadillo, turtles smaller than a hand, and an adorable hedgehog. Squeals abounded as kids lined up for a chance to interact with some of Evers’ many rescues.
The lesson? “Sure, I want you to have fun and touch an animal — but that’s not all this is about,” said Evers.
Instead, he uses his strong storytelling skills — and a smidge of Socratic questioning — to get kids to think for themselves about “the value each creature has in its natural environment.” In doing so, Evers is able to gently challenge assumptions people of all ages make of the natural world based on appearance and perception, rather than on an appreciation of purpose and evolutionary design.
It is in his anti-bullying program, Creating Kindness Through Creatures, that Evers is able to tease those themes out ever further, getting kids to link them to the basic ideas of decency, respect and diversity.
Evers pulls from his collection of wildlife to show kids that oftentimes, their ingrained assumptions about a creature are incorrect. Is it actually gross that frogs eat mosquitos? Are spiders really “scary?” Is his large African bullfrog Choncho in fact “fat,” or does he need to be this shape in order to sleep under the ground for two years as part of his life cycle?
“I say to them, if a frog eats a mosquito, that’s one less to bite you!” said Evers: the frog is fulfilling its purpose, and the kids are reinforced in the lunchtime adage not to “yuck someone else’s yum!”
Frogs also feature in one of Evers’ subtle challenges of prejudice, helping kids realise that despite what they may believe, they don’t always know everything about another person.
“No matter the age group, everyone always says frogs are green and they say ‘ribbit.’ Where does that come from?” said Evers. “I tell them, ‘there are seven different frogs in Connecticut and only two of them are green some of the time, and not one of them says anything that sounds like ribbit.’”
At the end of his sessions, Evers will often ask kids why they think he doesn’t want to know which animal has been their favorite — do they think he has one?
“They get it,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘You love them all.’ And I tell them, ‘that’s what I want you guys to do.’”
Recently Evers has been bringing more of his botanical knowledge into his classes, to help kids realize that nothing exists in a vacuum and all natural systems are connected — and deserve respect.
“We have wild neighbors in our community — it’s not just us. And they rely on plants to survive,” he said.
“Kids need to know we can care for each other and make the world a better place through kindness,” Evers said, “that’s why I grow wildflowers — for the pollinators.” He encourages kids to think about what they can do too, from planting native trees to digging a pond.
“I given them age-appropriate ways to make the world more beautiful,” said Evers. “If everybody did that? What a beautiful world it would be.”
It’s a world Evers has seen his fair share of. With a background as adventurous as his, from helping manage a National Park in Alaska at the age of 20 to photographing Bengal tigers in the wild, it would be easy to let himself become the star of the show. But instead Evers tries to emulate his favorite naturalist, David Attenborough, who “never makes it about him. It’s ‘look at this over here,’” said Evers.
For his next adventure, Evers will continue shining his light on endangered species, most likely by traveling to Patagonia to photograph wild puma — a long way from the little boy and his spotted salamander in southern Connecticut.
“I get kids to see that little is only little if you allow it to be that way. If all do it, we can make a big difference.”
Creating Kindness Through Creatures will be part of the celebration of Earth Day at Grace Farms on Apr. 20. More information at animalembassy.com.
