Talking about evolution can be a sketchy thing with many visitors. Last summer, there was often a palpable tension that arose whenever I said "adaption" or "sex selection." I have never gotten into an outright argument with someone over evolution, since we don't want to force a certain view on our visitors. But we are also an educational facility and it would be silly to cut out any mention of evolution whatsoever, and the quickest way to get me to talk about nothing but evolution for the rest of my tour is to throw out a snide creationalist comment. The most common way people let me know that they don't appreciate my scientific bent is to insert a "Isn't it wonderful how God made all of these creatures?" right after a description of a particularly cool adaptation. Now an important part of tourguiding is judging your audience and being able to adapt the content to what they find interesting. For instance, I give a very different tour to someone who identifies himself as a doctor, focusing more on comparative anatomy and veterinary practice, than I would to a chipmunk rehabber, who would get more about their individual names and personalities and cutesy little stories.

(Quick side note, just to preserve this story. At the beginning of our tour we show a short video full of kitschy eagle release shots and cheesy music. The other day I started a round robin on an old lady and her daughter and son-in-law, and when I came up after the video the daughter was openly weeping. And then when I started talking about Volta's injuries, the daughter actually started outright crying. I was completely dumbfounded, so for the first time I had to skew my tour to make it, I guess, positive. I tried to focus purely on good things because I would not have been able to keep a straight face if they both got all weepy on me at once. I managed to gloss over some of the injuries and threw in many "And they are very lucky to be here"s, which got them all teary eyed, but at least stopped them from sniffling.)

So last summer, when evolution was still on the national stage and I got a lot of people challenging me, I had pretty much a full tour where at any time I could do nothing but talk about selective pressure and phylogenetics. Well except Peekaboo, but she sucks. The only time I ever almost got into trouble was when I nearly yelled at a guy in blind rage. See, I don't care if someone is a creationist, it's really no phalanx off my foot, and I don't even care if he hates non-creationists. But all I hear from this guy from across the room, talking to his ~5 year old son, is "and that's why the Darwinists will try to brainwash you in school, because they want all the money." Seeing him indoctrinating his kid with that kind of absurd, destructive paranoia must have thrown me into a blind rage, because I honestly don't even remember walking over there. I must have sprinted spitting and snarling across the room though, because I recall the guy looking rather startled and flinching a little bit when I started to talk. I unfortunately managed to recover just in time and growl "THIS bone is lighter than THIS bone because its from a BIRD" and storm off.

However, it's pretty funny how much a political climate can change. Since nobody seems to be talking about "Darwinism" anymore, I get much fewer comments, and thus, being who I am, allow them much more leeway. Just today I had my first real conflict of the summer. We have three great horned owls, two of which are from Arizona, and one of which is from Alaska. The two from Arizona are very obviously lighter and have much more red in their plumage, so I point it out whenever the light is good for seeing it. (I've actually have three people notice themselves this week, which is pretty cool.) So this time I'm with a family and a younger girl, maybe ~11 or 12 years old, asks "So if they spend enough time in Alaska, will their plumage turn dark also?" to which I start to respond "Actually, it's because they are in different subspecies. You see, when a population is isolat...." and then I got an absolute death glare from the father, so I just concluded "No. It doesn't happen like that." And even though I was interrupted by the father, the girl seemed bright enough to understand that something was up and the "God made them that way" bit wasn't going to cut it. I like to think that I placed just enough doubt in her mind that she'll ask a science teacher or even look it up herself. So yeah, I'm pretty much a hero.