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South China Morning Post
09-07-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
A Hong Kong head of fauna conservation on ecology in the region
I WAS BORN in 1961. I'm the middle one. Our family base was in Salisbury (in southern England) during some of my primary years. I travelled around with my father, who was in the armed forces. His name was Jim Ades. So much of my childhood was spent seeing my father either coming back or going away to do something somewhere in the world. The only place we went that was a little bit dodgy was Bahrain. We went when I was about three. There were actual hostilities going on and, in the end, my mother, sister, brother and I had to be evacuated. So that was my early life and then, after that, short stays in the UK and then travels again to Hong Kong, Cyprus and Germany for a little bit. I followed my parents rather than going to boarding school. I was at St George's School in in 1961. I'm the middle one. Our family base was in Salisbury (in southern England) during some of my primary years. I travelled around with my father, who was in the armed forces. His name was Jim Ades. So much of my childhood was spent seeing my father either coming back or going away to do something somewhere in the world. The only place we went that was a little bit dodgy was Bahrain. We went when I was about three. There were actual hostilities going on and, in the end, my mother, sister, brother and I had to be evacuated. So that was my early life and then, after that, short stays in the UK and then travels again to Hong Kong, Cyprus and Germany for a little bit. I followed my parents rather than going to boarding school. I was at St George's School in Kowloon Tong from 1975 to 1977. My father ended up in Hong Kong in a retired officer's role as the head of welfare in Shek Kong . And so he had the Gurkhas, RAF and army in that area. Throughout my childhood, my father was always saving birds. He had a special licence from the director of the then AFD – Agriculture and Fisheries Department. So outside his office in Shek Kong he had a few falconry stands with birds all sitting on them. A young Gary Ades (centre front) with his mother and his siblings in Bahrain, in 1964. Photo: courtesy Gary Ades WE LIVED in Kowloon and my brother and I used to spend a lot of time wandering the streets. At that time, there was blatant selling of all sorts of wild animals and we found warehouses with everything from bears to eagles. The sad thing was everything that you were looking at was going to be sold for food. In those days, in the markets, lots of quails were being sold. They were all treated like commodities, not like living animals. The stallholders would pick up a bunch of quails, wrap a string around their necks and then pull it tight so that you had these five quails all being strangled and then they hung them up until they died, and that was that. We saw grass owls and eagle-owls being sold on the side of the road for food. We would try to buy them to release them. In those days, I wasn't thinking about ecology. We just wanted to save everything because it was so sad. Advertisement MY FATHER WAS focused on birds of prey, but I had bats, shrews and scorpions, anything. My mum was OK with it. She had a lizard that she called by name and it would run around the house. My first degree at the University of London was in zoology, the technical grounding for what I eventually did. Ecology is like the interaction of plants and animals and I realise that's where I am. It's not individual animals or individual trees and things. I'm interested in how they behave together, how they interact. And that's the most important thing because that relates to biodiversity. Saving habitat, not just saving species. Gary Ades' father, Jim Ades (right), holding a grass owl, while talking to orchid expert Gloria Barretto (left) and Sir Horace Kadoorie (In wheelchair), outside his office in Shek Kong, Hong Kong, in 1993. Photo: courtesy Gary Ades AFTER UNIVERSITY, I did a course in teaching English as a foreign language in Bournemouth, and had an Italian girlfriend, and lived in Italy for two years. Then, on a visit to my parents in Hong Kong, I met David Melville, the director of WWF-Hong Kong for many years. He needed someone to do a study on bats. There was a lot of development going on and it was not known if their localities were being destroyed. I was very happy when he said that but then it meant moving from Italy to Hong Kong in 1989. My girlfriend only stayed a year. My PhD was in the ecology of Hong Kong bats. During my study I found two or three new species that had never been recorded in Hong Kong. By the time I'd finished, there were 20 species and now there are 25. I was crawling around in old mines, places like Lin Ma Hang, near Sha Tau Kok, at the border. Gary Ades with a little bittern he rescued in Cyprus, in 1979. Photo: courtesy Gary Ades I'D HARDLY finished my write-up when I met Andrew McAulay, a nephew of Sir Michael Kadoorie. Kadoorie Farm at the time was a menagerie of animals, including a kangaroo and a few parrots. Wild-orchid expert finished my write-up when I met Andrew McAulay, a nephew of Sir Michael Kadoorie. Kadoorie Farm at the time was a menagerie of animals, including a kangaroo and a few parrots. Wild-orchid expert Gloria Barretto was the botanic head at the time, but there was no real animal side. Andrew was interested in me leading part of Kadoorie Farm's rebirth as a conservation and education centre. He became the new director. My remit at the beginning was everything to do with animals because there were lots of birds here and we wanted to start a rescue programme for birds of prey – some of these birds cannot be released back into the wild. So there's an area just up the hill called the Jim Ades Raptor Sanctuary, with a focus on education. Gary Ades holding a reptile at the Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden Rescue Centre. Photo: courtesy Gary Ades AROUND 1999, scientists across the world were starting to make noises about a crisis that was bigger than that of the dinosaurs, and it's the loss of reptiles around the planet. We started to get Buddhist associations coming to us saying they'd just saved some massive Bornean or Malayan freshwater turtles they'd found in a market in Hong Kong. In those days these animals were not protected. It was like the traders were ahead of the scientists. They started to move these animals so fast that there were no laws in the export country and then the import country to protect these particular species. So there was one big effort we did in 2001, which was to receive over 7,000 turtles from all over Southeast Asia that had been on the way to food markets in southern China. There were 12 species among those turtles. We had lots of open pigsties that hadn't been developed yet and we just used all of those, we used all of our indoor space. Many of the turtles needed heating because they were a tropical species and it was winter when this all happened. It ended up with renowned turtle experts flying in from America, from the UK, from Holland. They were all coming in to help us deal with what was a tipping point for massive education programmes and turtle protections. We deal with every snake case that the police (and the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department) are called for. The snakes come here and we make sure they haven't been damaged while they were being captured. We have a 95 per cent release rate. We're doing a scientific study with the government where we microchip all the pythons and we take measurements before we release them. Ades conducts bat research in a cave in Hong Kong in 1991. Photo: courtesy Gary Ades I DO HAVE A LIFE outside. I've got a Hong Kong wife called Vivian. We married in 2010. Her work life is very different from mine; she works for an insurance company. She's really into animals now and we have a pet lizard at home. I'm a musician and I used to play in a band with David Dudgeon (emeritus professor of ecology and biodiversity at the University of Hong Kong). He was the bass guitarist and I was the guitarist. We had several bands but one of them was called Walk on Water. The drummer was (former RTHK DJ) Gerry Jose, whose daughter was a singer. It was rock music, so we played all sorts of things, from the Foo Fighters to David Bowie to the Police to Sting. I'm still playing, but I'm acoustic now, so I play in a small acoustic band, which I love because the days of being cool with my electric guitar are over.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
I bought my nearly 3-year-old a daddy doll to help her cope when her father is deployed. I sometimes sneak a hug from it, too, when I'm feeling low.
I wasn't prepared for how my husband's deployment would impact my daughters. When her dad isn't around, giving my eldest a sense of control and predictability helps. Other things that have helped her cope are a new daddy doll, Toniebox, and video recordings of him. At first, my husband cringed at the idea of a "daddy doll." "A pillow with my face on it? That's pretty weird," he said. "Do you really think she needs that?" After one of his pre-deployment training trips, however, it became clear that we needed some tools to help my eldest daughter, who is almost 3, cope with the challenges of military life. My husband is an integral part of our family's daily routines. When he's home, he typically wakes the kids up in the morning, feeds them breakfast, and takes them to day care. In the evening, we have dinner together and then often "divide and conquer" for bedtime, with my husband taking on the toddler duties while I take care of the infant. This dynamic has served our family well and has allowed my daughters and husband to form a special bond. Unfortunately, though, it creates a void when he leaves, and my attention is split in two. Enter the daddy doll, or the "dada pillow" as my toddler calls it — the newest staple in our household. When my husband is gone for months at a time with limited communication, the dada pillow serves as a huggable reminder of his role in our home. It joins us for meals, playtime, and nightly snuggles. It doesn't solve all of our problems, but the daddy doll has definitely taken some of the sting out of my husband's absence. It's a way for my kids to include him in our day-to-day activities, making him feel closer to us. We also purchased a customizable Tonie for our Toniebox and loaded recordings of my husband singing songs and reading books onto it. My daughter loves listening while she colors and does crafts. I have a few videos of him on my phone and iPad, too, that we all love watching when we miss him the most. Deployments have always been hard, but I couldn't have anticipated how much more difficult it would be to navigate these transitions with my kids. In addition to the physical tools (we also read deployment picture books and use a visual calendar that counts down the days to his return), the following realizations have allowed me to better handle the uncertainties of deployment: Recently, my eldest threw a fit because I wouldn't let her hold the big bag of Cheetos. I've learned that often, these explosive emotions arise due to a desire for control in a very unpredictable situation. My daughter is too young to understand why her dad left and how long he will be gone. All she knows is that he was present every day, and suddenly, he isn't. So, understandably, she wants to control as much as she can in this highly sensitive state, which means more meltdowns. I tend to loosen the reins and give in to smaller arguments just to keep the peace in our home until we settle into a new rhythm without Dad. We attempted to potty train my daughter before my husband deployed, but with him being in and out of the house so much, that proved impossible. The inconsistency in our home environment made it difficult to integrate new skills. Again, my daughter sought control and stability, leading to my next tip. When Dad is gone, we still do all of the things that he and my toddler did together—even the most insignificant things, like letting her "help" feed the dog in the morning. These tiny rituals give her a sense of predictability and groundedness. I've also found that keeping the weekly schedule consistent and avoiding trips in the first weeks of deployment helps. As a mom of two little ones and a third on the way, I know how difficult it can be to carve out one-on-one time. However, since my eldest daughter is accustomed to more individual attention from her dad, I've found that even just a few extra minutes of cuddling together at night helps regulate her nervous system and keeps the big emotions at bay. Overall, I try to have more patience and compassion for myself and my kids when my husband is gone. We're all going through this thing together, which is easy to forget during those intense moments when everyone is screaming and needing something. On days when I'm feeling extra discouraged and depleted, I sneak a hug from the dada pillow and remind myself that we're all doing our best. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
3-Year-Old Cries For Papa John's at a Michelin Star Restaurant. His Mom Explains the Viral Moment (Exclusive)
Dakota Wilds shared a video of her son crying for Papa John's pizza while the family dined at a Michelin-star restaurant Wilds shares that Papa John's is a staple of normalcy in her family, which is always moving The video went viral, amassing 5.9 million views on TikTokWhat people might see when they watch Dakota Wilds' video is a young child who is crying out for Papa John's. But Wilds knows there's a deeper meaning behind her son's love for the pizza. Wilds shares that her 3-year-old son, Indy, has an obsession with Papa John's that is "clearly irreplaceable" and talks with PEOPLE about the now-viral video. In the video, Indy is sitting at the table with a pizza in front of him, and he cries, "This isn't Papa John's!" The video went viral, amassing 5.9 million views. Wilds shares that it was "by coincidence that I was filming." "The obsession came from his five siblings," Wilds shares. "As a one-income military family, money is tight. When we get to purchase Papa John's, the kids know it's a treat that we can't always afford. Since moving away from America, it's a nostalgic memory; ordering Papa John's and having movie night brought so much joy to our six children, something I hope they always remember." Her family had just completed a long day of travel from Bavaria, Germany, to Florence, Italy when the video was taken. "Indy is 3. Naturally, he was exhausted, and all eight of us just wanted to find a family-friendly pizza joint. Unbeknownst to us, we find ourselves sitting in a Michelin-star pizza joint with six kids; all eyes on us," Wilds recalls. "I started to record the rare moment that my 'unapologetically themselves family' was in such a desirable restaurant. Our typical splurge on food is ordering whatever we want from Papa John's, and all of us cuddle on the couch, indulging and watching a family movie together, so I had to document." Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. After the trip, they stumbled across the video, and Wilds' older kids begged her to post it and tag Papa John's. Since then, Wilds shares that they have been in contact with the popular pizza chain following the video's attention. "We just recently moved to Bavaria, Germany, due to my husband getting relocated with the Army. I know Papa John's is trying to coordinate something special, but it's a little challenging and takes longer with us living in Europe." Papa John's is an essential staple of normalcy for the family, who moves and travels a lot due to Wilds' husband being in the military. "Traveling every couple of years with the Army can be incredibly challenging for families," she continues. "Saying goodbye time and again tends to be a normal part of our lives. Something as simple as the type of food you eat, in our case Papa John's, can bring a sense of normalcy to a life of unfamiliarity." "There is beauty in seeing the world and trying new things, but at the end of the day, certain things make you who you are, and if Papa John's brings comfort amid chaos and challenges, then I'd say we aren't doing too bad," Wilds shares. Read the original article on People
Washington Post
23-05-2025
- General
- Washington Post
The Vietnam War was a debacle. 50 years on, its lessons still matter.
I have been reflecting on the anniversary of the fall of Saigon after reading The Post's coverage. My memories include how much I missed my father when he deployed there with the Army when I was a second-grader. All four of us children recorded reel-to-reel tapes to send to him, and he would send back recordings of his own; we still have those tapes. This was before the school military support groups that are now embedded in many schools, but I still remember a teacher at my school in Pennsylvania who helped me count down the days until my dad returned.
