The panda is not prevalent here in Saunderstown where, for local wildlife, we have to make do with the occasional opossum, or the raccoons rooting at our porch door.

Rhode Island is great, but Madagascar it ain’t.

There, in the Indian Ocean, on the world’s fourth largest island, a quite remarkable 615 new species were discovered during the 11 year period between 1999 and 2010.

Included in their number were 41 mammals never before recorded, 61 reptiles, 69 amphibians and 17 fish.

The world’s smallest primate, Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur, was, due to his size, almost missed. It’s understandable. Measuring just 3.6 inches from head to toe, he is a fraction taller than an OM.

You might be questioning the relevance to us here in our studio, for after all, Madagascar is more than 8,500 miles from Saunderstown and China, the giant panda’s habitat, a little over 7,000.

Trust us, there is a good reason and it isn’t just to demonstrate our impressive knowledge of the natural world.

You are impressed, though, right?

The reason is this – a fact we’ve been telling you for some time, our raison d’etre, our mantra: We are all connected.

You see, when we talk about being connected, we’re not just talking about us – alone, in isolation. It’s not just about the human race, about people.

It’s about everything on the planet, from the smallest primate to the largest person and everything in-between and all either side.

It’s the entire lot, all bound together, all linked, all connected.

To quote Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist extraordinaire and star of John Boswell’s brilliant Symphony of Science (in one of our past blogs) ‘We are all connected, to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, and to the rest of the universe atomically.’ You see, it’s not just about people. It’s more than that. Much more.

So giant pandas don’t roam around Rhode Island?

So Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur isn’t seen in Saunderstown?

So?

It doesn’t mean that we’re not interested. It doesn’t mean that they’re not relevant to us, that we shouldn’t care about them, that we’re not connected.

Because we are, as we’d like to demonstrate, right here, right now.

Now, we’ve always admired WWF. That is, the animal charity, not the wrestling federation.

It does a fine job, both in preservation and promotion.

In a short film that we came across earlier this week, it seems it also shares certain philosophies that, here in Saunderstown, we hold dear to our hearts.

You might recall in previous blog posts that we’ve talked about the threads that tie us together.

You might recall us mentioning strands.

You might recall us discussing connection, in particular our conviction that somehow, in ways beyond our comprehension, we are all connected.

Well, WWF have put that conviction into film form.

It is, you’ll agree, rather beautiful and we are, of course, delighted to share it.

Enjoy, and remember the message that underpins it, the message that underpins everything we do.

Neil deGrasse Tyson believes it.

The good people at WWF believe it.

Here in Saunderstown, we believe it.

We are all connected.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4gLIXnlw2I]