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More guests are being added, so check back often! Current confirmed guests are:

Rich Hoyer
Birding
Wednesday, December 11, at 9 PM Eastern in The Aviary
Rich Hoyer was born to a country girl and an amateur herpetologist in Corvallis, Oregon, and has been interested in all things that creep, crawl,fly and bloom from a very young age. He became serious about birds when he was 14 and continues to learn and share his knowledge about them and other forms of life. He graduated in 1994 from Oregon State University with a B.S. in zoology and a B.A. in German, having studied in Freiburg, Germany for one year. In his time between leading tours he still enjoys birding, botanizing and butterflying and also dabbles in playing the piano, gardening and baking bread. A member of the Arizona Bird Committee, Rich now lives in Tucson, Arizona. Tours led by Rich Hoyer include Northwestern Oregon in Spring. Colorado and Utah, Southeastern Arizona: Birds and Butterflies, Northeastern Mexico: Birds and Butterflies, Texas: Big Bend National Park and Colima Warbler, Oaxaca at Christmastime, Yucatan and Cozumel, Costa Rica: A Week at Rancho Naturalista, Jamaica, and Bolivia: South America's Spectacular Diversity. For more information on his tours, visit the Wings Tours website.

David Congalton
Author, When Your Pet Outlives You: Protecting Animal Companions After You Die
Wednesday, December 11, at 10 PM Eastern in CatCareCentral
David Congalton is the award-winning author of Three Cats, Two Dogs: A Journey Through Multiple Pet Loss and co-author with his wife Charlotte Alexander of When Your Pet Outlives You: Protecting Animal Companions After You Die. David will be discussing how you can protect your pets if you are no longer able to care for them due to death or other unforseen circumstances. Included in the discussion will be wills, and specific provisions that can protect pets. Although this chat is hosted by CatHobbyist.com, it is open to, and will discuss, companions of all species. All pet owners are welcome! Those with long-lived pets such as parrots, horses, and others are especially encouraged to attend.

Gina Spadafori
Careers Writing About Animals
Thursday, December 12, at 9 PM Eastern in The Auditorium
Gina Spadafori has been blessed with the opportunity to combine two of her dearest loves -- animals and words -- into a career writing about animals. She is the author of Dogs for Dummies, and co-author of Cats for Dummies and Birds for Dummies. Since 1984, she has authored an award-winning weekly column on pets and their care, which now appears in newspapers across the country through the Universal Press Syndicate. Gina has served on the boards of directors of both the Cat Writers' Association and the Dog Writers Association of America. She is a three-time recipient of the DWAA's Maxwell Medallion for the best newspaper column, and her column has also been honored with a certificate of excellence by the CWA. Gina will be discussing careers writing about animals.

How to Attend

These events will be held in chat rooms listed above. There are two ways to access the chat rooms. The first is simply to follow the link as given. There is no registration required and there is nothing to download or install. The room does require you to have java enabled in your browser settings. We strongly suggest you access the room before the chat, so you have time to address any access difficulties you might have. You might want to drop by one of our regular nightly chats as a test run.

If you don't have java enabled in your browser, or aren't sure but find you cannot access the room, you can access the chats by downloading and installing any program that enables you to use Internet Relay Chat. The two most common programs are mIRC for PCs and IRCle for Macs. You can find more information on how to access our room using those programs here: ChatFAQ.

More Information There is information about chats on other species available at the links in the right hand column. Simply click on the species in which you are interested for a more detailed listing. Some of the chats even have free email reminders you can sign up for!