Artist and graphic designer Julie Rustad figures she’ll end up a full-on birder some day.
Already her regular runs are frequently interrupted for photo-taking opportunities.
“It’s bad because I try and do a good run, but I’ll pause and try and take photos with my iPhone of the birds,” says Rustad, 36.
The lady loves animals.
A longtime fan of winged (elf owls are her fave) and four-legged critters, Rustad’s childhood bedroom wall in upstate New York was plastered with Scholastic posters of horses and kittens. An only child, she jokes she often resorted to forcing the family cat to play with her.
She made the animals of the Southwest the focus of a set of alphabet flash cards — Desert Dwellers, available at several local stores — and those animals are the focus of her philanthropy, too, through Tucson Wildlife Center.
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Rustad has raised funds for the nonprofit and recently donated artwork to the organization whose mission is to rescue, rehab and release desert animals back into the wild.
“It’s just an amazing place,” she says of the center. “I love what they do.”
Rustad — who also plays in a band with her husband, Jon, and 4-year-old son Syver — loves to visit the center. She and Syver, also an animal lover who’s written a tune called “Cowboy Kitty,” love to scroll through the photos and stories shared on Tucson Wildlife Center’s Facebook page. Learning about the injured or abandoned animals has made quite an impression on him, she says.
“I feel like with kids, it’s important to understand animals, to learn you don’t try and poke ‘em with a stick or mess with them,” she says. “You need to value them and realize they’re what makes where we live so cool.”
