GREENWICH, Conn. — Even though Axel Hunnicutt grew up in suburban Greenwich, he was always drawn to wildlife.

He enjoyed visiting Audubon and the Bronx Zoo as a kid. But when the opportunity arose, he decide to move to the wilderness.

“I’ve never wanted to be an armchair ecologist,” Hunnicutt said from a coffee shop in Cos Cob on Tuesday.

So he did something not many University of Connecticut grads do: He packed up his bags and moved to study grizzly bears in the Canadian Rockies.

When Hunnicutt was admitted to the University of Pretoria, he moved across the world to KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The experience, Hunnicutt said, stretched him.

“Like they say,” Hunnicutt told The Daily Voice, “when you leave your comfort zone, that’s when you start living.”

And live he has. Since graduating from UConn, Hunnicutt has been chased by grizzly bears and charged by lions.

He recently returned home after working for the University of Pretoria on wildlife conservation issues at a national park in Africa.

“You fall asleep to leopards and hyenas calling,” Hunnicutt said of his experience living in a farmhouse inside of the park. “It’s truly wild.”

No task was too big or too small for Hunnicutt and his team. He relocated wild animals, helped wounded creatures and even fought brush fires with rubber brooms.

When asked about the shocking killing of Cecil The Lion, Hunnicutt said trophy hunting is a complicated issue.

Although he said he doesn’t know why some people like to kill majestic creatures, he understands that eradicating trophy hunting would not be beneficial to the species, either.

Much of the land where lions roam in Africa is held for the purposes of hunting, he said. If hunters couldn’t hunt big game anymore, the land might be converted to agriculture or other uses. Some lions could lose their habitat as a result.

Hunnicutt helped start The Wild Tomorrow Fund to combat the problem of poaching. He is in town writing his master’s thesis and speaking at the fund’s events.

But Hunnicutt has never forgotten the western black rhino, which was declared extinct while he was a student at Greenwich High. He remembers wondering why someone didn’t prevent the animal from disappearing from the Earth.

He then had a profound realization.

“One day you wake up and realize you are someone, you can do something. And the second you realize that, taking a leap is a hell of a lot of more exciting.”

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WESTON, Conn. — Josh Lachs, a senior at Weston High School, returned home from a semester studying in the Caribbean with more than just a tan and some high school credits.

Lachs, who studied at The Island School, arrived back in leafy Weston with the inspiration to make environmentally friendly changes in his life and those of his neighbors.

Known as “The Compost Kid,” Lachs is the brains and muscle behind a Weston-based business that picks up compostable material — fruits, vegetables, coffee grounds — from homes and returns the finished compost.

Customers can use the resulting product, which is rich in nutrients, for gardening and landscaping.

Lachs said that many of his clients wanted to compost but didn’t have the time to do so. He saw it as an opportunity.

“A lot of my clients have gardens,” Lachs said. “They’re avid gardeners and already know about compost."

When he came up with the idea for the business, he said he liked how it would serve a true need in the community

“This is a great business idea I could do,” Lachs said of his thinking process. His business has garnered the attention of the Moms of Weston Facebook group, which counts over 1,000 members, Lachs said.

Lachs said he is the only individual running a composting business in town. Although he currently operates only in Weston, he would consider expanding to more towns in the future.

“If other towns are receptive to it, I’d love to,” Lachs said.

Many cities have composting programs, including Boston and New York, he said. One of his Weston customers, who is from Tennessee, told Lachs he had a program back home.

Lachs, the sole employee and owner of the business, may pass it on to friends to run when he attends college after this school year.

He is considering studying business, environmental studies or agricultural studies after graduating next spring from Weston High School.

For more information on Lach’s business, visit his website.

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BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Gov. Dannel Malloy announced his endorsement for Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch's re-election campaign Tuesday in a garage filled with classic cars and a crowd chanting “four more years.”

“Things are moving in the right direction,” Malloy said of Bridgeport, the state's largest city. “This is not the time to throw a roadblock. This is the time to build on your success.”

Malloy said the election was “winnable” for Finch, but he told the mayor “you have to run a strong campaign” to ensure that supporters turn out at the polls in November.

Finch praised Malloy during his speech and in an interview following the endorsement.

“He’s not just a leader of our state,” Finch told The Daily Voice on Tuesday from a playground across the street from Black Horse Garage, where the governor made his announcement. “He’s not just a national figure. He is a former mayor.”

Finch said Malloy knows the challenges and opportunities that come with being mayor.

“He grew Stamford tremendously, and we want to do similar things in Bridgeport,” Finch said.

Malloy served as mayor of Stamford for four terms from December 1995 to December 2009, the longest mayoral tenure in the nearby city’s history. He took office as governor in January 2011 and was re-elected to his second term last November.

Several other high-profile Democratic politicians have recently announced their support for Finch’s re-election campaign, including U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, and Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen, The Daily Voice previously reported. Three former Bridgeport mayors — John Fabrizi, Tom Bucci and Leonard Paoletta — have also endorsed Finch. He also received the party's official endorsement from the Democratic Town Committee. A total of 49 of the 90 members sided with Finch.

Finch is likely to face a primary challenge in September. Challenger Joe Ganim, a former mayor who served seven years in federal prison, announced he has gathered enough signatures to make it onto the primary ballot after failing to gain the Democratic Party nomination.

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BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Before Bill Finch became the mayor of Connecticut’s largest city, he cut the grass at a golf course.

“And then I cut the grass again,” Finch said to an audience of city youth about to start summer jobs during a meeting Monday. “But I learned how to show up to work on time, to save my money. I was able to get my first car, and I was able to pay for UConn tuition.”

And soon more Bridgeport youth may be able to get that first break and save for college or that first car, too.

Finch announced 100 more summer jobs for Bridgeport youth at the event — bringing total number through city programs to nearly 750.

Youth will head out to summer positions through the mayor’s conservation corps, the lighthouse program — an after-school educational and recreational program, and the city's parks and recreation department. WorkPlace Inc., a Bridgeport-based workplace development service, also worked with the city to offer the summer positions, according to the mayor’s office.

Monday also marks the beginning of the sixth season of the mayor’s conservation corps. That summer job program, which Finch created in 2010, is made up of a team of young adults who canvass Bridgeport neighborhoods speaking with residents about a number of environmental issues.

“Your not only going to have a paycheck,” Finch told the conservation corps members at the event, “But you are going to be creating investments in our community.”

Bridgeport Police Chief Joseph L. Gaudett Jr. lauded the program as a way to reduce crime. The issue of violence in the city has been a hot-button issue during the race for the Democratic endorsement for mayor.

Last week, Finch opened a police substation in the troubled Trumbull Gardens housing complex. Democratic candidate Joe Ganim had announced the opening of a dual campaign office and unofficial police station nearby before Finch's announcement.

The city hopes that this jobs program will help prevent crime. Gaudett said a recent study found that youths who have summer jobs stay out of trouble not just during the summer but also during the school year.

The program employs youths in in customer service, marketing, landscaping, camps and the police department as assistants.

Youths ages 14 to 21 will be selected for the new 100 jobs from an application waiting list by random lottery.

Finch urged the audience to apply for police and firefighter positions, which offer job stability and retirement benefits.

“You may not be thinking a pension now,” Finch said. “But when you start getting gray hairs — like me — you start thinking about it.”

City officials said youth interested in applying for summer jobs can call The Office of Youth Services at 203-576-7262.

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With a Google Street View car spotted recently in eastern Greenwich, the front lawns of thousands more town homes could soon be seen by almost anyone with an Internet connection.

The high-tech cars, such as the one seen on Silver Beech Road and other spots in Riverside and Old Greenwich, sport 15 lenses that take 360-degree photos along streets for the Street View feature of Google Maps. They also contain motion sensors, a hard drive, a small computer and lasers to capture three-dimensional data to determine distances.

With Street View, users can see continuous images alongside roadways and zoom in on them, pan up and down and even rotate around them. While Street View now only offers images of major Greenwich roads -- for example, Interstate 95, Route 1, Round Hill Road, North Street -- many more streets in the town's quiet residential neighborhoods could soon be seen online.

Street View's reception in Greenwich has been mixed. Some residents and town officials see the benefits of the service, yet acknowledge privacy concerns. But its presence has gone largely unnoticed -- almost all those who were asked about Street View were unfamiliar with the service.

"I have a suspicion a lot of folks are not yet aware of this concept, and as it becomes more widely known, folks may have a greater concern, or they may not," said District 10 Representative Town Meeting member David Detjen, adding that Street View has not been discussed in the RTM yet, and none of his constituents have contacted him with concerns about the service.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

Access to geographic data has long been contested in Greenwich.

In 2001, Greenwich resident Stephen Whitaker asked the town for access to its geographic information system database, which includes aerial photographs of the town as well as the location and dimension of landmarks such as wetlands, flood zones, open space and property lines. After a legal battle, Whitaker gained access to most of the data.

Google Street View is no stranger to controversy itself, especially in Germany, where the company was accused of gathering data on household Wi-Fi networks for advertising purposes.

Google's Street View activities also caught the attention of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which, in 2010, urged the Federal Communications Commission to open an investigation into the service.

Stateside, the service concerns people, such as town resident John Miller, 42.

"Kind of seems like an invasion, doesn't it?" he said while walking down Greenwich Avenue.

Bill Bambrick, an RTM member whose District 12 covers the area where the Google Street View car was seen, agrees.

"Personally, I think it's intrusive," he said.

Would he consider restrictions on Google's activities in town? "I wouldn't hesitate."

Unlike the GIS data Whitaker sought, which required users to have expensive, specialized software, Bambrick noted that Street View could be used by almost anyone.

Greenwich native Domenick Pisano Jr., 45, said he would be OK with the service as long as it doesn't identify the owners of houses it photographs. Google says it takes steps to prevent such identification.

Riverside Association President Bill Howland, however, said the information Google collects is publicly accessible, which is what Google contends on the privacy section of its Street View website (http://bit.ly/neupAg).

NEGATIVE EXPOSURE

Google's mapping efforts come during a time when residents -- particularly those in the backcountry -- are increasingly worried about residential break-ins, such as the one on Round Hill Road that occurred in July when a woman was restrained as thieves took jewelry.

Some residents might worry that Street View exposes their homes and properties to potential criminals.

"It is an open invitation to burglars who could scope out a house without having to actually be there," said a Greenwich resident, whose home was recently burglarized. The person asked not to be identified.

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