#living alongside animals

[balkanradfem]

I started reading the book 'Pests' by Bethany Brookshire. I thought it would be a book filled with information on how to protect your garden without causing any harm to animals. I could not have been more wrong, but soon it didn't matter, because I was drawn in immediately. This book is written by a brilliant scientist, who presents to you, the history, the data, the results and the cultural context of pests all around the world. It starts with squirrels, but then goes on to talk about pythons, pigeons, cats, rats, mice, frogs, coyotes, wolves, elephants, dogs, raccoons, deer, bears – and how they've been seen as a pest, most often for no fault of their own.

I learned about the numerous ways people in the past have created a 'pest' problem for themselves, and how they went on resolving it, and honestly I was shocked  at the most of it. I did not know that human scientists developed specific plagues for animals in order to get rid of them. I also had no idea how quickly humans turned the perception of a certain animal from 'useful' to 'pest', without even realizing they're responsible for the behaviour of the animal in the first place. Also the number of times humans have attempted to introduce a predator in order to get rid of an invasive species – only to immediately cause a new invasive species, absolutely incredible.

I was surprised to find out that some specific animals could be pests at all, for example, elephants. Absorbing the information presented to me thus far, I thought elephants were nothing short of wonderful and welcome in anyone's life – but, the story describes them eating the entire fields worth of grain, in only one night. And due to their size, they're unstoppable. They've destroyed houses, and even killed people, as a result of trying to get to the food. The elephants are a protected species, so the locals have been forced to develop different way of co-existing, namely, to stop growing grain and try to find different ways of survival and sustenance. There have been numerous other attempts to protect the fields from them, but how would you protect anything from an elephant? The only thing they're scared of, are bees. And if there's food to be gained, they'll overcome the fear of the bees too.

Did you know that if mice multiply too much, they'll have a mice plague that will wipe them out, without human interference?  Mice and rats are described as the animals closest to us – because they live where we live, eat what we eat, and learn whatever it takes to find their way in the land of humans. And it seems, we have the same problems as well.

One of my favourite little piece of knowledge in this book: the scientists studying the snakes in a lab name the snakes after Slytherins – so they have Snape, Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, and Bellatrix. It was amazing to listen about Snape the snake.

The author of this book is incredibly unbiased, and shows her love for every animal mentioned, but also understanding and compassion for people who have felt wronged, violated, helpless and cornered by the animal, and how awful it feels to not be able to protect their homes and livelihoods from an animal invading their territory. In author's mind, the animals are not at fault, because all they've been trying to do is survive, get to the source of food, for them this is foraging. For us, it's nature taking from us what we intended for ourselves.

The problem of seeing animals as pests, comes often from the perception of us being the dominating species, and having the right to remove or introduce or change animals, by how convenient and pleasing we find them. She sourced the problems from negative experiences, loss, violation and danger, but also from culture, colonialism, religion, behaviours of the people around us. Most children have no concept of danger or pests – babies in a study would reach out curiously seeing a picture of snake. Perception of which animal is good and which one is bad, comes with culture, experience and the behaviour of everyone else around it. And our collective perception comes from whether the animal is rare, whether it lives close to us, if we have to adjust our lives because of it or not, if we have had negative experiences or not, whether it can hurt us, whether we have something the animal wants (food) and tries to get from us.

I recommend this book to anyone who'd like to know more about the history of humans trying to live alongside – or refusing to live alongside certain animals. And anyone dealing with any kind of pest, or just not understanding why animals act the way they do around humans.

I come out from reading this, feeling no more wise on how to keep the pests out – except for, don't leave the food outside the house where animals can get to it, that's the #1 reason for most scenarios – but feeling way more understanding and at ease about animals that are perceived as pests. I know solutions  that have been tried to deal with them, I know what didn't work, and I know how badly some collective solutions can become. I understand we need to find a way to live with them as our neighbours, not enemies, not violators of our property. And most often, just being responsible about where you leave your food, how much animals you tempt to come close to you, how you reward them for interacting with you, is more than a half of the solution.

#pests #bethany brookshire #sustainable culture #living alongside animals #coexisting with animals #environmentalism #animal science #animal research #ways scientists and people have dealt with animals in the past #educational #resources #pssst if you want to listen to the audiobook i can send it to you #i love the audio version

[reasonsforhope]

Humans are so cute. They think they can outsmart birds. They place nasty metal spikes on rooftops and ledges to prevent birds from nesting there.

It’s a classic human trick known in urban design as “evil architecture”: designing a place in a way that’s meant to deter others. Think of the city benches you see segmented by bars to stop homeless people sleeping there.

But birds are genius rebels. Not only are they undeterred by evil architecture, they actually use it to their advantage, according to a new Dutch study published in the journal Deinsea.

Crows and magpies, it turns out, are learning to rip strips of anti-bird spikes off of buildings and use them to build their nests. It’s an incredible addition to the growing body of evidence about the intelligence of birds, so wrongly maligned as stupid that “bird-brained” is still commonly used as an insult...

Magpies also use anti-bird spikes for their nests. In 2021, a hospital patient in Antwerp, Belgium, looked out the window and noticed a huge magpie’s nest in a tree in the courtyard. Biologist Auke-Florian Hiemstra of Leiden-based Naturalis Biodiversity Center, one of the study’s authors, went to collect the nest and found that it was made out of 50 meters of anti-bird strips, containing no fewer than 1,500 metal spikes.

Hiemstra describes the magpie nest as “an impregnable fortress.”

Pictured: A huge magpie nest made out of 1,500 metal spikes.

Magpies are known to build roofs over their nests to prevent other birds from stealing their eggs and young. Usually, they scrounge around in nature for thorny plants or spiky branches to form the roof. But city birds don’t need to search for the perfect branch — they can just use the anti-bird spikes that humans have so kindly put at their disposal.

“The magpies appear to be using the pins exactly the same way we do: to keep other birds away from their nest,” Hiemstra said.

Another urban magpie nest, this one from Scotland, really shows off the roof-building tactic:

Pictured: A nest from Scotland shows how urban magpies are using anti-bird spikes to construct a roof meant to protect their young and eggs from predators.

Birds had already been spotted using upward-pointing anti-bird spikes as foundations for nests. In 2016, the so-called Parkdale Pigeon became Twitter-famous for refusing to give up when humans removed her first nest and installed spikes on her chosen nesting site, the top of an LCD monitor on a subway platform in Melbourne. The avian architect rebelled and built an even better home there, using the spikes as a foundation to hold her nest more securely in place.

...Hiemstra’s study is the first to show that birds, adapting to city life, are learning to seek out and use our anti-bird spikes as their nesting material. Pretty badass, right?

The genius of birds — and other animals we underestimate

It’s a well-established fact that many bird species are highly intelligent. Members of the corvid family, which includes crows and magpies, are especially renowned for their smarts. Crows can solve complex puzzles, while magpies can pass the “mirror test” — the classic test that scientists use to determine if a species is self-aware.

Studies show that some birds have evolved cognitive skills similar to our own: They have amazing memories, remembering for months the thousands of different hiding places where they’ve stashed seeds, and they use their own experiences to predict the behavior of other birds, suggesting they’ve got some theory of mind.

And, as author Jennifer Ackerman details in The Genius of Birds, birds are brilliant at using tools. Black palm cockatoos use twigs as drumsticks, tapping out a beat on a tree trunk to get a female’s attention. Jays use sticks as spears to attack other birds...

Birds have also been known to use human tools to their advantage. When carrion crows want to crack a walnut, for example, they position the nut on a busy road, wait for a passing car to crush the shell, then swoop down to collect the nut and eat it. This behavior has been recorded several times in Japanese crows.

But what’s unique about Hiemstra’s study is that it shows birds using human tools, specifically designed to thwart birds’ plans, in order to thwart our plans instead. We humans try to keep birds away with spikes, and the birds — ingenious rebels that they are — retort: Thanks, humans!

-via Vox, July 26, 2023

#birds are literally learning how to better live/survive alongside us #this is like. actually kind of remarkable. and the technique is spreading including to other species. #is this hopepunk? it kinda feels like hopepunk to me. #animals are literally learning how to use our attempts to get rid of them against us #that's kind of amazing #and also VERY encouraging re: life's innate resilience #crows #magpie #corvid #crow #bird #bird nest #bird nerd #bird news #adaptation #urban animals #ornithology #climate adaptation #kinda #good news #hope #hope posting #hopepunk #animal intelligence #wildlife #animals are awesome

[moeblob]

I have fallen down the anime sports hole and landed on Eyeshield 21 and I'm so sorry I'm adopting all these kids.

(I was actually going to like. Hold off posting my silly sports anime doodles until after commissions but no I wanna share them now. It's hard out here being me who thrives off interactions and this show is like "hey what if we gave you lots of interactions and also a secret identity for MORE interactions".)

#eyeshield 21 #seijuro shin #sena kobayakawa #haruto sakuraba #ichiro takami #you might look at this and go Salmon please explain why you're drawing fanart for a football anime #and i cannot actually explain #not pictured is my undying love and adoration for the Ha-Ha brothers because they're great #im only on ep28 but please i care for them so much #me watching one say that a girl is his type: OH NICE I LOVE THIS I WILL SUPPORT YOU #me watching one suffer a fear of airplanes while on an airplane: SON YOU ARE DYING PLEASE NO KEEP LIVING #i have typed so many essays on discord to two people about the emotions this anime has given me #and its such a silly anime with funky moves with funny animations for the moves #but i actually really like it ??? like yes its about hs people playing football #but the fact the main character is an underdog #joining a team of two people thus making the entire team of now three an underdog #who then continue to grow with MORE underdogs being recruited #its actually very impressive to watch the characters grow alongside sena #like they do actively show the kids interacting in various ways and its a delight #the anime is just a bunch of good boys playing a game and having a good time bettering themselves #and i say this like im an expert when im still just ep28

[slimynematode]

THE ELECTRONIC YET PALEOLITHIC GARDEN OF EDEN BEARING FRUIT UNTOUCHED BY OVERGROWN MEGAFAUNA OF FUTURES PAST

#i havent posted this though ive had it for like two months #ive been forming some kind of world thats similar to the planet of the apes in a way where the meegafauna never got killed off #and they kept developing into more intelligent creatures #until their society reaches a standstill one day when the garden of eden is recreated i think #initial idea was like electronic paleolithic megafauna #im still plagued by images of animatronicc wooly mammoth thats being annasumingly harvested for flesh but instead of meat found #its only wires #and the line between animatronic and electronic and living breathing flesh and fauna becomes blurred #because i guess animals as intelligent creatures would have a different approach to creating a society #i really just want to draw sabre tooth tigers and more neanderthals #well this one isnt a sabre tooth tiger but i didnt think of that yet #i would imagine the animals would evolve alongside the tech actually unlike humans #theres a word for where humans are evolutionary wise where we no longer evolve #anyway ive been wanting to make more art about being trans soo idk but ill keep twirling the idea round my head i think #as well as the water tower knight #art #traditional art #charcoal #mixed media #furry #sci fi #oc #oc art

[kaiiscottage]

SO IN THE END I WAS RIGHT ABOUT MATAKARA GETTING ICHIYA

#ichiya’s face reminds me a bit of Marito’s but in blue :3 #I wonder how the next episode will play out…. #this could be the beginning of a revenge arc for Matakara or he could just be trying to ignore the voices #Ichiya mentioned seeking revenge so does something happened between him and Senya? #And in the end Matakara and Arajin will fight alongside Ichiyan and Senya respectively #I NEED the SenIchi [¿] backstory please let that be on the next ep🙏 #bucchigiri?! #bucchigiri #matakara asamine #ichiya #anime #live kaii reaction #kaiicore #also matakara’s eyes are so pretty <3

[good-beansdraws]

runs in, out of breath, and several years late to the teen emo anime phase of "oohh my fave is a killer and dangerous and in a straightjacket ooooohh"

#milgram #fuuta kajiyama #i wasnt into anime in the prime teen time so im living it out now asffgg #it was supposed to be based off of those pv shots with the blindfold and everything but i ended up going a bit different #depending on my mood its either hysterical or absolutely tragic that fuuta is in fact Not Dangerous #ive said it before but he and kazui are the only ones who genuinely did not intend for/expect someone to die #so their treatment alongside very purposeful/aware murderers is sooo interesting #theyre restrained as if theyre a danger to society but they hadnt even had death on their minds Like At All #i was gonna draw au mahiru-injury fuuta but this made me sad enough so we'll get to that soon LOL

[herebecritters]

HEY!!!!when splendid wound back time in better off bread, did the idols get to keep the blood from the first time everyone died in that episode, or did the blood get, like, slurped back

OHOHOHOH THIS IS A GOOD ASK

So I had to think about it a bit and uh…yeah I think because it reversed time the original deaths didn’t count. The trio don’t really mess with time other than prolonging how long everyone lives. They have no idea it even happened.

Nergal though did experience some heavy deja vu as he caused Giggles to fall off the ledge and then threw a whole ass meteor at Toothys face that second time. —Side note, this meteor was probably the size of the chelyabinsk meteor (19 meters in diameter) rather than the Chixulub meteor that Nergal wiped out the dinosaurs with (approximately 15000 meters in diameter); the one he threw at toothy was just enough to destroy toothy and the surrounding forest and cause havoc in the town, but not world ending—

Bad luck was already in motion before Splendid got there and made it worse.

Thats why Splendid is considered one of the Isles “catalyst” residents. He’s just another bit of bad luck in motion. And Nergal takes advantage of that when it happens. It’s like Nergal sets up the dominoes and the catalyst comes in to knock ‘em over. Flippy is also often used as a catalyst resident and Lumpy’s amazing mental prowess causes him to end up being one from time to time too. Predominantly full time catalysts are fairly rare on the Isles though. Splendid ignoring the cries for help that second time around didn’t save anyone, it just took away his own involvement in their deaths is all.

Also speaking of time travel, Sniffles totally went all the way back to the DinoSore days when the curse was starting. Probably not too long before the meteor hit and set the curse of the Isles in full swing.

Right image I’d say it’s either a type of ichthyornithiformes, toothed flying birds that lived alongside their non avian dinosaur family members, or a Nemicolopterus, a small pterosaur from the Cretaceous. It died out technically before the end of the Cretaceous but I’m just working with what they give me here. To the right…..look….i have to remember that the people who worked on htf were not trying to be accurate and were just throwing around prehistoric looking animals willy nilly, but that thing looks like a drepanosaurus which was a bizarre little reptile from the Triassic period. I’m just gonna take some artistic liberties and say it’s a surviving member of that lineage that may or may not have existed during the Cretaceous and move on.

And also this guy totally lived in the trios old village and he ends up living in the First Civilization after the meteor impact I’ve decided. He may look like an anteater but he’s actually a gypsonictops. And yep, ants also existed at the time and they probably were eaten by mammals like gypsonictops. Im using Linguamyrmex vladi, the “hell ants”, just as an example cus they are cool.

#happy tree friends #htf #htf be brave #htf lore #htf cursed idol #htf idol trio #htf splendid #htf sniffles #sorry I went on on a tangent oops #loretime #I swear to god the people who make htf keep accidentally putting in prehistoric animals that are pre mammal living alongside mammals #I know they don’t know I know that #me trying to force science into an old shock gore toon from the early 2000s? #more likely than you think…

[saritazoo]

The other new series I’m introducing for this account: Oft-confused Animal Names

These will be very short form infographs (hopefully only one slide long unless I get carried away… as usual) explaining the differences between two species whose names tend to get misused. They are mainly based on misunderstandings in communication that I’ve personally come across, and I hope the visual reference will help clear things up for others!

#both creatures have practically evolved alongside humans to live in our buildings so that may be the cause of confusion? #otherwise I’m not sure how their names got mixed up but I have heard an odd number of people referring to house centipedes as silverfish #Oft-confused Animal Names #silverfish #house centipede #centipede #arthropods #invertebrates #infograph

[mymarifae]

it's so cool that there's animals out there

#there's so many...and they're all out there and they're alive and we live alongside them #there's so many things to look at. and we can just look at them on a phone we can see all these animals we never would have encountered wh #ere we live #that's amazing. so many things love you all the time

[hyenabrainedpup]

Big ass snake holy shit

Fuck yeah!!!

Its so fucking exciting right like!!! Its such a cute cool species im so glad they found it!! And the gap between them and southern green anacondas is fucking wild. They have something around 5% genetic difference!! For reference humans hand chimpanzees have around a 2% difference its fucking awesome

#its WILD that they discovered such a huge species its truly awesome #im so jealous of the guy swimming alongside it hes living the fucking dream #animal rambles #answering asks

[creative-hanyou-girl]

Nothing like eating InuYasha's favorite food while watching InuYasha on a cold night🥰❤

#I'm living like a king over here #or should i say I'm living like a certain half demon🤭 #anyway #been rewatching Inuyasha alongside reading the manga #And yes. InuYasha's still my ride or die anime #even if temporarily explore other stuff #and inukag is still my ride or die OTP #i should post some IY fan art soon

[identityquest]

Finally figured out the full line for my hellbender fakemon, plus an ancient crinoid the line relies on. The final evolutions are supposed to play on fool’s gold, looking and acting regal despite the evolution items coming from a jester-themed fakemon. Though the final evolutions are alternately water and fire, both learn moves of the other’s type.

#digital art #fakemon #love my little hellbender... need a name tho. im so bad at those #im not great at capturing the vibe of original pokemon designs but im having fun. thats what matters to me #anyway if i ever get around to my fangame the crinoid WILL be resurrectable #a researcher will comment that the resurrected crinoids are either rock/water or rock/fire #and they will lament that the reviving process leaves the rock type behind on the pokemon #so theyll never truly know what the original pokemon was exactly like #i want there to be TONS of fossil pokemon in this game btw like dozens i want it to be a huge thing #i love finding fossils... ive found more crinoids than anything tho apparently brachiopods are most abundant in ky #ill def include a brachiopod ofc i just wanted to get a crinoid out before anything. i love crinoids #id also like a researcher to comment that more recent fossils arent very surprising when resurrected #bc the region has been inhabited for so long that there were records of the younger extinctions #but the older fossils are very exciting because humans never lived alongside them #id ALSO like there to be fossil versions of extant pokemon. like either ancestors or relatives that are like noticeable #it would be cool... i want pokemon to be animals more. i love evolutionary biology put these things in an environment yknow #appachia region

[caemthe]

One of my favorite parts of the Iliad is how human the characters are, regardless of how secondary they are or even if they’re just there to die. The sense of loss and grief that is expected from war is a constant throughout the epic. The deaths on both sides aren’t mere numbers to add to the feats of a warrior or to mistify the heroes, but young men who had names and families to return to and will never see them again. For example:

And Telamonian Ajax struck Anthemion’s son, the hardy stripling Simoisius, still unwed … His mother had borne him along the Simois’ banks when she trailed her parents down the slopes of Ida to tend their flocks, and so they called him Simoisius. But never would he repay his loving parents now for the gift of rearing-his life cut short so soon, brought down by the spear of lionhearted Ajax.

#pat. º ( lancer. ) #/ and don't even get me started on the death of patroclus who was well-liked and respected among his peers #/ so loved he was that his peers risked their own lives to recover his corpse so he could get a proper burial #/ so loved that the achaean armies wept and covered his body with locks of hair and built a 100" long timber pyre and sacrificed #/ animals and enemy prisoners and placed them with him alongside jars of honey and oil and the gods boreas and zephyrus #/ were summoned to help the pyre burn. and- idk i love how the epic makes you mourn pat with the rest of the achaean army #/ also pouring one out for simoisius who was born along the simois' banks #/ ok that's enough rambling for me tonight khghjkjh

[jacksintention]

.

#I don't know anything about Vanitas no Carte other than by what I see from time to time on twitter or here by chance #but that character having a brooch of a broken mirror with wings reminded me a lot of Jack #Also apparently the new character is also an archiviste and is playing music on a music box and talking about the world/story again? #In a very Abysslooking place. That's interesting. I've seen she and the guy with the broken mirror #are talking as if they were watching the story of the world‚but as if they'd get different interpretation of the events as different people #I think to recall? Which is pretty interesting especially considering I think to recall the girl was an Archiviste #And doesn't the story start with Noé talking about Vanitas' death? I don't know. Very Crónicas de una muerte anunciada among others #But with the implication of‚ idk I don't read the story‚ but this Juror-like figures watching the story for amusement and interpreting it #differently‚ and then as archivists idk... writing it down? categorising it? is pretty interesting in its possible ramifications #and potential implications. The idea of the story/world becoming a story told‚ and the telling depending on interpretation #The idea of the story/world becoming a story/narration and becoming actually several different stories #A bit like that 1984 line but out of context. And there's something more... I don't think it's Kant or Wittgenstein #Perspectivism but I wasn't thinking of that. Oh maybe it was Unamuno #Which reminds me of that one line about Horatio remembering Hamlet so well it would as if he hadn't died at all #And idkif Noe is an archivist it could be very interesting if he ended up being one of those Juror-like beings telling the story of Vanitas #Which is again pretty interesting considering that he has killed him? I watched the first episode of the anime #and I think to recall he said that? And idk I think it is very interesting in the potential twisting of events that comes from relying #a story‚ even more so if Noe has lived alongside and killed Vanitas‚ and with how these characters in the new chapter have explicitly said #they'd have different interpretations of the story/world. Not to talk about the fact of how that worked in PH #with Jack‚ Arthur and the Glens among others. But yeah. The idea of a... god adjacent? being witnessing a story #and getting a personal interpretation of it and writing it down is very interesting in its own‚ but it is also very interesting #in an additional way the idea of that godlike being having feelings of any kind for the person at the center of the story they're relying #idk. Unrelated to this but it gives me a bit the vibes of Aphrodite making flowers out of Adonis #or everything happening with Turnus and Aeneas I guess. Also damnatio memoriae. It evokes me all those things among others #But what do I know. I know barely anything at all about VnC. But these concepts I've last seen seem really very interesting #I talk too much #I should probably delete this later #Hmm I hope this doesn't appear suggested to people following the tags of things I've mentioned here like the manga‚ Aeneas or Wittgenstein #It is so annoying when it happens. Maybe I should start 'censoring' words when I'm just making notes for myself to avoid that #I've seen some people do it. Really tumblr getting rid of the five tags things has ruined the way I posted a bit

[roxiusagi]

Seven Seas stop getting licenses for books I'd like to buy challenge. I kinda wanna keep some of my money

#roxiu rambles #stop i already preordered the scumbag villain special ed i cantt #for context this is about todays announcement from seven seas publisher about getting license for thousand autumns #(alongside guardian and sha po lang) #i mean i wil decide once the art for it drops but ykno its about the principle #speaking of art #we were checking the announcement out with Mayhem and literally seconds after opening it I went #'oh they used the back cover art from svsss volume 1 as a background for this' #GIRL IM NEVER LIVING THAT DOWN WHAT THE HELL 😭😭 IM ALREADY BEING LAUGHED AT FOR BEING A MASSIVE SVSSS ENG ILLUSTRATIONS COVER SIMP #CUZ I MOSTLY BOUGHT THEM JUST FOR THAT REASON ALONE #i mean we all know velinxi art sublime but #HEAD IN HANDS #it was instant straight up whipped out said volume cuz I keep em on my desk to show it to mayhem and like the JUDGEMENT I GOT #I AM NEVER RECOVERING FROM THIS #anyway hasjdhk #i doubt anyone is reading up to this point but hey if u are sorry for being dead #i will prolly be mostly dead even longer cuz its autumn now n shit BUT #new animation vid soonish eyo #already finished all the frames just gotta throw it together and edit #so between 5 business days and month LMAO #ok roxiu out cheers #ok also i read thru this an djust to clarify it is not like immediately obvious that its the back cover ok hsajkdh #the opacity is lowered and its in greyscale instead of green plus its 'generic' landscape and its behind text and other pictures OK #NOW ROXIU OUT GOODNIGHT

[sodafrog13]

honestly kinda fascinating i've never come across any art of hlm characters in the bojack style

#Supposedly there Might have been a very small nod to the game in the show (the ep where hollyhock's at a college party) #but a quick google search otherwise yields no results #the trash speaks #honestly thinking abt hlm characters in a bojack horseman style world is rlly interesting to me bc like #in a world where humans and annthropomorphic animals live alongside each other #what are the rammifications of humans (or hell even other animals) donning animal masks and killing people. y'kno