operakitten

[operakitten]

being on tumblr for a long time but never reading homestuck like

[operakitten]

Today my professor picked up a garter snake, said “Ow!” five times as it bit him, set it back down, and said, “Okay. That’s one defense mechanism snakes have.”

[operakitten]

"In Northern California, a Native American tribe is celebrating the return of ancestral lands in one of the largest such transfers in the nation’s history.

Through a Dept. of the Interior initiative aiming to bring indigenous knowledge back into land management, 76 square miles east of the central stretch of the Klamath River has been returned to the Yurok tribe.

Sandwiched between the newly-freed Klamath and forested hillsides of evergreens, redwoods, and cottonwoods, Blue Creek is considered the crown jewel of these lands, though if it were a jewel it wouldn’t be blue, it would be a giant colorless diamond, such is the clarity of the water.

Pictured: Blue Creek

It’s the most important cold-water tributary of the Klamath River, and critical habitat for coho and Chinook salmon. Fished and hunted on since time immemorial by the Yurok and their ancestors, the land was taken from them during the gold rush before eventually being bought by timber companies.

Barry McCovey Jr., director of the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department, remembers slipping past gates and dodging security along Blue Creek just to fish up a steelhead, one of three game fish that populate the river and need it to spawn.

Profiled along with the efforts of his tribe to secure the land for themselves and their posterity, he spoke to AP about the experience of seeing plans, made a decade ago, come to fruition, and returning to the creek on which he formerly trespassed as a land and fisheries manager.

“To go from when I was a kid and 20 years ago even, from being afraid to go out there to having it be back in tribal hands … is incredible,” he said.

Part of the agreement is that the Yurok Tribe would manage the land to a state of maximum health and resilience, and for that the tribe has big plans, including restoring native prairie, using fire to control understory growth, removing invasive species, restoring native fish habitat, and undoing decades of land-use changes from the logging industry in the form of culverts and logging roads.

“And maybe all that’s not going to be done in my lifetime,” said McCovey. “But that’s fine, because I’m not doing this for myself.”

The Yurok Tribe were recently at the center of the nation’s largest dam removal, a two decades-long campaign to remove a series of four hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River. Once the West Coast’s third-largest salmon run, the Klamath dams substantially reduced salmon activity.

Completed last September, the before and after photographs are stunning to witness. By late November, salmon had already returned far upriver to spawn, proving that instinctual information had remained intact even after a century of disconnect.

Pictured; Klamath River flows freely, after Copco-2 dam was removed in California

“Seeing salmon spawning above the former dams fills my heart,” said Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe, the leaders of the dam removal campaign along with the Karuk and Klamath tribes.

“Our salmon are coming home. Klamath Basin tribes fought for decades to make this day a reality because our future generations deserve to inherit a healthier river from the headwaters to the sea.”

Last March, GNN reported that the Yurok Tribe had also become the first of America’s tribal nations to co-manage land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding involving Redwoods National Park.

The nonprofit Save the Redwoods bought a piece of land adjacent to the park, which receives 1 million visitors annually and is a UNESCO Natural Heritage Site, and handed it over to the Yurok for stewardship.

The piece of land, which contained giant redwoods, recovered to such an extent that the NPS has incorporated it into the Redwoods trail network, and the two agencies will cooperate in ensuring mutual flourishing between two properties and one ecosystem.

Back at Blue Creek, AP reports that work has already begun clearing non-native conifer trees planted for lumber. The trunks will be used to create log jams in the creek for wildlife habitat.

Costing $56 million, the land was bought from the loggers by Western Rivers Conservancy, using a mixture of fundraising efforts including private capital, low interest loans, tax credits, public grants and carbon credit sales.

The sale was part of a movement called Land Back, which involves returning ownership of once-native lands of great importance to tribes for the sake of effective stewardship. [Note: This is a weirdly limited definition of Land Back. Land Back means RETURN STOLEN LAND, PERIOD.] Studies have shown around the tropics that indigenous-owned lands in protected areas have higher forest integrity and biodiversity than those owned by national governments.

Land Back has seen 4,700 square miles—equivalent to one and a half-times the size of Yellowstone National Park—returned to tribes through land buy-back agreements in 15 states." [Note: Since land buyback agreements aren't the only form of Land Back, the total is probably (hopefully) more than that.]

-via Good News Network, June 10, 2025

[operakitten]

putting the o in olympics

[operakitten]

check out the mourning doves’ new single “hooOOOO hoo hoo hoo” if you get the chance. sound of the summer.

[operakitten]

As much as I love ‘I would kill for you’, it kinda really loses its impact if the person saying it is a villain who already kills at the slightest provocation

’I would refrain from killing for you, I would spare them all if you asked me’ is a very sexy alternative, and a much more powerful declaration of love coming from a character prone to violence

[operakitten]

was showing yet another child tadpoles and i said "do you know what these are?" he shouted, "YES!" then he paused, grinned and said, "well! no! what are they?"

most enlightened person on earth genuinely. 1 million billion adults could make the whole world a better place if they were willing to say that.

[operakitten]

[operakitten]

sometimes medical professionals say things that aren't even like, offensive, they're just astounding 2 me

a pharmacist was just giving me two vaccines & offered to do one in each arm and i said "well i'm a side-sleeper so i prefer one very tender arm instead of two sort of sore arms, so i can still sleep on one side."

and she looked at me like i said something super weird and she said "vaccines shouldn't make your arm sore."

??? ? ???? i thought she was joking but she wasn't. i'm trying to understand what reality this woman could have possibly just stepped out of to be a medical professional who administers vaccines and who thinks tenderness is a strange and unheard of side effect

like

[operakitten]

therapist: cunt dracula is not real and cannot fuck you.

cunt dracula:

[operakitten]

This is the funniest tweet I’ve ever seen.

[operakitten]

If you are a vampire NEVER feed from someone named Richard. 400 fucking years and everyone still calls me Dick Sucker

[operakitten]

"Kill them with kindness" WRONG. drop the opera house chandelier on them.

[operakitten]

again while we're on the topic:

it always bears repeating to everyone who will listen that several years ago when i unfortunately caught covid from a roommate, i had mild cold symptoms for several days and was not allowed to take off work without a positive covid test.

i used a rapid test every day for five days. i tested positive on the fifth test on the fifth day of symptoms. i was contagious that entire time.

none of my coworkers wore masks, but i wore a well-fitted N95 every day. i protected them, and none of them got sick. i wish that the same care and courtesy were extended to me, as the immunodeficient member of their team, but i was glad, regardless, that the spread stopped with me (barring asymptomatic infections, which is always a possibility).

i tell a lot of stories about the times i've narrowly escaped covid after high-risk exposures, protected by my mask, but here's an example of my masking protecting others.

masking is community support. masking is mutual aid. masking is disability allyship. masking is class consciousness.

[operakitten]

Copied from bluesky May 20, 2025.

Link to comment:

[operakitten]

🇺🇸nationwide cucumber recall due to salmonella outbreak🇺🇸

FDA & CDC insist: if you are in the US and do not know where your cucumbers come from, throw them out NOW!

FDA publish date may 20, 2025.

🇺🇸FDA investigation - CDC investigation🇺🇸

Bedner Growers, Inc. of Boynton Beach, Florida is voluntarily recalling cucumbers sold at Bedner’s Farm Fresh Market between April 29, 2025, and May 14, 2025 because they have the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.

some emphasis mine.

the cucumbers are contaminated with salmonella, and were sold between april 29th and may 14 2025.

salmonella infection usually causes illness 6 hours to 6 days after exposure, and symptoms usually last 4 to 7 days.

but there is a catch.

The recalled cucumbers were sold directly to consumers at the three Bedner’s Farm Fresh Markets locations in Florida (Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, and West Palm Beach). Because the recalled cucumbers do not bear any stickers or other labeling, customers should discard and not consume any cucumbers that were purchased at these locations between April 29, 2025, and May 14, 2025. The recalled cucumbers also were sold to a wholesale distributor, which has been directed to further contact its customers with recall instructions.

emphasis mine.

the recalled cucumbers were sold directly to consumers, and also sold wholesale nationwide. they have no label. there is no way to identify if your cucumber is affected unless you know where it came from or you get contacted by where you bought it from. real fucking helpful!

illnesses have already been reported all over the country.

The cucumbers are being recalled because they have been linked by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to a Salmonella outbreak that has resulted in 26 illnesses in AL, CA, CO, FL, IL, KS, KY, MI, NC, NY, OH, PA, SC, TN, and VA.

currently, 26 illnesses and 9 hospitalizations have been linked to this outbreak. these numbers are expected to rise.

the true number of people who got sick is probably much higher than this, and it takes 3-4 weeks to link any given illness to an outbreak. the CDC estimates that only 1 in 30 cases of salmonella actually gets diagnosed. as in, there may be 30 times as many infections as currently reported.

in 2024, this same grower was involved in yet another cucumber salmonella outbreak that sickened over 500 people and hospitalized over 150.

the list of where people got sick is NOT a comprehensive list of where the contaminated cucumbers were sold. these cucumbers were sold nationwide. from the CDC:

People reported buying and eating cucumbers from a variety of locations including grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals and on cruise ships. FDA's traceback investigation identified Bedner Growers Inc. as the common grower of cucumbers in this outbreak.

emphasis mine. because there is no branding, there are no images to help figure out if you are affected.

but here is what the FDA and CDC recommend:

If you cannot tell if your cucumber was grown by Bedner Growers, throw it away.  When eating out over the next week, ask if cucumbers were from Bedner Growers or Fresh Start Produce Sales, Inc.

some emphasis mine.

finally, not everyone who got sick from the cucumbers said they actually ate cucumbers. there were likely cases of cross-contamination from food being prepared somewhere that came into contact with the contaminated cucumbers.

learn more from the CDC page on salmonella infection here. it is worth noting that infection from salmonella can sometimes cause medical issues for years.

when in doubt, throw it out!