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[alo83]

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

[alo83]

feel free to say which / why in the tags if you have a reason for your preference

[alo83]

I would like 2024 to just not be so dramatic. Please and thank you.

[alo83]

One of the best shot of Total Solar Eclipse from 08-04-2024.

Via @nasa-official

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It was a cold afternoon and the Nats lost, but it was nice to be back at the ballpark.

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me at every single mutual <3

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Well I needed this today. Boop boop boop.

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But the complexity and the grey lie not in the boop, but what you do with the boop once you have it.

[alo83]

File under: only in DC

there's a cherry blossom tree in DC that keeps blooming every year even though it shouldn't and the park service keeps thinking it's dead and then it keeps blooming! well they're removing a lot of trees to rehabilitate the area and they've said it's finally time for stumpy to go and they're going to mulch it and use the mulch to enrich all the other trees so it can help everything else keep going. and they're also going to plant spliced little pieces of it all over so that stumpy can live forever and this is genuinely sending me into a spiral

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Ever since our water heater broke(and the plumber fixed it), the water temperature in our master bath shower/ tub has been off. It randomly goes cold, doesn’t get as hot, etc. My husband and I both now shower in the spare bedroom bath now. However, the tub in our master is the only one in our house and I am a bath person. I’m taking my second bath since then and it is disappointing…. The water isn’t hot enough…

I even tried to bring a kettle of boiling water and it’s still not warm enough.

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Looking at old posts today. This was 2019.

Wow. Things have changed. New job (since late 2021) is so different than old job.

I am lucky. Things aren’t perfect now, but I am very happy professionally. Hardly any more overtime. And double pay.

Don’t forget to count your blessings.

[alo83]

Help please!!!

Last year I found these amazing kids gift guides that plotted gifts on an X-y axis from most to least educational and then from expensive to affordable. They they had one for each age group. They were great! I thought I found them here on tumblr, but I can’t find it now. Of course I didn’t save it and my browser history does not go back to last Christmas. Does anyone know anything like it?

I was thinking it was @tksstgiftguide but I don’t think it is actually.

Anyone have any ideas???

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[alo83]

Fuck a personality test. Which label sticker r u?