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“This aquarium setup with 24/7 live soccer”

(via)

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people who conflate “domestic” and “tame” legitimately horrify me

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what kind of hummingbird is this?

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Your vibe is oddly bitter and reeks of insecurity

sounds like someone needs to go in the water

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TIL that the Audubon Society has released official statements on the difference between a "bird", a "birb", and a "borb", featuring such gems as:

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LISTEN UP, FOLKS, BECAUSE THIS IS IMPORTANT

If you live in North America, and you see this plant?

KILL IT. Rip it up. Dig up the roots and leave not one in the ground.

And then eat it.

This is garlic mustard, a delicious and tasty plant whose leaves smell like, well, garlic.

It’s also one of the WORST invasive species in North America. It provides virtually NO benefit and disrupts the habitats of all kinds of other plant and animal species. It has spread widely across North America and is a SERIOUS problem.

That’s where YOU come in! You can learn to recognize this yummy fucker and rip it up whenever you see it. In addition to helping out your ecosystem, you also get FOOD! You can use it in salads, stir fries, soups, or even make a dang good pesto with it!

Together, we can drive this monster off of this continent. By turning it into dinner 🥰

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keep forgetting i cant digest avocado until its too late

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I rly love them

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The wrong Dodo went extinct

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Thousands of fish species are facing “catastrophic” decline — threatening the health, food security and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people around the world. New research shows that one-third of all freshwater fish now face extinction.

According to a report published Tuesday by 16 global conservation groups, 18,075 species of freshwater fish inhabit our oceans, accounting for over half of the world’s total fish species and a quarter of all vertebrates on Earth. This biodiversity is critical to maintaining not only the health of the planet, but the economic prosperity of communities worldwide.

About 200 million people across Asia, Africa and South America rely on freshwater fishers for their main source of protein, researchers said in “The World’s Forgotten Fishes” report. About one-third of those people also rely on them for their jobs and livelihoods.

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asking out of genuine curiosity: what’s the problem with “adopt don’t shop”? (implied but not explained in a post you reblogged)

When it’s applied to mill breeders and pet shops, I’m in complete agreement with it. If I remember right, that’s what it was originally MEANT to apply to. Then it became co-opted by Animal Rights Activists, who are generally against pet ownership completely. It became a blanket statement against breeders of any sort, vilifying responsible and ethical breeders and those who purchase from them.

So, four years ago, I started looking for a prospective service dog. It was natural for me to start my search within rescues, because most of them were known to me already. I look like a pretty good applicant: I work in rescues, I specialize in handling animals with difficult temperaments, I have vet records stretching back to when I came of age (basically, I’ve been fully responsible for my cats’ vet care since I was 18), and all of my animals have either died of old age or random chance (I’ve never rehomed any of my personal animals for any reason, including health issues).

But it turned out to be borderline impossible.

The fact that I was looking for a service dog prospect was an immediate disqualification for most of them. This is because a lot of dogs (especially rescue dogs) wash out of training and can’t go on to become fully trained service dogs. Since most disabled people can only afford one or two dogs, most of these dogs are returned to the shelter/rescue. That knocked out about 60% of the rescues I was looking at.

Another rescue asked for an ‘application fee’, which smacks of a scam to me. It was around 40 dollars, but still. That’s a shitty fucking thing to do. :/

Another priced their dogs around 800 dollars, which is on the low end range for popular purebred dogs from pet-quality breeders. There was no way I was going to pay 800 dollars for a dog with an unknown genetic background and no health testing if I could pay the same thing and get a dog WITH all that.

Another asked me to take pictures of my fenced in yard, including the gate and ALL the fencing. My land is 22 acres. While it IS fully fenced, many of the fences are inaccessible to me because they’re on cliffs. There was no way I could physically get all the pictures.

Most require that you own a house. I rent.

Another rescue had a sneaky little addendum in their policy, stating that they can visit my home at ANY TIME without permission or knowledge and take the dog back within two weeks of adopting it. This place also had a very high adoption fee (around 500 dollars). I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was something along the lines of, “You’re not ADOPTING this dog. This is a temporary foster for two weeks, and the adoption fee is non-refundable if we take the dog back within those two weeks, which we may do so at any time for any reason without your knowledge or permission.”

I was feeling pretty good about the next rescue, until it came out that my pet reptiles are all intact. Like… they’re non-breeding. But the fact that they weren’t spayed or neutered was enough, apparently, and I was denied. “Come back when they’ve been fixed,” I was told. The fact that they’re reptiles, housed separately, and literally have never made contact with each other was deemed irrelevant, as was the fact that attempting to alter a 50 gram gecko would likely kill her. It was the LOOK of things that was important, rather than the actual animal welfare.

The local poodle rescue had a waiting list of approximately 5 years.

There was no way I was going to wait that long. So I started looking at shelters. There are three in my travel radius (did I mention that, as a disabled person, my travel radius is quite small? Because it is). One was immediately knocked out because it has a long history of transphobia against me in particular. One was knocked out because it was going through a panleuk issue at the moment, so I wasn’t going to risk bringing it home or to work. The third was almost completely bully breed mixes, chihuahuas, or huskies (which are all fine breeds, but not compatible with my lifestyle).

Another issue with ‘adopt don’t shop’ is that it implies ALL rescues/shelters are equal. They aren’t. I’ve also encountered some extremely unethical rescues who outright lie to adopters about an animals’ temperament or health. I’ve seen rescues who actively purchase puppies from mill auctions, because demand for ‘rescue purebreeds’ is so high. This is especially common with cavalier spaniels and other in-demand small breeds.

I recently cut ties with a cat rescue who actively refused to report a bad breeder for animal abuse/neglect—-this breeder was mass-producing cats and not socializing them or treating them for heavy health issues. Every few months, they’d turn over whatever they couldn’t sell to the rescue and these cats were inevitably poorly socialized messes who couldn’t even be touched (and these were cats who required a high amount of grooming). The rescue didn’t want to turn the breeder in because these cats were in high demand; they were 100% sure guaranteed adoptions. People didn’t care that they weren’t healthy animals; they just wanted something pretty with a sob story.

Not every breeder is responsible. Not every rescue is responsible either. The saying SHOULD be ‘adopt responsibly, shop responsibly’. On a purely pedantic note, you SHOULD be shopping responsibly regardless, because adopting is also shopping. You shouldn’t adopt the first cute animal with a sad backstory. You need to look into everything and make sure they’re the right fit for you and your life.

I fully support rescues. But I also support breeding. My goal as a rescue worker is to create a world where every animal is born with a home already waiting for them and the shelters are empty. For that, we need breeders to keep producing healthy animals.

Basically, don’t vilify people who buy from responsible, ethical breeders. We have our reasons for doing so.

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Ready for Halloween

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#sadbuttrue#blackcats#halloween#keepblackcatssafefromharm#keepallanimalssafe#cats#love#endanimalcruelty

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Pup interrupts soccer match, gives interview.

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I’VE DONE IT!

I managed to breed a color morph of the freshwater ramshorn snail!!

[bred between a pink ramshorn snail and a blue leopard ramshorn snail]

Say hi, to what I uncreatively call, the golden leopard ramshorn snail!

Him next to the blue leopard and pink ramshorn snails

He’s the only one I’ve managed to breed so he stays in a separate tank from the other snails until I make a decision on how I’ll bred more of him.

The world deserves more pretty snails.

What has quarantine done to me lol

Now, animals that thought the camera had food When there is clearly food already right next to them.