#remembering wildlife

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Two leopards take a drink at the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana, in a stunning photo taken from a new book, Remembering Leopards. Featuring photos donated by wildlife photographers around the world, the book is one in a series that has donated more than £1m to conservation projects

Photograph: Margot Raggett/Remembering Wildlife/PA

[jamesrodayrodriguezpresents]

jamesroday Those who have never seen a leopard in natural surroundings have no conception of their grace and beauty. Unfortunately, our uncompromising way of living alongside them has left their survival hanging in the balance. When you look upon the glorious cats captured on the pages of this book, REMEMBERING LEOPARDS, be assured it is not too late to save them. Buying this book helps. The profits go to vetted organizations working to conserve them in the wild. Reposting this helps too. By raising awareness, we can be part of supporting and ensuring their ongoing existence. You can order your copy of Remembering Leopards today at www.buyrememberingwildlife.com (http://www.buyrememberingwildlife.com/) knowing 100% of all profits go directly to protecting Leopards #RememberingLeopards

[proxycrit]

Part 1 / Part 2

Emmet remembers when he and Ingo first brought Elesa to explore Celestial Tower, back when they were fourteen and thought they were immortal.

“Allegedly, the bell chime will bring ghosts home”, ingo had told emmet with the pompous knowing energy of a child who read way too much brochures. “It’s culturally significant! We must ring it.”

“Hmmm,” emmet had responded suspiciously. “Brother. The bell is at the top of the tower.” The implication stands: Ingo, there are thirty flights of stairs between here and the top, and no elevator to speak of.

Don’t be a coward, Litwick had told Emmet with the blaise tone of somebody who’s going to be piggy backing off of somebody else. Go ring the bell. Tynamo, sensing a litten fight, floated towards a loitering blitzle.

Ingo turns his lilipup eyes on Elesa, who’s squinting at the carved stone faces of the front door.

“Elesa? What do you think?”

Elesa thinks. She shrugs. “We already made our way here,” she said in accented galarian. “Might as well make it the rest of the way. Ganbatte!”

Emmet sighs. “This is a mistake,” he tells the two in exhaustive patience, but lets himself be dragged into the building.

Last time the twins were here, Ingo caught litwick— but not before she managed to nab a good chunk of Emmet’s soul. It’s not terrible; he felt fatigued for a week and bounced back pretty quickly, but it was the principle of the whole situation— celestial tower’s a pain in the ass and Emmet will stand by that until the day he dies.

Like right now.

The map isn’t working. Emmet checked it once. He’s checked it twice. He’s taken out his pen and written on it, which he would usually never do but desperate times call for desperate measures. The compass he brought spins useless circles. It’s like chargestone cave up here, but worse because instead if electric pokemon it’s all ghosts.

“We’re lost, yyup yup!” He announced to the crew. “I vote we eat Ingo first.”

“I love you too,” Ingo told Emmet placidly. “But we all know between the two of us, you’re the tastier one.” Litwick gives Emmet a thumbs up. Emmet gasps in mock affront.

“Elesa, help!”

Elesa gives the two of them a wary look. It took two floors for her to realize this is not just a weird temple with strange rocks, but a full out graveyard. She’s not very happy about that development.

“Don’t drag me into this,” she tells them. “Teme wa urusaii.”

“I will take that as a compliment,” Ingo reports back.

Emmet, who’s cheerfully struggles with Galarian on a good day, simply gives her a thumbs up.

The three painstakingly crawl their way up. And up. If all else fails, Emmet told himself, at least they can orient themselves towards high ground.

“We’re like pidoves,” Ingo gasps. He has fallen behind them on the stairs, with Emmet taking the lead through sheer spite despite his legs going numb on floor twenty two. “We, hah, we are attracted by the magnet of the bell, like, like probopass-“

“I am emmet! You are not making, sense!” Emmet called back. Elesa, who’s stuck between them and looking two steps from perpetual collapse, giggles.

“No, no hear me out, Ingo wheezes. “What if the bell’s a magnetic pole? And that’s why your compass doesn’t wo, woo, hahh, work.”

Emmet stops to rest, just because Ingo is using precious breathing air to infodump. Elesa gratefully slumps against the railing. Tynamo and litwick, lazy in their still small size, have settled on a weary blitzle and look very smug doing so. (Emmet is not jealous, he tells himself. Emmet is also lying.)

“The bell’s important,” Ingo had repeated.

“Okay,” Elesa responds. “If it’s important to you, then it’s important to us.”

And Emmet finds that he agrees with Elesa. Partially because they crawled up twenty fucking three flights of stairs, but also because Ingo thinks this is important, so it is.

And here’s the thing—

— emmet doesn’t remember much after that.

The rest of that trip was a blur of exhausted groaning and burning legs, and by the time the trio managed to breach floor thirty, people’s brains have all but dribbled out their ears. Emmet remembers being disgustingly sweaty. He remembers blitzle almost tripping to death and litwick’s swearing. He remembers tynamo sticking to his neck like a damp towel. He remembers Ingo’s excited sneasel smile, and the way the sunset bounced off of Elesa’s hair.

He remembers the brassy ring of the Celestial bell. It sounded like victory.

But it was Elesa’s cackle turned scream as Ingo swiped cold hands down her neck that sounded like home.

—-

So when the conductor at thirty one, lost and disoriented in the Impossible Place, heard the sound of a familiar bell, ringing over and over and over-

-the sound of laughter-

-EMMET! Elesa cried-

-like a homing pidove, the conductor, thinks nonsensically as something in him perks up.

(Emmet had always liked winning, more than anything else, and the sound of victory calls him home.)

—

Elesa catches lightning in a bottle. Elesa, arms outstretched, finds purchase in her brother, and does not let go.

Emmet is so, so cold, Elesa thinks as the wind steals air from her lungs. (That’s okay. She’s already breathless from a terrible business called hope.)

Emmet stares back. His hands flap against Elesa’s jacket. Elesa desperately drinks in his wan face and too wide eyes and his frost bitten lips. In a tiny, meek voice, almost lost to the wind, he asks:

“Are you real?”

Elesa lets out an ugly sob. Her tears whip away in the wind as they fall. Emmet’s frightened countenance turns immediately to alarm. His shaky grasp becomes a solid grip as they spin through the air, cushioned by chandelure’s psychic.

“I think so??” Elesa warbles. She sees Emmet’s eyes dart to her mouth. He’s reading mirroring her, she realizes with giddy delight— it’s such an Emmet thing to do, to read lips, and-

“I am Emmet,” Emmet breathes. His eyes have started to water. “Yyou are Elesa- Oh dragons, Elesa!?“

Elesa reaches. Hesitates.

Emmet grabs elesa by the lapels and crushes her tight against him. Elesa holds on, and the grief and relief in her accumulates into a wet sopping mess. She’s ruining his jacket, she mourns, but its okay because he’s dripping all over hers.

She can’t hear what he’s saying into her shoulder, can’t read what he says, but everything’s okay because every part of her is chiming

You came back

You’re here

I’m not alone anymore.

Around them, the air distorts as Chandelure’s psychic wavers, flutters, and solidifies. Gravity reverses its call as they settle gently on the ground, dust billowing in all directions.

The ghost pokemon drops next to them, shaking so hard the musical clang of glass makes Elesa flinch.

You fucks, Chandelure gasps. DON’T GO LEAPING OFF BUILDINGS, I AM NOT YOUR EMERGENCY PARACHUTE.

“I’m sorry,” Elesa gasps, still giddy from the adrenaline.

AND YOU! Chandelure howls, whirling on Emmet, who’s still staring at the ghost with huge eyes. He’s gripping on to solid ground with the energy of a man who realized he could have been a splat on the ground.

YOU LEFT!

Emmet winces.

You- You left us, you left me-

Ah, ah no, Elesa thinks as golden globules of light shed from Chandelure. This is what a ghost looks like crying.

Emmet holds out his arms. Chandelure drifts into his embrace, and shakes, and shakes, and shakes.

You left me, the ghost pokemon whispers. How dare you. How could you.

“I didn’t mean to,” Emmet whispers. “I’m sorry.”

Stop doing this to me, Chandelure demands. Golden brine joins human tears, like drops of sun trapped in wet glass. Stop going where I can not follow.

And Emmet holds his tongue, because he knows he can not promise staying. Not while Ingo and Eelektross are still in Hisui.

(In the back of Emmet’s hurt and shattered mind is a spark. Synapses connect. The cold breach of the Distortion does nothing to drown out the sudden flare of hope in Emmet’s chest, so great he can not breathe, so strong he can not feel, because there’s a path. A difficult, painful path through the Space that Can Not Be, but a path all the same.)

“Elesa, Chandelure-“ Emmet’s voice breaks. He wants to tell them about Eelektross. He wants to tell them about the terrible past that is Hisui. He wants to explain how the last five months were filled with horror and wonder and fear and hope.

Hope, he thinks. So he says this:

“I know how to get Ingo home.”

NOTES:

AAAAAND THAT’S ALL FOR THIS DRABBLE. ITS OUT NOW. I CAN FINALLY GO BACK TO POSTING HAPPY SHENANIGANS! (Now you know the shape of their story.)

Thanks for reading this monster of a post!

[noseysilverfox]

July 2015

Old photos from a summer evening🌌 A pleasant find when tidying up files and folders🍀 A lot of pleasant memories, including graduation and admission to university, in general, the year was bright, kind and full of changes 🥰

Старые фотографии с летним вечером🌌 Приятная находка при наведении порядка в файлах и папках🍀 Множество приятных воспоминаний, включая выпускной и поступление в университет, в общем, год был яркий, добрый и насыщенный переменами 🥰

[thedisablednaturalist]

UH OH

In college I studied conservation medicine and zoonotic diseases, and this is not good.

"A new study has determined that the COVID-19 virus is widespread amongst wildlife in the United States. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was recently detected in six common backyard species. Additionally, antibodies indicating prior exposure to the virus were found in five species. Depending upon the species, exposure rates ranged from 40-60%."

And this research was done in my state. Great.

From animal to human and back to animal. This does not bode well for us.

[thatsbelievable]

[bwabbitv3s]

If I had a nickle for every time I have helped a downed bat off the ground and safely into a tree I would have two nickles. That is not a lot but it is odd that it has happened twice. Two summers in a row now I have found and carefully helped a bat off the ground and to safety. Bats are unable to take off from the ground and need to free fall down a distance to gain enough lift to start flying. I think this one got too hot in their day time roost and fell out as we are in a heatwave right now.

I found a little bat that on the boardwalk of the trail I like to hike. Used my hat to very carefully transfer them from the ground to a nearby tree. Never directly touching them. The tree was covered in lovely chunks of moss and exfoliating bark perfect for them to tuck into and hide. I think it might even have been where they had fallen from and been unable to climb back to. Which they eagerly did once I placed the hat by the bark of the tree. They will likely stay there till later this evening when they take off to go catch bugs.

Remember never ever touch a bat with your bare hands. They can rarely carry rabies and other very harmful diseases. They have bites weak enough that you don't know they bit you. Any direct contact with a wild bat to bare skin should be treated as exposure to rabies and needs to be seen by a doctor right away. The same goes for your pets like dogs or cats. NEVER TOUCH A WILD BAT! It is a death sentence to them if you end up needing to take them to a wildlife services. As they can't release them if they have contacted a human and need to test the bat for rabies, which is lethal to the bat.

[robo-dino-puppy]

raccoon!

[redstrawberryyblog]

[critter-catcher]

Very excited to announce we've got our first fawn! I'm not quite sure how old this little guy is, but I haven't seen him around his momma and he's very small so I'd say in the past few weeks, or even less!

Regardless, I'm hyped and I love him so much.

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Oh god my heart dropped when you said people are swimming with wild orcas now. Thats a disaster waiting to happen. At least with captive orcas, they’re used to people, but a wild orca would be happy to fuck up a new “toy”. Maybe people should consider that the reason there are no reports of humans being killed by wild orcas is because we don’t just casually swim with them.

Yeah… they’ve become really popular in Norway. And my friend from Mexico told me the tours boats there will communicate with each other to share the locations of orca pods and take passengers to swim with them.

We’re playing with fire here.

(Oh, and dolphin tour boats in Florida are the worst about this.)

[jamesrodayrodriguezpresents]

jamesroday  The REMEMBERING BEARS book is filled with awe-inspiring photos of the last eight remaining bear species spread throughout the world. Sadly, six are listed as vulnerable or endangered. Pressures from the climate crisis, human-wildlife conflict, illegal zoos, pet trafficking and the bear bile industry, are putting them at risk. We can all make a difference. Help to protect Bears by ordering your copy of Remembering Bears today at www.buyrememberingwildlife.com 100% of all profits go directly to vetted programs committed to protecting bears #RememberingBears #RememberingWildlifeDay

[verygayandverytired]

i want to live in the world where dragon age inquisition got to have the in-depth strategy / political organization sim elements bioware obviously wanted it to have where your decisions in managing the inquisition actually meant anything for how it operates and had effects on the game world. sadly we live in the universe where art needs to make profit

[antipathy-arsonist]

potentially the first ever fanart of phoebe from wilsons wildlife 💕

i love her so

[noseysilverfox]

Aesthetics of the pine forest.

Эстетика соснового бора.

[octoagentmiles]

hm.

I think it's interesting that every 2D artistic depiction of Calico Jack features him with a small nick in his left ear,

...considering the real Calico Jack doesn't have one 👀

What if Kwazii getting mistaken for CJ isn't a one-sided thing? What if people/creatures mistake CJ for Kwazii sometimes?? What if that's how CJ knew Kwazii was still alive pre-Amazon Adventure???