velvetedantler

[velvetedantler]

Not great photos, but here's the surviving cub, Maple, playing in the straw yesterday morning. He LOVES the straw pile!

[velvetedantler]

just walked past a guy whose shirt said PLINY THE ELDER huge across the back like a jersey

[velvetedantler]

Is there beef with the Holstein cows and you or what was that joke lol

It's kind of wild It's just never come up on this blog before, but I HATE holsteins. Bottom 10 cow breeds for me. I hate how they're so common they account for the majority of milk produced. I hate that they're the "default" cow to the point where some don't even know cattle HAVE other colors. I hate their tiny horns (IF THEY EVEN HAVE THAT. LOSER ASS HORNLESS COW) and their painfully massive udders.

Legit I'm trying so hard to not launch into a No Mouth Must Scream style AM speech-- shoot my hand slipped.

(AM speech about why i dont like holsteins below the cut)

For starters, I have to give a brief lesson on what these terms mean; the "Holstein" is the American strain of the "Frisian" breed. Frisians are an ancient breed from Frisia, in the north of what we now consider the Netherlands. Crosses between the breeds are "Holstein-Frisians."

(There’s even more to this but im keeping it as simple as possible. Also one of my friends is Frisian and she is probably going to kill me for describing it like that.)

Historically, livestock was adapted to the environment they lived in. Frisians were bred by the Frisii people for hundreds of years in extremely grass-rich, lush, flat environments. The "polders" of the northern parts of the Netherlands. They're huge and eat a LOT of food.

Traditional Frisians were developed to produce as much meat and milk from a single individual as possible, without compromising the health of the cattle with constant inbreeding to get quick gains. We are talking about a breed that is over 2000 years old. They had the perfect environment to make The Ultimate Food Cow and by god they did it. I can respect that.

So, take that, drag it across an ocean to a place that does NOT have polders, and add the rapid enshittification of capitalism to it. BAM you've got a fucking holstein.

There is ONE goal for "improving" the holstein. Make More Milk. As long as the black and white milkbag leaks enough, nothing else matters. Health? Fertility? Feed ratio? Ability to not die of infection? WHO CARES. MILK LINE GO UP.

Over 90% of holsteins are inbred to start with, because Milk Line Go Up. To the tune of having an average COI of 8%-- where extreme negative effects (think Hapsburgs) start to crop up around 10%

Holstein bulls are aggressive bastards (many dairy bulls are), so no one wants to keep intact males in their herds, meaning most cows are artificially inseminated

Not being limited by the natural lifespan of a living bull means that the same stud can keep having direct offspring for decades after his death

Toystory the bull had 500,000 calves before he died, and hit over 1 million offspring in 2015. That's ONE animal and to put this in perspective, there are 9 million holsteins in the US.

DON'T WORRY IT GETS WORSE

Not only can 99% of holsteins be traced back to just two bulls-- 99% of male holsteins share one of two exact Y chromosomes with those two bulls.

The gene pool is so small that it's equivalent to about 60 individuals. Warrior Cat allegiances are larger than that. That's barely bigger than modern ThunderClan.

"Massive lack of genetic diversity" does not begin to capture the existential dread of this situation. Mark my words, WATCH, when the Bird Flu finally mutates a strain that rips through a mammalian population, it's gonna be in the USA and it's going to be through our dairy cattle.

This is not prophecy or me laying a curse on the land, this is the natural consequence of basing the stability of US milk production on the equivalent of 9 million clones of two classrooms worth of individuals, and then packing them in close quarters

And we don't have to wait for doomsday for the impacts to be apparent on the cattle themelves

Holstein fertility has also dropped by half since the 1960s when the intensive inbreeding really kicked into high gear

Because their whole body is dedicating all of their resources to milk production, they have a notoriously "bony" frame.

Show judges, however, like this because they think that's a very "feminine" look for a 1600 pound ruminant. Very normal thing to think.

Like. I don't know if i can communicate this to people who don't look at cows a lot (it's not quite as obviously dramatic as a pug skull) but here is a comparison of an "ideal" show holstein and an "unselected" holstein from a herd that's been established as a sort of "control group" for what they looked like back in the 1960s;

The way that the artery on the "modern" cow's belly runs to the udder like a big pink worm freaks me out the most ngl

The udder also bulges out from between the back legs

The show cow is so thin

And then compare these both to a Holstein-Frisian cross who leans more on the Frisian side;

Proper weight, developed legs. Its biggest "problem" is actually just the udder shape-- deep udders, which "hang" low like that, aren't optimal for milk-focused breeds because the higher away from the ground the less chance there is of infection. In that department, the "unselected" holstein clearly outclasses the holstein-frisian.

But it probably won't be surprising to hear that the "show holstein," with its massive, swollen udder, is SUPER prone to infections such as mastitis.

But it is also just more prone to getting sick generally

And, to keep up with these insane demands, holsteins need a TON of food. You aren't going to just turn these things out into a pasture and be done with it. Even its ancestor the Frisian needed premium Dutch polder grass to be such a good cow-- crank that up to 11 with these Monuments to Humanity's Hubrice

The Texas Longhorn developed in semi-feral conditions and can eat a bush to become the best thing in a 10 mile radius. The Scottish Highland was iron-forged in upland moors with a steady diet of turf and rain.

Meanwhile if a Holstein has less than 5 homemade meals a day without poland spring bottled water it will die to death.

And the WORST part? You have to use these if you want to make money in dairy farming. It's WAAY too expensive to just run a suboptimal farm. Their milk isn't great, but they sure do make a lot of it.

...so Holsteins and Holstein-Frisians (and other "super efficient" breeds) have absolutely decimated heritage cattle. The American Milking Devon is a deep reddish brown with gorgeous horns and low maintenance; rare. Randall Linebacks are painted with lines of white speckles down the back and can be used for any purpose; critically endangered. The Niata was a pug-faced cow who could fight jaguars; extinct.

And THAT'S what makes me hate them most of all. I LOVE cows, but whenever I see a reference to one, it's a holstein. It's always boring black and white splotches with big pink udders. They're practically synonymous with "cow" when their homogeniety is actually hiding much cooler breeds from you.

Did you know cows can be tiger-striped?

And that England has its own type of longhorn?

Or that cow horns can twist upwards like an antelope?

And that they can have REALLY LONG ears?

And that they can be blue?

And that's not even getting into some of the cows that have gotten a small crumb of attention lately, such as Highlands, Ankole-Watusi, and Texas Longhorns. There's so many cool cows out there! And they're all really different from holsteins! MOST of them are also a lot healthier and produce tastier milk and meat!

TL;DR yeah i don't like holsteins and I like sniping at them. For reasons both legit and petty.

[velvetedantler]

Puma or Cougar or Mountain Lion (Puma concolor), LEUCISTIC, family Felidae, Serra dos Órgãos National Park, Brazil

photos via: Lucas Gonçalves da Silva

[velvetedantler]

if i see one more person claiming that lying about the basic definition of "species", rubbing elbows with joe rogan and spreading misinformation is going to somehow be good for conservation im going to end up on the fucking news

[velvetedantler]

this company is so frustratingly misleading. They did not bring back the direwolf (Aenocyon dirus). They modified a modern grey wolf (Canis lupus) into having some direwolf morphology. There has been no de-extinction. This is pure hype slop. As a friend said "these are dire wolves the same way La Croix is a fruit".

[velvetedantler]

possibly a controversial take but while i do get that militant vegans are obnoxious i think certain people on tumblr have swung too far in the opposite direction and now we have people claiming that there are absolutely no problems with the meat and dairy industries. which is not even close to being true.

[velvetedantler]

Nothing but critical support for this Lynx

[velvetedantler]

Marius’ submission for the new AKC Performer Trick Dog Title. He has the equivalent titles through DMWYD so he gets to skip ahead.

[velvetedantler]

🫐🎇

[velvetedantler]

Only last year it was hailed as a conservation success story: the Iberian lynx, which had been close to extinction, had sprung back to life thanks to a two-decade-long effort to expand the population.

Now, however, that progress is at risk after several regional governments in Spain acceded to pressure from farmers and hunters to block the reintroduction of the species into the wild.

Claiming the wildcat preys on livestock, as well as rabbits and partridges, opponents of the lynx have made breakthroughs, threatening to undo efforts that helped its population grow to about 2,000 across Spain and Portugal.

Often the lynx was falling victim not to serious objections but to unrelated political bickering, according to Ramón Pérez de Ayala of the WWF. Often, it involves the far-right Vox party, which claims to champion the rights of farmers.

In Aragón, opposition to the lynx programme was led by the then agriculture minister, Ángel Samper, a member of Vox. Samper claimed the wildcats were attacking sheep. Pérez de Ayala, Spain’s leading expert on the lynx, says attacks on livestock are practically nonexistent.

Jorge Valero, the head of the Aragón government’s hunting and fishing department, also of Vox, opposed the reintroduction of the lynx, saying: “It’s wrong to bring them back just because they were here 20 or 100 years ago. It makes us look like Jurassic Park.”

Vox split from the Aragón government last summer amid claims that Valero and another minister were apologists for the former dictator Francisco Franco.

But it is not only there that Spain’s native wildcat is under pressure. Last month the Catalan government agreed to demands by the farmers’ association Revolta Pagesa (Peasants’ Revolt) to block the introduction of wolves, bears and lynx, despite a surfeit of rabbits in much of the region. Pérez de Ayala says rabbits make up 90% of the lynx’s diet.

The plan was to release lynx into the south-western areas of Noguera and Garrigues, where there has been an explosion in the rabbit population. However, the Catalan government has acceded to the farmers’ preferred option of culling the rabbits with aluminium phosphide.

Although the lynx has been welcomed in much of Castilla y León in Spain’s north-west, local authorities around Zamora and the Douro River are less enthusiastic.

“The hunters don’t want them, nor do the farmers,” said José Martín, the mayor of Almaraz de Duero, from the conservative People’s party. “They say they will attract more tourism but it’s not worth it for the impact it has on our way of life.”

Pérez de Ayala said the lynx was often being caught up in unrelated arguments. “Sometimes it’s because the local authority is trying to put pressure on the government for something that has nothing to do with the lynx or because of political infighting,” he said.

Much of the opposition comes from the hunting lobby, he added, echoing a post on X on Monday by Hugo Morán Fernández, Spain’s secretary of state for the environment. He said: “The problem arising from the extermination of certain species is that there will be no one left to blame for the decline of hunting or livestock farming.”

Twenty-five years ago the Iberian lynx (lynx pardinus) was close to extinction, having been classified, along with wolves, as vermin. After the efforts of a coalition including the EU and regional and national governments in Spain and Portugal, as well as wildlife NGOs and local people, its status was downgraded last year from “endangered” to “vulnerable”.

Last week Sara Aagesen, the environment minister, oversaw the release of two female lynx in Murcia in southeast Spain, bringing the total in the region to 20.

[velvetedantler]

“Mikhail Telpin, one of the Iditarod mushers, is from Chukotka in eastern Siberia. His dogs are called Chukotka sled dogs. These stout, thick-furred animals are the ancestral dogs from which modern sled dogs are derived.”

[ID: Photo of several harnessed sled dogs standing and sniffing around a snowy area. The focus of the photo is a tall, thick-coated dog with many shades of brown markings, white markings, perky ears, and blue eyes]

[velvetedantler]

that's actually the exact squirrel i was thinking it might be!! the resemblance is striking. it even has those little eye circles

mystery animal stole?

often when a fur stole looks "off" it is rabbit fur made to look like a non-descript animal, but this seems to have its original feet + head. is it a squirrel of some sort?

[velvetedantler]

mystery animal stole?

often when a fur stole looks "off" it is rabbit fur made to look like a non-descript animal, but this seems to have its original feet + head. is it a squirrel of some sort?

[velvetedantler]

anyone remember Zipper from Nat Geo Kids? I loved him so much as when i was little. i'd wait 40 minutes to just to get flash working on our old macintosh to see this guy

[velvetedantler]

Red Fox (Cross) | Agnius Narkevičius

[velvetedantler]

i typically only talk about animal genetics/fur farming & ethics as a whole on this blog, but i thought id share my favorite fur coat! my marble fox fur coat with a blue frost fox collar