why-l-like-the-robins

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[why-l-like-the-robins]

Emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae), chick, family Casuariidae, order Casuariiformes, found across most of Australia

photograph by Fat Hen Farms

[why-l-like-the-robins]

THE ENTIRE WEST IS BEING PUT UP FOR SALE AND I AM BEGGING YOU TO CALL YOUR SENATORS

Trump’s budget bill has many, many things in it, but buried amongst it is the MILLIONS OF ACRES OF PUBLIC LAND FOR SALE.

This is the entirety of the Arizona state forests, the entire Cascades mountain range. Swathes of pristine desert around the national parks in Utah. On the doorstep of Jackson Hole.

THIS BILL IS BIG, BUT IT CAN BE AMENDED AND ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT PASS AS IS please.

If you have ever enjoyed the wilderness, we stand to lose it all forever.

CALLING your senators - NOT JUST IN THE WEST. ALL SENATORS, is CRUCIAL.

Outdoor alliance has a great resource for reaching out.

I don’t have a huge following but please, everywhere I have ever loved, the forests I grew up playing in, the land I got married on, is all at risk and I am begging.

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Why are you using chatgpt to get through college. Why are you spending so much time and money on something just to be functionally illiterate and have zero new skills at the end of it all. Literally shooting yourself in the foot. If you want to waste thirty grand you can always just buy a sportscar.

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NO KINGS! Be safe tomorrow 🇺🇸

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They're literally deporting who are waiting on the US government's follow-up on just goddamn paperwork to confirm legal status- people in the process of legalization. They're SHOWING UP AT PEOPLE'S IMMIGRATION HEARINGS AND ARRESTING THEM !!!! They're raiding Home Depots and construction sites - work areas. They don't care about criminals. They don't care about legal status. They're anti-immigration full-stop. But only brown (and some Black) immigrants.

This is white nationalism. This is about their panic over the "white replacement theory". They simply do not want brown people here.

If you need more proof of that, well, this is a real website. For the low price of $5M, you can become an American citizen. He's literally pandering to the white European billionaire class:

Oh, and let's not forget the white South African "refugees" he just welcomed due to the repeatedly debunked lie of "white genocide" propagated by Elon Musk.

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Kind of crazy that half of Canada burning and over 30,000 people having to evacuate every year is like a normal routine now. It’s kind of like accepted here. “Well its fire season some of you will die, thousands will be homeless, let’s do this again next year.” The ancient old growth forests are important for all of earth! Pretty crazy how important Canada’s ancient boreal is for the entire world’s oxygen production. Yikes. Colonialism and its consequences. And who is the most affected? Indigenous people!

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Endless seas of clouds

nathanaelbillings

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hey uhhh apparently another thing to add to the list of “human only” skills birds have: they can sew

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https://english.radio.cz/beavers-build-planned-dams-protected-landscape-area-while-local-officials-still-8841536

A beaver colony in the Brdy region has gained overnight fame by building several dams in the Brdy protected landscape area, creating a natural wetland exactly where it was needed. It saved the local authorities 30 million crowns, and has the public cracking jokes about public administration and red tape.

The administration of the Brdy protected landscape area, which had gained approval for the 30 million crown project, was dealing with red tape and seeking the respective building permits from the Vltava River Basin authorities when the dam project was completed almost overnight by a local colony of beavers.

They could not have chosen their location better –erecting the dams on a bypass gully that was built by soldiers in the former military base years ago, so as to drain the area. The revitalization project drafted by environmentalists was supposed to remedy this. Bohumil Fišer, head of the Brdy Protected Landscape Area Administration says Nature took its course and the beavers created the necessary biotope conditions practically overnight.

[why-l-like-the-robins]

Dear Leader

[why-l-like-the-robins]

Hello!

I’ve had this account forever and wanted to introduce myself :) I’m an avian ecologist doing conservation work with imperiled species- from grassland birds, to shorebirds, to Hawai’ian forest birds! I’m so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to do what I love, and do what I can to help the incredible creatures I love so dearly. My field is taking a hit right now, as are all the sciences, and to any other biologists/park workers/volunteers/really anyone who cares about nature in any capacity who happen to stumble upon this post, you are appreciated. It helps to know there are, and always will be people who care, especially in times like these. Thanks for reading 🪶

*all birds handled for research under proper permits.

*birds pictured top to bottom: aplomado falcon chick, juvenile I’iwi, royal tern chick, wood stork chick, painted bunting, swamp sparrow, Florida grasshopper sparrow chick, *various shorebirds*, short billed dowitcher, red knot

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Fuckin. This. Fuck AI forever♥️

Hello !! I was wondering, is AI gonna have a role in your field?

I don't think there's a single knowledge-based profession out there that isn't under threat of being automated by some pig ignorant dipshit beancounting middle manager with a hardon for AI and entomology is certainly no exception. even before the big AI explosion of the last couple years people have been trying for a long time to automate pest arthropod identification, but at least so far they haven't been successful. Especially when it comes to things like bark beetles, which I specialize on, the differences between a harmless native species and an intensely destructive exotic one can be unbelievably subtle, not to mention the fact that new/cryptic species are always being discovered and that's not something an AI would ever be able to detect or understand.

That doesn't mean that our jobs aren't still under constant threat even by an algorithm that would do a piss-poor job of imitating us; the executive perverts that get all hot and bothered by the idea of replacing humans with fancified autocomplete functions have a vested interest in not understanding the nuances of the professions they're killing and as long as it's good enough or even just appears to be good enough, they'll push for it.

Also let's not forget one thing about "AI" which is that half the time it's actually just a marketing term used to cover up the usual outsourcing/offshoring to cheaper workforces that has been ongoing for the last 30 years. My lab was recently and repeatedly pestered by someone selling "AI moth traps" that purported to be able to identify any pest species of moth that flew into it. When we pressed him on it it turns out that part of the service it offered was that the moths would be photographed by a little digital camera in the device and the pics sent to a team of entomologists in Hungary to confirm. Aside from the fact that a lot of small moths need to be carefully examined under a microscope and often even have their genitalia dissected by an expert to be confirmed as a particular species, this is no different then any of the other supposed AI products that have been revealed over the last couple years as just being a shiny veneer over the same old digital sweatshops on the other side of the world.

More importantly though, even if the AI moth traps did work as advertised either through the ~*magic of machine learning*~ or desperate poorly paid eastern european entomologists either way it's yet another thin edge of the wedge designed to put me and my colleagues out of a job by convincing our bosses or our bosses' bosses that there's a cheaper and more efficient alternative and I view them and literally anything else marketed as AI as part of the same anti-human push to deskill and demoralize as much of the workforce as possible. I've never once used chatGPT or any other LLM, I've never used an AI image generator, and I will never, ever fucking use any purported AI entomology tool because aside from being shined up dogshit it is an existential threat to the discipline I've dedicated almost 20 years of my life to.

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A baby rook sleeping on the forest floor and just in that moment the sun came through the trees illuminating the little rook and the little maple tree beside them. Seconds later the sun had moved on.

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Honestly, y'all, I'm begging you. Take the time to think and learn for yourself. Even if it's just something casual like knitting or cooking. Exercise your brain. It's important.