i WILL make lump fish a Trendy Animal like axolotls and isopods. no one can stop me

Very beautiful

Very powerful

@bisquid

Have I ever told u about the people my sister ran into when she was working at Rocky Mountain National Park in college?

They thought the rangers put the animals in barns at night and let them out in the daytime.

My sister was like. No. The elk just...live there.

This broke their brains. They couldn't wrap their head around the concept of wild animals that just live in the wild without humans taking care of them.

So I like asking people who work in an educational capacity what the weirdest question they have ever gotten is (I take stupid too, but asking anything is better than making assumptions)

Ranger from Grand Teton had a woman ask her how they trained the bears to get into the boxes at night.

For those of you who have never been camping in Bear Country, every campsite and picnic table in Grand Teton and every other park in the mountain time zone is outfitted with a big metal box with a slightly complicated handle specifically for keeping bears OUT of human food, because otherwise the bears learn humans are VERY easy to bully lots of calories out of and that's how you get bear attacks.

In this woman's defense, they are called and labelled "Bear Boxes"

She apparently didn't hear the second part and said "OH. That makes sense. With all the high-fructose corny syrup they put in everything these days, human food would give them so many cavities and that'd be a lot of expensive dental work for you to give them!"

"...Yeah!" said the ranger, who had neither the time nor emotional fortitude to disabuse this woman of the idea that she lives in a magical world where the park service is well-funded enough to know about and treat the dental issues of wild bears.

HONESTLY also like. part of combatting misinformation is just accepting that you'll fall victim to it sometimes. no-one can be an expert on every imaginable subject and most people don't have the time to factcheck every single piece of information that comes their way. the key thing IMO is responding appropriately when someone points misinfo ie not doubling down and being like 'no there's no way I could be wrong about this'.

like a big part of studying history is learning that your previously held beliefs are hotly debated or even outright wrong and sometimes it feels bad bcos you realise you bought into what was, with the benefit of hindsight, an obvious lie.

and other times it feels bad bcos it's actively disappointing!! often the lie feels better than the truth! historical myths get popular bcos they are, typically, better, punchier stories than what actually happened.

Narcissus taking a selfie is the ACTUAL best.

These are REALLY cool

These are art in themselves, in a some of them point out what lockdown was like for us, they’re expressed themselves in a really cool way. But I think these are going to be talked about in the future.

We need everyone's help right now to protect the rainforest and Indigenous People

The Amazon Rainforest is under a massive threat. I know you've heard this a million times, but this is different. There is a piece of legislation that will decimate the rights of Indigenous people of Brazil, who have been protecting the rainforest. It's unfathomably bad. It has majority support. And they're voting tomorrow. As reported here, the Bill allows "the Brazilian government to find energy resources, set up military bases, develop strategic roads, and implement commercial agriculture on protected Indigenous tribal lands, without any prior discussion with the affected peoples."

The thing you can do—and I know this sounds overly simple—is sign this petition—and tell your friends to do the same: SIGN HERE.

As reported here, the Bill allows "the Brazilian government to find energy resources, set up military bases, develop strategic roads, and implement commercial agriculture on protected Indigenous tribal lands, without any prior discussion with the affected peoples."

Again, this bill has majority support. You may be wondering, why will a petition signed by people who don't live in Brazil make any difference? Because it will give those opposing it political air cover. It will show the world is with them.

But we need a LOT of signatures.

Please do this simple act and spread the word.

Now this is what I mean (metaphorically) by "enrichment in my enclosure"

May you all have enriched enclosures.

I have never heard of Norman Rockwell. I don’t understand anything about art. But this picture shook me and caused a storm of emotions. It is called Breaking Home Ties, 1954

The boy is going to a Uni and wearing his best outfit; the Uni sticker is on his luggage, even his tie and his socks are the colours of the sticker. He is excited and impatient. The father - obviously a farmer, is sitting at the worn farm truck with a flag and a storm lamp, because their place is so small the train won’t normally stop there, so the father will need to “catch” the train and signal with the light and the flag for it to stop.

His son will never come back to the farm.  

I think I understand why this picture sold at 15,4 million dollars in 2006. 

Great paintings by Norman Rockwell of everyday Americana.

Norman Rockwell specialized in exactly this, OP. You can look at almost all of his paintings and find a story in it. Some are sweet, some are poignant, some just show family. They are all stories, and they all have story woven into every single detail.

And because it is my favorite, this is “Shiner”

Rockwell’s mentor was A.C. Leyendecker best known for his illustrations of the Arrow Collar shirt man. The model was Leyendecker’s lover. Rockwell was a pallbearer at Leyendecker’s funeral.

Rockwell’s paintings also dealt quite a bit with social issues as he got older and after the Saturday Evening Post made him remove a Black person from an image bc Black people “could only depicted in service jobs”.

As a result he left the Post & created (among other works) The Problem We All Live With and Murder in Mississippi.

OP post “Breaking Home Ties”.

Look at the dog.

Oh boy…

For those who don’t know the problem we all live with :

It’s also very fun to add that during WW2 when the government put out a call to commission artists to create a poster to inspire woman to fill in service roles and feed the war effort, Normal Rockwell was one of the artists who entered. The famous picture of Rosie the Riveter is known to every USAmerican student, and known throughout the world over. But what’s not as commonly known was Rockwell’s submission, which was denied by the US government for portraying the wrong kind of American woman and not something that would appeal to their femininity. Basically, it fucks too hard and the government got scared. But Rockwell was no such coward to give a woman a sandwich and a strap

@perminas in with some more info

In case you wanted it, here's 30 seconds of a sleeping peachick to get you through the day.

Exactly what we need.

[ image ID: the “I wish all a very pleasant” Bugs Bunny meme edited to say “I wish all LGBT+ folk who live in countries where pride is banned, illegal, or unwelcome, a very I love you, stay safe, happy pride.” Followed by a row of rainbow hearts. End ID ]

this gets so much funnier when you consider that people literally just live on mount everest, there's a perfect parallel between random europeans "discovering" a mountain that people already live on and medical professionals suddenly discovering autism despite people having it going back god knows how long

I once read a post (probably on twitter) where someone asked something like: If neurodiverse people have always been around, how did they get by in times past and ancient times?

The thread was about how there were accommodations even if people of the times didn't truly understand differences in the way the brain worked. So you're sensitive to sound and want to be left alone hyperfixating? Welcome to the Abbey where we make illuminated manuscripts. Welcome to the jewelry guild where we make the tiniest of beads, then string them together into complex designs. Welcome to the rug factory where we do the same but with animal hair.

Hell, in ancient times it was probably much easier to be neurodiverse and to be accommodated because there weren't these ridiculous ideas about having to work 8 hours straight in a day, or even work during the day, and there wasn't so much effing noise everywhere, or the same kinds of societal expectations, not to mention being far more community-minded instead of individualistic.

jelly bean takeoff

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

Okay, vaguely related, but a friend of mine was once taking some snowy owls to canada to be released--they’d been injured while in the states, taken to the avian rehab facility where he worked, and were healthy again. But at that time of year, most  snowy owls had migrated back north to canada. So he drove to the border with three crates of screamingly angry snowy owls in back. He got to the border, declared his cargo, and immediately found himself in Big Trouble With Canadian Border Security. 

(There was nothing wrong with what he’d been doing, it had all been cleared in advance and he had all his paperwork in order. But nobody told the border guys that.)

They demanded that he take the owls out of the crates for inspection. He refused; these were very, very angry, agitated wild birds. They asked him lots of questions. They finally asked why he was taking the owls to canada, and he explained that that’s where they’re from.

The customs agent demanded “WELL, how did Canada’s owls even get to America in the first place?!”

My friend responded, “Sir. They can fly.”

The customs agent let him go.

Congratulations to Wendy for passing her intake exam (mycoplasma test pending) and being the first of my birds to ever bite the vet for daring to touch her. This child is full on ready to hold her own in a fight. Upon arrival home, she got her last parasite med, and a pretty aqua bracelet to declare her a bird from Longfeather Lane.

I don't remember if I introduced her last week, but Wendy came to me the same way as Tootles did: randomly by gift of the universe, after I said I wished Tootles had been a hen. I then received a phone call requesting my services to capture a peahen that was trespassing in someone's yard that didn't want her there.

I trucked out with my neighbors in case we needed extra hands but actually I just ended up looking super cool because we walked out to where Wendy was and I explained what I was going to do like some kind of professional peafowl catcher, like this happens all the time, and then I immediately caught her within 2 minutes of seeing her. Incredibly lucky first grab. Like it looked so professional they asked what they owed for removal. Ma'am this is a $200 bird, and you're letting me take her for free.

She passed her mycoplasma test and immediately let herself out of quarantine to join the other birds, a fact I found out when I arrived at the barn pen last night and counted 6 out of 5 birds were roosted.

so this one's going to be trouble.