UP THE WOLVES

thedragonwoodconservancy on ig

laser gun gator boys

oh my god i didn’t realize this video had audio

Okay as adorable as this looks, I’m pretty sure that’s a distress sound?  A “mommy help me I’m scared come save me!” sound?

@why-animals-do-the-thing

This video is from Dragonwood Wildlife Conservancy, and they are yearling (last year’s babies) Cuban crocodiles. Good news for you, this isn’t actually a distress call! According to @kaijutegu​ (and her giant bookshelf full of reptile resources), the laser sounds are an affiliative social call that young Cuban crocodiles use to communicate with their parents. They normally stop making the noise at around two years old, which is approximately when they start dispersing from the family group.

See, Cuban crocodiles are a super social species - and one of the few where the fathers stick around and provide paternal care for the babies! In the wild, babies would regularly interact with both parents, including when they provide food. This call is basically the type of vocalization that the babies use to communicated with their parents.

These crocodiles are being hand-raised as part of a private-sector breeding and reintroduction program (because the parents are so protective of their offspring that if you left them the babies to raise, you’d never be able to safely get close to them), and so they’re responding to the guy in the video the same way because he’s constant known safe individual and also the provider of food. He’s not a threat - his presence is a good thing, and he’s worth interacting with because it normally means food. You can also tell from their behavior and body language that they’re not stressed: some of the crocodiles are actively climbing on him and interaction of their own volition, but the ones that aren’t don’t show any indicators of hyper-vigilance. If that were a distress call, every crocodile that heard it would be alert and on edge looking for the threat. Distress calls tend to only happen once or twice, because in the wild continuing to make noise makes a baby more vulnerable: so these crocodiles wouldn’t be continually vocalizing if they felt threatened. There’s no snapping or gaping or freezing, all of which would be behavioral indicators of distress or discomfort. (Here’s a video of a baby nile crocodile being harassed by photographers which will give you a visual reference for both freezing and gaping.)

So, hey, this is certifiably cute - and good for conservation!

ETHICALLY SOURCED LASER NOISES

call me a guy who just caught a fish that's too small and abides by the local fishing regulations on minimum size limit

the way i throw it back.

perhaps some will disagree, but i think the world got worse when we changed the colour of the night

this is what i mean

Via @bulbaderp

To be clear, THIS is how nights of the future should be lit

This is bat friendly street lighting, which not only looks sick as fuck but allows bats to pass through without disturbance, as they cannot see red.

orange and especially white lights deter bats and prevent them from reaching feeding grounds at nighttime. Please if you can, write to your local council and encourage red street lights!!!!

It’s not just that the leaves will break down on their own (and enrich the soil while they’re at it!). During the winter, all sorts of insects use leaf litter for shelter, and they’re the first food available to larvae in early spring. Leaves also insulate the plants under them during the winter, which is important if you’re in an area prone to frost heaving.

One of the best thing you can do for native pollinators in your area is Leave the Leaves!

My mom stopped raking her leaves when she found out about this but her neighbor used his leaf blower to clear out her yard the first year she decided to try. So she started posting a Leave the Leaves sign in the yard each year with an explanation about why it’s good and two winters later only one house still rakes their lawn each year.

We’ve seen a dramatic increase in the biodiversity in the neighborhood since. We have birds that we haven’t seen since we moved into the city from living rurally and those birds are starting to nest in the trees and gardens in spring. The swallows and bats are back at night. The single woodpecker we would only occasionally see visits daily and even has a friend that has joined it. We have more squirrels and rabbits and shockingly fewer moles and voles. We heard an owl outside last fall.

Leave the leaves indeed.

My guy where are your meds

trying to apply for more scholarships because i ran out and everything is like “write about how you started your own female owned business as a student” “explain how you would solve the housing crisis in 2000 words or more (need 3 letters of recommendation)” Ok what about us who spent all our time in school trying really reallllly hard not to kill ourselves

the 'what if you played it a little risky' post literally Changed my life but i cant fujkign find it in my blog because its. a tiktok screenshot

is this it?

Richard M. Wright, “Rehearsing Consent Culture: Revolutionary Playtime” in the anthology Ask: Building Consent Culture edited by Kitty Stryker

This is also, btw, how the US drastically reduced drunk driving in the US. Telling people they shouldn’t drive when intoxicated made absolutely zero difference. A slogan-and-ad-campaign for “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk!” changed drinking culture. Going after the bystanders is quite often the most effective thing to do in any social change.

this ask polly comment..

Okay. Come on, then. I love you, get up, we are going to keep going. Repeat this to yourself in a mirror or in a whisper or in the shower or in a shout. I love you, get up, keep going.

I am tired too. It's okay. We will sleep in the car ride over. We will sleep on each other's shoulders. We will sleep upside down and in the laps of new friends and on the bellies of our lovers and in the hands of better tomorrows. We will sleep and we will wake up rested and we will wake up happy and we will wake up home again.

I love you, get up. It's time to write "maybe next time" on our gravesite. It's time to write: it could not kill me, I would not die. It's time to write a love letter to the sun and our one-act play and the history of our keychains. It is time to write a future where despite everything, we are finally warm and safe.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Get up. Keep going. We are going to be okay.

I CAN'T LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE!!! continues not only living like this but in fact gets actively worse with time

top 10 most divorced men to ever live right behind henry viii

He was bitching about Mackenzie Scott, Bezos’s ex wife, because she’s donated tons of money to nonprofits who support minorities. Man invents a new level of petulance each day.

context is so important/funnier cause omfg this man is so Divorced he's endlessly bitter at ex-wives that aren't even his own

I know "60s housewives who invented slash fanfiction" has taken on a life of its own as a phrase, but Kirk/Spock didn't really exist until the 70s and THOSE WOMEN HAD JOBS. They were teachers and librarians and bookkeepers and scientists and they damn well spent their own money going to conventions, printing zines, buying fanart and making fandom happen. Put some respect on their names.

Salute to our troops (70s careerwomen who put their hard-earned dollars into homemade gay erotica)

the way this gif took tumblr by storm a decade ago

When I was in middle school I got in a fight w my friend abt whether or not this was weird. I was like “why are they knocking their heads against each other like that” and then my friend was like they’re fucking cuddling freak. When I got in a relationship later and nuzzled my partners face for the first time I felt like a fucking virgin for criticizing these women who had already been through so much