Owl Alhena

French girl. St Seiya, specters forever and things I find pretty.All art belong to their authors

[musashi]

Hey can you guys reblog Cheeseburger so he can take a sunbeam nap on lots of blogs. No other reason I just want you guys to see him.

[musashi]

So, Cheeseburger died on November 21st after an unfairly short battle with an unfairly rare cancer that is rarely seen in cats. I only got to spend a month with him after his diagnosis, and losing him has been the greatest heartbreak of my entire life so far. He was my best friend and my soul cat, and he was there for me when I was completely alone, for twelve long years.

I made this transparent PNG the night he died in preparation for one of the many ways I was going to memorialize him--a surface rug in his likeness that I planned on laying directly in the line of his favourite sunbeam. And I uploaded that PNG here, because this is the website where people post their cats.

I was not expecting the reception I got. Many people have pointed out that this post has more reblogs than likes, and how insane that is in 2025 when reblog culture is at an all time low. I didn't even talk about the fact that Burger passed away in the original post, it wasn't a tearjerker reblog bait or anything like that. People just loved Burger that much, in the same way I fell in love with him at first sight. He was such an ugly kitten.

Anyways, it's really special to me that so many people have reblogged my best friend. I made this PNG to memorialize him in a completely different way, and you all wound up doing just that in ways I never even imagined.

Thank you. Wherever he is, I know the sun is shining.

[golden-biro]

Little play time to beat the January blues. Trying out some new brushes in procreate with my favourite grumpy (old) man.

[turrondeluxe]

let's loaf with mama

yeah

[landsccape]

[andallshallbewell]

[halloweentrickortreat]

🎨 Joy Laforme

[greece-greecia]

Tom fell in love with Death — the master of death. He went from fearing him to craving his scent and his presence.

[cute-catts]

Happy fall 🍁🎃🐈‍⬛

[important-animal-images]

[filibusterfrog]

paladin oaths :)!

[great-and-small]

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

[handforthstudy]

Unfortunately, I don’t have citations, but I have heard about the same phenomenon through Nat Geo Live presentations in the Amazon and Serengeti. Most individuals who are poachers or use slash-and-burn farming are doing this out of survival, not ignorance or greed. They have families to feed and children who will starve if they don’t find food or money. As OP said, fixing the human suffering fixes the conservation issue and is a win-win, while preaching conservation to starving people does nothing.

But on top of that, you know who the most ardent conservationists are once security has been achieved? The people who had once been forced to poach or slash-and-burn to survive. You know who’s great at tracking down gorilla poachers? Ex-poachers. Who’s good at understanding and advocating for people forced to do these things to survive? Ex-poachers. Who can convince others to take a chance on finding a better way to survive? Same answer.

It is win-win-win. As ecologists, conservationists, and environmentalists we must get out of our ivory towers of knowledge, stop carrying them into the field, and remember humans are part of the ecosystem too. And that sustainable change will never happen if human needs aren’t addressed.

[buttons-beads-lace]

I also love this story about the arapaima in Brazil. They increased the population of this endangered giant fish literally a hundred times over- from 3,000 to 300,000- by ending the total ban on arapaima fishing and instead creating legal fishing organizations. The fishing organization members get trained on how do population counts and determine how many fish they can take while still leaving enough for the population to grow.

The former illegal fishers are now sought-after experts, because they know how to spot the arapaima and tell juveniles apart from adults. They get to keep practicing the fishing skills that were passed down to them. The actual process of fishing is easier because they can work together and don't have to sneak around. The profits are higher because they can sell the fish openly to restaurants and to the public. The fishing organization members make sure that other people in their communities don't fish illegally. And the numbers of arapaima keep going up and up, so there's plenty to go around even as more people join the fishing organizations.

If you click all the way through to the report from the conservation org that started the fishing organizations project, there are quotes from fishing organization members:

"We built a second house and I'm putting my oldest two kids through college on the money we get from fishing."

"Nowadays you have young people walking around with pockets full of cash saying "I got 6,000 from fishing this year!" It used to be you wouldn't even get 50 reais of pocket money."

"At the first harvest after we started the fishing organization, I saw full-grown arapaima for the first time, really big ones like they're supposed to be. Before, I had only heard about how big they could get. That's when I knew that our work was paying off and we could keep moving forward."

[terrypratchettestate]

On 27th August 2015, The Shepherd's Crown, the last book Sir Terry Pratchett completed before he died, was published. To mark the ten year anniversary, we have a message from Rob Wilkins.

If you do finally crack the spine on The Shepherd's Crown, or have done so over the last decade, we'd love to hear from you, see your photos, or hear your tales. As Rob says: enjoy. The Discworld journey is never over.

[basile1a]

Ἑστια

to Hestia, goddes of hearth and home

Hestia, in the high dwellings of all, both deadless gods and men who walk on earth, you have gained an everlasting abode and highest honor: glorious is your portion and your right. For without you, mortals hold no banquet.

[peterfromtexas-deactivated20250]

Reenactor throws a spear at a drone

[supapoopa]

What a time to be alive.

[tenthcorner]

“The medieval warrior, realizing the consequences of his impulsive act, immediately approached the owner of the drone and offered to pay for the damage.

The owner of the drone was so impressed by the brilliant attack that he suggested organizing a competition for bringing down “dragons” with short spears next year.

Drone owners have another year to develop a unique “dragon-like” design for their flying machines.” (x)

[kineticpenguin]

I am 100% cooler with this knowing that the spear-thrower realized “oops maybe I shouldn’t have done that” and tried to make it right, and that the guy who the drone belonged to was cool with it

[brunhiddensmusings]

just so everyone knows, this has already been memorialized in a runestone

[stephendann]

Everything about this post blesses those involved with a +4 on their next Today is Good Day roll

[br3adtoasty]

some of the god designs i did over on instagram

[t4tstarvingdog]

*through gritted teeth* every day i choose to be kind *barely restraining myself from violence* i choose to have compassion *tamping down the vicious bloodlust inside me* i choose to care and to be kind and to love

[dystopian-intellectual-pigeon]

Every Terry Pratchett protagonist

[the-clumsywitch]