only the birds

[liminalsimian]

my world is a wonderful place

i did not choose

the atmosphere too hard to breathe for most other organisms

thank you for visiting anyway

[sealsdaily]

Today's Seal Is: Hiccup... Hiccup... Hiccup

[holy-leapin-splits-batman]

[targetedknowledge]

[alex-and-nova420]

made this into a gif bc i liked it so much. shark Denied

[hoodiegal]

"Hiii can I come visit you?"

"Nuh-uh. No sharks allowed."

"Okaaaaay"

[whydidisavethistomyphone]

[depsidase]

[hypotenussy]

this guy is what I imagined god looked like when I was 4 years old so yeah he can say it

[hypotenussy]

does this visual aid help you at all

^ what i pictured whenever mom talked to me about god as a kid

[certified-muppet-posts]

certified sesame street post

[cutecipher]

99% of users on tumblr are some sort of gay as fuck animal

[achillesinhighheels]

sorry i can’t go out tonight i’m at home sitting down

[thatchronicfeeling]

a FANFARE for anyone who had to stop playing a musical instrument because of chronic illness or disability.

[pomgore]

i love learning about animals ive literally never seen or heard of before. what amazing diversity of life on this planet earth. what the hell is a japanese serow

[pomgore]

goat dog

[vfeioa]

[sunshinestarseed-deactivated202]

[weirdgirl247]

every year small towns and indigenous communities across canada are burnt to nothing by horrific wildfires and americans go on the internet to complain about it and blame us bc the smoke has spread to their state. i’m so tired.

go yell at mark carney or your own local politicians about climate change and urge them to do more to stop it. the namaygoosisagagun first nation had their community destroyed today. you can find a link to donate to them here. donate to your local food bank. go to the beach next week when the smoke clears and you don’t have to think about it anymore while the people who’s lives have been destroyed will have to pick up the pieces and try to move forward when we are already in a huge cost of living crisis across the country.

[weirdgirl247]

rbing with other places you can donate to to support those impacted by the fires!

true north aid (an organization aimed at providing support to remote/northern indigenous people in canada)

canadian red cross wildfire fund

ontario spca and humane society (links to their donate page specifically aimed at supporting pets and animals in areas impacted by the fires)

and the anishinabek nation’s page where you can donate to support the namaygoosisagagun nation who had their land destroyed by the fires is still accepting donations

[wizardarchetypes]

i am so serious when i say dark and quiet are both human rights.

i don't mean like absolute silence. obviously in an ideal community, there would still be sound and noise from people and music and work etc. but it haunts me that when i camp in the forest i can hear the howl of semi trucks on the interstate miles away. and the people who live beside it never know quiet. it haunts me that many people will live their whole lives never seeing the stars in the sky that were fully visible with NO electric light pollution as recently as my great-grandparents' childhoods.

so much of our lives is bright bright unnecessary noise. neon mcdonalds signs 200 feet in the air so we can see it from the road. led lights over billboards. parking lots lit up like sports stadiums at closed office buildings. advertisements playing at gasoline pumps. streets lined with led porch lights and decorative garden lights that genuinely threaten entire species of wildlife. music blaring outside pharmacies to deter homeless people. everything always shining and wailing for no purpose but profit and cruelty.

obviously not everything can be turned off or made quiet and i wouldn't want it to be anyway and there is a lot of nuance and room for "but what about" here, but MANY things HAVE to change because none of us are supposed to live like this and we shouldn't have to!!!

[wutheringheightsfilm]

before i go to bed because im ill again i just briefly want to say that white people's adoration and frankly over the top love of (certain) animals taking precedence over their care about people of color is disturbing and needs to be dealt with. saw an insta reel today of a girl who adopted a cat whose owners were abducted by ICE and the comments were just filled with "omg the poor cat!" "i feel so bad for the cat!" "omg it probably thinks it was abandoned!!!" "omg the cat!!" okay and what about the owners. what about the people who owned that cat and loved it and will probably never see it again. the owners that like no one knows the names of? the owners? like the people that owned the cat that got kidnapped so suddenly their cat was just left? what about the people. the owners. like remember them? people who are living their worst nightmare?

or the way yt people will prioritize animals in gaza over the humans that live there. or the way yt people will prioritize animals over like real human laborers farming in unsafe and deadly conditions for their agave or whatever vegan trend of the month. or the way yt ppl will tout ecofascist talking points in favor of animals and against human beings. or the way yt people try and push universal veganism instead of food sovereignty and dismiss the culinary traditions of indigenous groups. and and and

[skritzzy]

I feel like any aliens that were prey at some point in evolution would have an odd fear of humans. Mostly cause they look like predators, act a bit like predators, and ARE predators. One perfect example is when we're focused on something like a mosquito that's been bugging us for a long time and we are just done.

Alien: "What. What..?"

Human: *HUNTING down a mosquito it saw*

Alien: ".... yeah I am really uncomfortable...."

Human: *quiet footsteps, pupils dialated, intense focus,*

Alien: *WAR FLASHBACKS*

Human: "Found you." *absolutely desimates the mosquito, squashing it into a million pieces as it's guts and various body parts liquidize into blood of the bloodthirsty, now stained on the palm of the human. A living being now reduced to a useless corpse as the human wipes the remains on their pants*

Alien: "I feel like I've just gained trauma."

[graylinesspam]

okay fucking fun addition to this post. Hunting instincts in humans absolutely still exist and are usually triggered either by fascination or anger. The polar opposite of flight is pursue. An anecdote for this is that the other day my sister, who is an avid "take the bug outside in a cup" rescues kittens in her free time kinda person, looked out the window and saw a chicken in the middle of our driveway. which is a very unusual occurrence despite us living in the country.

All she had to do was say the words "there's a chicken" and her as well as my own body language immediately shifted. We were out the door and in the yard already sorta hunched over and walking on the balls of our feet, fucking flanking this chicken. No words were exchanged. We just slowly circled this chicken like a couple of rabid dogs. totally single-mindedly focused on capturing the prey.

The chicken could feel it, it immediately began counter maneuvers to avoid us and it was faster. But there were two of us and we knew the land better, we knew how to herd it into a corner, carefully watching it's body language and lurching to counter it's escape attempts. And it was fucking thrilling.

Of course, when we both closed in on it and finally got our hands on the poor thing we simply took it into the back patio away from the cats and the vultures that wanted to actually finish the job. No harm came to the bird. We located its owner and returned him to his flock but still. From an outside perspective, it was a bit unnerving. And for the chicken, it was no different than being hunted. He was just lucky enough that we were predators who appreciated the companionship of pets and were more concerned with returning him to his humans than eating him.

Now imagine any fucking alien species watching a pair of humans, who literally rehabilitate animals in their free time, who are not soldiers and seem to be totally domesticated, just absolutely flip a switch and turn into pack-hunting pursuit predators? On a single word.

(felt like the bulldog from Rio's bird chasing monologue hit a little too hard after this)

[silvergryphonart]

I would even argue that humans need to do this, so much so that we’ve invented a million and one ways to satisfy this instinct.

Photography.

Ball games.

I Spy.

Playing hunting games with the fellow predators we keep as pets.

Hide and seek.

Many hobbies that involve prolonged seeking behaviour or watching something to make sure it’s moving right.

I 100% feel myself slipping into “hunt mode” doing jigsaw puzzles, changed movement and all—same as when I’m out birding—and my mental health seems to get better afterwards.

[pyroteknich]

That laser focus you get when your pet has a limp. The "why are you limping/are you limping?" look. I get the feeling that between that, and watching us play video games, that predatory instinct would be very visible. Not only that, we teach other animals to hunt with us. And one is a prey animal. Dogs we teach to hunt with us. But we also teach horses to hunt. Specifically, cattle horses. If you have never seen a cattle horse work when it is cutting a cow from the herd, you should. That is peak predator behavior. Watch a pack of wolves separating a caribou from the herd, then watch a cutting horse work. Certain motions are exactly the same, but very eerie on a herd animal. We are such consummate predators that we have mastered the art of training a herd animal to behave like a part of a pack of predators. I say this as someone who has worked with cutting horses, has trained horses (not to cut, but to jump and do dressage), and lives in an area where cattle is a big industry. As predators, we are terrifying.

[somestorythoughts]

#a group of three or more juvenile humans will spontaneously reinvent 'tag' if there's space to run even if they don't share a language.

[dorothygale]

pop health science is so annoying bc it'll be like "did you know? eating strawberries will give you mega cancer" and you're like pfft whatever begone influencer. but sometimes then you'll see a reasonably credible article like "Study Shows Possible Link Between Strawberries and Mega Cancer" and you're not usually the type to follow that kind of thing religiously but idk maybe you should consider not eating strawberries? but then there's another article saying "Strawberry/Mega Cancer Study Debunked" and it turns out the original study had a sample size of 3 and was funded by Big Blueberry, and strawberries may have a small connection to mega cancer but only if you are genetically predisposed to mega cancer and eat 50 strawberries every day. so you return to your strawberry eating life. but whenever you eat strawberries in public someone tells you about the mega cancer.