(^▽ )y—・˜˜

The Antagonist™ ♒ 🐗 🖤🦇🤍💜 💛🤍💜🖤 She/Her Daddy

[dhktej]

디에루사

[montereybayaquarium]

Welcome home, Willow and Suri. 🦦💙🦦

We’re thrilled to introduce two—yes TWO!—resident otters joining our raft today:

🌬️🍃 Willow’s a tenacious otter who’s never bent to the wind. Though she’s a little shy, this resourceful and inquisitive otter embraces life’s changing tides without getting lost in the current.

🏔️🌊 Suri’s got a big name and a big personality to match! Named after the iconic Big Sur coastline, she’s a bold and confident otter who’s always eager to explore uncharted waters.

This is a full-circle homecoming for Suri and Willow, who were both rescued and rehabilitated here as orphaned pups in 2022. After many adventures together, today Suri and Willow return to us as both charming ambassadors for their species and stellar candidates for our Sea Otter Program.

These otters may one day serve as surrogate mothers to orphaned pups by modeling the skills and behaviors they need for a second chance at life in the wild.

We’re deeply grateful to our fintastic conservation partners at Aquarium of the Pacific and Shedd Aquarium for helping us bring this whiskered and resilient duo home! 🫶

Plan your visit to meet Suri and Willow face-to-fluffy-face here on exhibit, or tune into our live Sea Otter Cam to catch a glimpse of them alongside raftmates Ivy, Opal, and Selka!

[beemovieerotica]

[what-even-is-thiss]

It’s crazy that countries on the edge of the Sahara desert are reversing desertification by just digging half circles

[what-even-is-thiss]

The ground in these places is too compact for water to soak in during wet season which leads to flooding but digging these holes gives the water a place to stop and soak in. And they’re pushing back the desert with this. By just digging holes.

[what-even-is-thiss]

The new plants also help even more water soak into the ground which reduces flooding even more.

These places also give people places to grow food and graze animals like people are turning completely dry compact desert into a refuge for wildlife and plants and solving regional food insecurity just by digging holes.

[untitledgoosegay]

Yacouba Sawadogo - Wikipedia

The half-circles are called zaï! They're a traditional farming practice in the Sahel desert, and their introduction + reintroduction can be largely credited to Yacouba Sawadogo, the man linked above! He reintroduced and innovated on the zaï on his own farm in the 1980s, and did extensive outreach (along with scientist Mathieu Ouédraogo) to encourage other farmers to adopt them as well.

He also promoted the use of cordons pierreux, which are basically just lines of rocks to reduce erosion, preserve sediments, and increase water absorption.

Immensely cool dude. He's been a personal hero since I learned about him.

[she-is-amused]

Ooooh, Mr. Sawadoga innovated the traditional zai method by adding manure and other biological matter to the holes! This put nutrients in the soil as well as helping even more with water retention and attracted termites whose tunnels helped loosen the compacted earth, all of which supported plant-growth like no zai before! Which increased water-retention even further! Oh excellent, excellent work!

[shannoneichorn]

It is a crime that the link preview doesn't show Mr. Sawadoga's face, so here's his photo from Wikipedia.

This is the face of a man adding beauty to the world and making the future better.

[i-am-a-megalodon]

This is beautiful. I love this.

[despazito]

they just added sparkledogs to the kennel club registry

[despazito]

[despazito]

they carried a generation

[iguessweallcrazyithinktho]

Imagine being in your 80s and looking this good 😭 they so badass

[viralfrog]

[elnerdo19v2]

Actually…, yeah 🥹

[bowsersex]

No Scrubs by TLC, music video, 1999

[mystrothedefender]

My coworker said he was having a bad day and I said 'it can't be that bad you haven't started howling like a sad dog yet' and he let out the saddest most pathetic little howl I've ever heard and I was like 'damn ok do you need to have a break?'

[mystrothedefender]

Banned from manager training for making my coworker bark.

[mystrothedefender]

This has become such a meme at work i just asked the store manager how her days going and she went awoo

[mimill3]

animal cell diagram 🦠

[mimill3]

fish

[mentalhellonline]

[impossiblepackage]

[annimatour]

his legs

[todaysbird]

the only celebrity news i care about…peent

[wizardarchetypes]

very irritating how often i see people anthropomorphize nonhuman animals (especially wild animals) on this site and online at large but very disappointing that when someone says 'hey don't project human emotions onto that bird/dog/bear/deer etc.' a bunch of other people are like 'exactly. animals don't care' and then go on to describe nonhuman animals as incapable of sentience, compassion, or thought. perhaps there's a secret option about how nonhuman animals think and feel that's neither 'they think and feel exactly as humans do' nor 'they don't think or feel anything.' but idk i'm just some guy.

[herpsandbirds]

Australian Lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri), family Neoceratodontidae, order Ceratodontiformes, class Dipnoi, Australia

ENDANGERED.

photograph by Bill Hawthorne

[animentality]

[dhktej]

ḩ̷̨͖̳̟͈͖͚͕͉͓̼̆̈́̍͌̀́̆̑̏a̶̧̡̢͓̱̘̲͇͎̤̞̫̻̦̒̾̽̑͒̑͗̈́̔̋̔̀̈́͘ͅḿ̴̱̬̝̜͕̭́̏̔͗̀̕͝b̸̧͔̼̪̺̯̾͑̓͘ų̵͙͈̖̌r̵̟͕̘̝͚̞̦̗̩͓͑͐̋͜͠ḡ̸̙̬͔̮̫̳͈̝̹͂̎̈̌͑̉̓̋̓́̉̚ͅẽ̶̖̬͓̟͕̜͖̿̀͛̕͠r̸̩̥͍̘͖͂̈́̌̒̿͊̓̈́́͑͛