knz ☠︎︎

animal welfare advocate + ecology student

[ripknz]

A sketch a while back for a biological illustration assignment 🐺🦴

[ripknz]

[ripknz]

“You should apply for some scholarships”

Meanwhile all the major websites that have scholarships available you have to earn “tokens” for… and how do you earn those tokens?

Through buying bullshit like earbuds or a dog bed from corporations. Or! You can spend $9.99 to get 10 tokens (you need at least 100 to even apply for one)

So you spend minimum $5 to even APPLY… not even to actually get that money back to fund your education.

Capitalism really is everywhere. Fukkkk all you greedy money hungry losers 😒

Anyways here’s an essay I wrote for a scholarship about protecting the environment before I realized you had to pay to even apply. I’m pretty proud of it and it’s just sitting in my google docs so I thought I’d share c:

The environment has been a majorly important aspect of my life for as long as I can remember. I always found myself turning towards nature for solitude and healing, there was always a lesson to be found in the running water and trees as old as myself.

As I got older, my passion for nature and the natural world never faded, but became more extreme. Unfortunately, the more interested I became, the more educated I became.

I learned about the disgusting actions fueled by humans such as deforestation and ocean acidification due to pollution. My lack of understanding about how humans could do this to a system that sustained us for centuries made me hurt and angry, so I made those emotions productive.

I am passionate about the environment because the environment is passionate about us. My passion for protecting the environment stems from my knowledge of ecosystems and how they benefit organisms, humans are no outlier from that fact.

Exploitation of a network that continues to be so generous and offering of their resources is a direct cause of the loss of species I have grown up with and learned so much about myself from.

The natural world has been much more understanding and accepting of myself than any human throughout my life, so I am happy to do what I can to protect it.

My intense emotions were a driving force for my major of choice: wildlife ecology and conservation. I have had a specific passion for animals specifically since I was a little girl, I had always believed I would do something within the veterinary practice.

However, as I learn more about how animals live and benefit from plants, fungi, and abiotic factors, my passion for the overall idea of ecology grows. There are so many complex organisms that many people completely gloss over or show no interest in, despite being the reason for our survival and the evolution of our unique animal species.

My goal with my major is a heavy focus on conserving all parts of the environment, as things that may seem small or irrelevant can be a key part of the survival of wildlife. As I have learned in my climate science and ecology classes, carbon loss is a major problem for many aspects of our environment.

I have educated myself on natural carbon sequestration methods, and have become greatly interested in how restoration of ecosystems can greatly impact the outcomes of greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of ecological distress. Restoring wetlands, forests, and aquatic ecosystems can create crucial carbon attracting sites, eliminating the amount of carbon stored in the atmosphere.

Defeating a problem such as extreme greenhouse gas emissions is greatly beneficial for endangered species and habitats, just like the ones that have been such core parts of my childhood.

Whenever possible, I will take the opportunity to talk about how extraordinary the natural world is, and along with that comes the discussion of conservation and preservation. The advice I give to those around me consists of individual methods they can do to decrease their carbon footprint, such as more walking and biking to short distances rather than taking a car.

However, most of my emphasis is on the fact that knowing who and what you support governmentally and economically has a drastic impact on the wellbeing of the environment. It is important to highlight aspects of life that may not seem like they are important in terms of climate change, such as electing politicians and mindfully sourcing food.

Whenever possible, I recommend shopping at local farmers markets and butcheries for crops and meat, as well as educating others on the policies of government officials.

[ripknz]

The amount of people defending fireworks this year is the biggest indicator of a conservative culture shift

[ripknz]

Thinking about the time I saw a dog community member make a comment about a specific farm being fine because they’re USDA certified and then denying that logic is the same argument used for puppy mills. Why do so many dog people not realize that every area of animal keeping and ethics are more complicated than surface level information? It’s the same idea as dog people ranting about how bad backyard canine breeders are and then buying kittens from outdoor cats that get pregnant once a year.. but idk

[ripknz]

I love being a weirdo freak who collects taxidermy and other nature related items but I cannot stand the lack of education in the vulture culture/taxidermy specifically collecting community.

I hate the redundancy and usage in general of the word “ethical,” because there are no rules to what makes something ethical.

Ethics are entirely determined by an individual, and the fact that people truly believe a shop labeling themselves as “ethically sourced” means they must be is beyond crazy to me. If you a shop supporting (the very unethical practice of) farming animals solely for the purpose of trophies and decor but you make good money from it, would you openly tell the world what you’re supporting? Or would you slap the label that makes people goofy dumb onto your business?

People don’t even bother to figure out what their own personal ethics are anymore, they just listen to what the internet rules as good and bad and it irks me so bad.

I think as a community we should be more focused on using words like “sustainably sourced,” which have at least a general rule of thumb about what fits into sustainable, rather than using a word that can be bent a million different ways and used to manipulate people into supporting practices they deep down don’t even support.

[amnhnyc]

Behold the striking colors of the red-bellied mud snake (Farancia abacura)! Growing up to 6.8 ft (2.1 m) long, this reptile can be found in swampy areas of the southeastern United States. Though it uses its bright colors as a warning to foes, this critter is non-venomous and would sooner flee than fight! When threatened, it might roll over to flash its vibrant underbelly, intimidating would-be predators by mimicking the look of venomous coral snakes. It can also excrete a foul-smelling musk from glands in the base of its tail.

Photo: Peter Paplanus, CC BY 2.0, flickr 

[thequeeranachronism]

If you’re going to shit talk pugs for being brachycephalic but don’t even know chihuahuas are also brachycephalic I don’t think I should have to listen to your opinions on dogs actually. If all you can spout is peta lead misinformation I’m not going to engage in debates with you.

[sebright]

Houndoom

[concreteafterrain]

[dogfancier]

Dugó Dani, a red wirehaired dachshund trained as a retriever in a vizsla kennel in Mórichida, Hungary, 1942

[great-and-small]

An old favorite in my wildlife safety sign collection

[isleypig]

People hate me for my controversial opinions such as “don’t abuse animals for human gain” and “let’s lower our carbon emissions”

[agro-carnist]

I'd be more willing to believe animal rights activists care about the environment if they also boycotted almond milk, weren't against conservation breeding in zoos, didn't use AI to make vegan cartoons, or just in general put any amount of energy into environmental issues that aren't cattle ranching

[alpaca-clouds]

We Really Gotta Talk Animals Protection

Y'all. I wanna talk to you about animals. Specifically I wanna talk to you about super cute animals. Racoons and cats, mostly. I mean, look at them. They are freaking adorable, aren't they?

Yeah, sadly they are also a fucking problem.

Like, environmentally speaking.

So, I talked about this before: I live very very close to a nature preservation area that mostly exists to protect endangered birds. And we do in this area have a problem. And that problem is racoons and cats.

Because here is the thing: in this area there is a bunch of super endangered birds that do lay their eggs on the ground. For which - partially due to agriculture - the safe places in Europe have been dwindling forever. And now there are those critters.

Mind you, those birds always were somewhat endangered for certain types of predation. Most notably the foxes. Foxes go after their nests. But in the area those birds normally nest, foxes are natural predators. They are the kind of predator that like... belongs in the area as much as these birds do.

However, over here in Europe, the racoon is an invasive species. And that is becoming a problem. And so are the cats.

For a bit of history: racoons were brought to Europe mostly as zoo exhibits and exotic pets. But sadly, due to their natural home being climate-wise comparable to Europe, once they got out, they kinda just spread. In central Germany we had racoons for about as long as I can remember. But right now, due to a bunch of ecological factors, they are spreading further north into areas where we have a lot of ground-laying birds. And that is a fucking issue. Because racoons are clever and they are really good at stealing and feasting on those eggs. And that... sucks.

In this nature preservation area there is now a bunch of racoons. And now there is a big fucking issue about what to do with them. Because, well, they cannot stay there. And the environmentally best solution would, well... be to kill them.

And that same issue is with the cats.

The cats are obviously a very more directly man-made problem. We are not fully sure who did it, but the feral cat colony that is out there very likely started with two or three cats that someone illegally released out there three years ago. But they had kittens, and now the colony is a bunch of animals in size and it is becoming an issue.

And of course we are not the only people with issues like this.

As you might know, there is a bunch of Pacific islands that struggle with a bunch of animals that colonizers have brought in and that then spread and endangered or eradicated the local wildlife. Especially cats are a big issue here.

And, well... some of them have come to a solution. And that is... to kill all the invasive animals. Often by allowing people to shoot them.

This very often when one of those stories somehow get pushed in some bigger publication because something shifted or something along those lines, a lot of "animal advocates" will start being very angry and aggressive about this. How those evil people kill cute little kittens.

And I hate those animal advocates so much. Because they are not actually advocating for animals. They are advocating for their own feelings in which a cat is of more value because it is adorable, than some rare ground-laying bird that is kinda brown and boring.

Because here is the truth about both animal welfare and environmentalism: it is not always pretty. At some times you need to kill some adorable mammal to protect some boring kind of bird, or even to protect some insects or spiders. Because those boring or even disgusting animals play a big role in the local ecosystem and are endangered, while the cute animal is an invasive species. And invasive species just have this issue where they do not have natural predators, while the local wildlife has not evolved to fight them off.

The people who argue against this, are not really arguing on the basis of protecting animals. They argue fully on basis of their own feelings, in which it feels more wrong to shoot a cat, than allowing those same cats destroy an entire ecosystem.

If you actually care about animals and the environment, sometimes it means that you need to help rebalance the ecosystem, that we - as homo sapiens - had had a hand in destroying. That is just how those things go. Actual conservation work is often not pretty. And... I am currently really somewhat annoyed with people who proclaim themselves to be those big protectors of animals and the environment, who them will quite literallygo out and protest decisions made by biologists and people who have analyzed the data, because... well, shooting cats or racoons in a wetland area does not feel as nice as signing petitions to not have like a new road built through another wetland area. But both things are important.