Totally been Bea this whole time

28, gamer, beekeeper, and IT specialist. She/Her and Ace. Has been on this hellsite for too damn long

[detectivehole]

"why do you know that" i am curious about the world around me

[depsidase]

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don't cry. 7,401 species of frog in the world, ok?

[werewolf-transgenderism]

IMPORTANT UPDATE: 7,532 species of frog in the world, ok?!

[werewolf-transgenderism]

great news! 7,556 species of frog in the world, ok?!

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don't cry, now there are 7,576 species of frog in the world, ok?!

[werewolf-transgenderism]

excellent news! 7,591 species of frog in the world, peace and love on planet earth

[werewolf-transgenderism]

guess what! 7,624 species of frog on planet earth, ok?

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don't cry, 7,645 species of frog on planet earth, ok? peace and love on planet autism

[werewolf-transgenderism]

great news! 7,653 species of frog on planet earth, ok?

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don't cry. 7,670 species of frog on planet earth, ok?

[werewolf-transgenderism]

new year new frogs! 7,678 species of frog on planet earth, ok?

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don't cry. 7,683 species of frog in the world, ok? ❤️

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don't cry. 7,698 species of frog in the world, peace and love on planet earth

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don’t cry. 7,701 species of frog in the world, ok?

[wandering-aloneo-o]

@markscherz how many of these do we get to thank you for again?

[markscherz]

95 at present, more on the way :)

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don't cry. 95 species of frog discovered by tumblr's own frog scientist dr. mark scherz, ok?

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don't cry. 7,758 species of frog in the world, yippee!

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don't cry. 7,806 species of frog in the world, ok?

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don’t cry. 7,817 species of frog in the world, peace and love on planet autism 💖

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don't cry. 7,836 species of frog in the world, ok?

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don't cry. 7,864 species of frog in the world, yay!

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hey don't cry. 7,935 species of frog in the world, yippeeeeee

[werewolf-transgenderism]

HEY DON'T CRY. 8,008 SPECIES OF FROG IN THE WORLD PER AMPHIBIAWEB AND THE 8,000TH FROG WAS DESCRIBED BY TUMBLR'S OWN FROG SCIENTIST DR. Scherz, ET AL., PEACE AND LOVE ON PLANET EARTH ‼️‼️‼️

[ckret2]

getting scambot messages from random accounts that clearly used to be normal active blogs is sad enough. you know that there used to be a real person on that blog until they were tricked into handing their password to the digital fae.

but it's an entirely new level of tragic when somebody you've actually spoken to gets turned into a bot account. it's like peeking at a zombie apocalypse through the window and realizing one of the shambling corpses was your friend.

and then the zombie catches sight of you, lurches up to your window, and shouts through the glass that they accidentally reported your account to tumblr and you'll be deactivated unless you click this link.

RIP to the blog that used to DM me to tell me they liked my new chapters. Their last known words spoken before being turned, 17 hours ago: "Ggs!" They were praising someone's deadlift.

[ckret2]

the message they tried to get me with is probably the same message that got them, so for anybody who hasn't already been warned about the signs of a zombie account:

if you get something like this ↑ they're gonna follow up by instructing you to contact tumblr support on discord and give you contact info; or they're gonna link a website that looks sort of like tumblr support and say you have to email them; or any variety of "you must now contact tumblr, here is how you contact tumblr."

whatever they send you, it Does Not lead to tumblr. it leads to the master zombie that bit them and inducted them into the ranks of the undead, and will bite you the second they have your email and password. i might be confusing zombies and vampires. anyway,

it's easier to fall for these messages because the blog doesn't LOOK like a bot blog, because it ISN'T a bot blog. it's a normal person's blog that got accessed by a bot, meaning the blog's content CLEARLY looks like a real active user when you click on it. and yes—it might even be a blog you already know. sometimes bots like this go down a blog's DMs or reblogs and message people they've previously interacted with.

they got one of my treasured followers, and they can get you too. don't fall for their tricks. know the signs.

[thistoowillpasss]

[thistoowillpasss]

[thistoowillpasss]

[thistoowillpasss]

[kittykittyredcat]

[sadclowncentral]

so many misguided metaphors around violence and desire. if the open maw of a panting beast fills you with the want to be devoured, that does not make you prey. while the rabbit trembles in fear, its deepest desire is to run. evolution demands it. in fact, the desire to be eaten does not make you any small animal at all.

it makes you a fruit.

[sumverendus]

[sandpancakecat]

[alsophila-grahami]

mutuals to sit under this thing with

[catchymemes]

[lumberjackloverboy-moved]

for my fellow psychotics who struggle with thinking someone is in their house, a method I’ve found that really works are these guys:

i put them on my front door and anytime it opens they ring. that way if i think someone has broken in or i see someone who isn’t there i can think back to if the bells have rung, and if they haven’t i can assure myself it’s not real. obviously it’s not fool proof, like if you are prone to auditory hallucinations, but it has really helped me calm down in time to avoid major psychotic breaks. it’s a real lifesaver

nonpsychotics encouraged to rb

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[only-tiktoks]

[britney-j-christ]

[softservecanine]

You’re completely correct. Out of my way, able-bodied losers. Fuck you.

[cordia1ly]

If the lord ever got attached to a toy, he would never be able to let it go

[so-much-for-subtlety]

[magnusttsisgay-official]

Jarvis, pull up that variable meme.

[maplecinnamonbun]

i’m reminded of the developer of a mapping software who had a variable named ‘legend_handles’ that got refactored into ‘leg_handles,’ ‘leg_hands,’ and finally ‘feet’

[terraswallows]

This is the way.

[flowerais-deactivated20211031]

you can still radiate light if you’re sad. you can still be kind and soft-hearted if you’re a bit cynical. you don’t need to be the happiest person to make someone else’s day better.

[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."

[beardedmrbean]

[prokopetz]

Horses exist in zoos, you're pretty sure. That's where they, more or less, belong. It's not like there's a stable next to the auto shop or something. Are there… wild horses? In… nature? Presumably, at some point, there must have been. Probably not, anymore. Oh, the race tracks, though. Duh. They probably have stables. Couldn't lose twenty thousand wen a day if there weren't losing horses to bet on. Horses don't belong at the gas station, but there's one here anyways. Its rider is wearing a leather jacket studded with old military medals; what looks like a torso-sized cogwheel, slung over her back like a shield; a broadsword, underneath the cog-shield; and a pair of holo-screen shades. She dismounts. She slides her card through the machine. The pumps start pumping. The horse sticks out its neck, dips its snout, and begins drinking gasoline directly from the nozzle. The rider holds the spout up to the horse's mouth, at a bit of an awkward angle. She meets your eyes, and shrugs. You know how it is. You don't know how it is. Later, you will see her on the news, clotheslining a police officer on horseback at seventy miles per hour. You will understand even less, and also, so much more.

— Emily Zhu, Ten Thousand Days For the Sword