Lost at sea, found in a tree...

I am both a lil' vegan faerie and a grumpy asshole-ish bear. I want to believe in "Peace and Love" whilst being so full of rage I might very well one day explode. GO VEGAN !

[headspace-hotel]

"Disaster Taxon," poem assembled using text from Wikipedia articles

[webcomicname]

[this-bear-has-wings]

This is me right now... can’t seem to focus and so much to do :!

[vintagewildlife]

Coelacanth By: Seaphot/Planet Earth Pictures From: Brooke Bond Tea Cards 1987

[this-bear-has-wings]

I love him...

[flourishingskeleton]

Can you talk more about cat saliva being toxic to small animals? That’s really interesting, I’d never heard of that until today. What exactly does it do?

So cat saliva contains a bacterium that is very difficult to fight off for many small creatures such as small mammals, birds and reptiles.

To understand this fully, we need a few points.

Bacteria are classified as Gram-Negative and Gram-Positive depending on what color they turn when they are introduced to a Gram Stain procedure. This is essentially a dye that colors the bacteria on a microscope slide to make them easier to see.

Gram-Negative (G-) will turn pink/red and Gram-Positive (G+) will turn purple. I remembered this in school by connecting the N in Pink to Negative.

G- bacteria has an extra outer shell or cell membrane that adds a layer of protection. That layer makes these bacteria very difficult to get rid of, and these are the bacteria that often develop antibiotic resistance if antibiotics are not finished properly.

The bacteria that cats carry most often in their saliva is Pasteurella multocida. [This] is a bacterium found in the mouths of between 70 and 90 percent of cats, and it has been found in between 50 and 80 percent of cat bites in humans that become serious enough to seek medical attention. Cat bites infected with this organism may develop pain, swelling, and redness at the wound site within 24 to 48 hours. Pasteurella-infected cat bite wounds are successfully treated with antibiotic therapy in the vast majority of cases, but more serious complications, such as the spread of bacteria through the blood stream and infection of heart valves, may occur in rare cases.

Cat teeth are made to exploit this to the fullest. Your cat's canine teeth (the long ones at the front, or fangs as some will call them) are built like needles. Long and skinny, and they have a groove on the outer side. This allows them to bite down and implant this dangerous bacteria into the wound, and then the puncture is so small that the wound seals up, trapping the bacteria inside. This causes infection very quickly.

As humans, we have the benefit of antibiotic therapy. The prey a cat will feed on does not. It doesn't take much for a mouse or a bird to have a single bite and have it turn septic. Even in people with proper treatment, its not uncommon to end up in the hospital with IV antibiotics. I know a few fellow RVTs that have lost fingers or limbs due to cat bites. One of my coworkers almost ended up getting surgery on her hand last year because the cat bit into a joint, and therefore the infection spread much faster.

For a prey animal, these infections are deadly and can be extremely difficult to fight off. Even in other cats, they will turn into abscesses within days.

Cat bites are not to be messed around with. If you have a cat bite that breaks skin, keep a very close eye on it.

[this-bear-has-wings]

This is why in wildlife rescue every “predation, cat” new admission is treated as an emergency and immediately put on a course of antibiotics.

[headspace-hotel]

Dandelions symbolize everything I want to be in life

[main-river]

Fluffy and dead with a gust of wind?

[headspace-hotel]

Unapologetic. Hard to kill. Feral, filled with sunlight, bright, beautiful in a way that the conventional and controlling hate but cannot ever fully destroy. Stubborn. Happy. Bastardous. Friends with bees. Highly disapproving of lawns. Full of wishes that will be carried far after I die.

[lost-forest-heart]

I hate that I'll never be able to marvel at the branches of a tree creaking beneath the weight of more birds than I can fathom. That I'll never know how a dodo moved and interacted with an environment that's no longer there, ate the fruits of trees that died without them there. That I'll never be in shock of how big a Steller's Sea Cow truly is. That I'll never hear what sounds a thylacine made, and can only guess what frightening marsupial growl it might've made. I hate that I'll never hear the drumming of an ivory billed woodpecker, that I'll never hear the unique songs Carolina parakeets must have sang. I hate how many must have died in silence, invisible and without a voice- how many are gone that I'll never know? How many of you have suffering that will never be told? Suffocating, drowning, fleeing from homes lost- how many of you never had the chance to react? Suddenly it was just over. You were gone. How many invertebrates were left undiscovered, dying out in a garden beneath the merciless poisons humans made to eradicate you, not caring if you were the only ones? How many were deemed too small to document, to acknowledge, to name? You existed, and I love you and I miss you! No matter how small or silent you may have been. Whether you were an insect, a plant, a fungus, a bird, or anything else. You were here. You effected this world in ways we'll never get to see, but I know we are worse off for your loss.

Always, you'll at least find sanctuary in my heart.

[tiz-aves]

[Species] | Common pipistrelle

The common pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) is a tiny bat with a huge range, spanning across Europe, North Africa South Asia, stretching as far east as possibly Korea and (in Europe) as far North as Finland.

22 years ago, in 1999 the common pipistrelle was split into two species on the basis that the frequency used for echolocation-calls is different. Also of course the 11% genetic divergence, but psh. Anyhow, the species written about here uses a call at 45 kHz while the soprano pipistrelle uses 55 kHz. Also, since then more differences in appearance, behaviour, diet, and habitat preferences have been uncovered.

When the common pipistrelle was first formally described, the German naturalist responsible for it (a guy who’s been dead for almost 211 years), placed it in the genus Vespertilio. 29 years later, a Baltic-German geologist and palaeontologist reclassified it as belonging to the Vesperugo genus for some reason. Finally, in 1897 an American botanist moved it to Pipistrellus, which is the classification still recognised today. “Pipistrellus” is derived from an Italian word, and means bat.

Given that it’s a microbat, it’s no surprise that the common pipistrelle is only 3.7 to 5.2 centimetres long from head to body. They weigh from 3.5 to 8 grams and have a wingspan from 18 to 25 centimetres, five times their own body length. Like the body, the muzzle is short, and a variable brown.

Like most other bats too, the common pipistrelle is a nocturnal and gregarious creature, that spends its days sleeping in roosts and its nights hunting along woodland edges and treelines. Around mid-October individuals start becoming less active, preparing for winter hibernation, a process that lasts until spring. Hibernation is done in warm and sheltered places, such as cellars, deep rock-crevices, hollow trees, or bat boxes.

The common pipistrelle is an edge specialist, which, as the name leaves to suggest, means that its specialised on hunting and foraging along the edges of woodlands, or isolated tree lines. Like most bats in its family, it is entirely insectivorous and feeds on flies, lacewings, mosquitoes, midges, gnats, caddisflies, and mayflies.

Although mating occurs sometime in autumn - just before hibernation -, females delay fertilisation until sometime in May or June. Pregnancy lasts around 50 days and results in 1 to 2 pups, which become independent after around 30 days.

Even though the International Union for the Conversation of Nature (IUCN) considers the common pipistrelle a species of least concern, they are threatened by the intensification of farming, car collisions, pesticides and some more. As of 2008 there was no evidence of rapid conversation decline, and no accurate population estimates exist.

Photo credits: Dave, gavsidey

Sources: Wikipedia the Free Encyclopaedia, Animalia - All You Want to Know About Animals

Written the 24th of October

Distribute your wealth!

[nightjarring]

I REALLY love the puppets people use to rear wild birds

[this-bear-has-wings]

I would seriously love to get a hold on some of these...

The bearded vulture and condor ones are beyond amazing, but the crane ones are seriously disturbing, they look like the attire of some occult sect in a dark fantasy setting !

[faerie-bear]

[acti-veg]

I am still seeing far too many people, especially leftists, hiding behind circumstances that don’t effect them as a way to avoid reflecting on their own stance on animal rights. If you are bringing up indigenous subsistence hunters, disabled people or people in food deserts when you don’t belong to any one of those groups then that is you using other people’s lives and struggles as a smokescreen for your own, freely made choices.

When you see a post on your dash, asking you why you aren’t vegan, then the circumstances of any other individual or any group that you don’t belong to is completely irrelevant. This is the question being asked of you: If you have the option of causing less harm, of changing your lifestyle in order to avoid causing harm to animals and reducing your environmental impact by a significant margin in the process, then why won’t you?

[acti-veg]

Vegan Resources

Reasons to Go Vegan

Animal Rights

Animal Welfare

Human Rights

The Environment

Resource Use

The Impact of Veganism

The Moral Imperative

How to Go Vegan

Methods For Going Vegan

What To Expect

What Vegans Eat

What Vegans Don’t Eat

Vegan Grocery List

Vegan Food Substitutions

Vegan Clothing

Vegan Cosmetics

Budgeting

Nutrition

Making Mistakes

Education

Eating Animals

Carnism

Speciesism

Othering Animals

Denialism

Cognitive Dissonance

Making The Connection

Animals Rights vs Animal Welfare

Animal Rights Issues

Animals as Food

Animals as Clothing

Animals as Entertainment

Animals as Sport

Animals as Companions

Animal Testing

Advice

Staying Motivated

Getting Involved

Effective Vegan Advocacy

Keeping Calm While Advocating

Self-Care

Further Research

Practical Guide to Veganism: Free eBook

Frequently Asked Questions

More Animal Rights Issues

Books and Media

Meal Ideas and Recipes

Tag Index

Sources

[this-bear-has-wings]

Wildlife rescue - baby weasel (Mustela nivalis)

[sealrescueireland]

Honeysuckle giving us serious 👀 👀 vibes

(As a note she is blue due to the antibiotic spray that we had to use around her neck)

[this-bear-has-wings]

Haha, she reminds me of my little pink baby from last summer!

(she had a severe infection of the umbilical cord, hence the antibiotic spray...seals just end up, inevitably, entirely covered after a little while)

[jenny-jinya]

[this-bear-has-wings]

House Rabbit Society

[andtosaturn]

since people are asking, here’s a list of places you can donate to help the australian bushfires. donating literally $1 means you have done more than our prime minister. (* = can donate internationally; for the other ones you might have to google it) 

cfa (VIC firefighters) 

rfs (NSW firefighters)*

rfbaq (QLD firefighters) 

cfs (SA firefighters) 

red cross*

WWF NSW bushfire crisis*

WWF koala crisis* (both WWF links are in aud so use a currency converter if you’re outside aus)

St Vincents NSW (partnership with channel 9)

St Vincents SA 

RSPCA NSW 

here is a list from the abc (but maybe don’t donate to the salvos bc they suck) (x)

i’ll keep it updated as i find more

[drferox]

If you want to avoid the big organisations and help the battlers more locally on the ground, here’s an incomplete list. The firefighters are vital and working hard, and some local stations are set up to take donations directly. But if you want a more animal-focused bent (because that’s what I do)…

Mallacoota Wildlife Shelter (koalas and wildlife in the thick of the East Gippsland fires in Victoria right now, bank details on the Jan 2nd post)

Wires.org.au Wildlife rescue

Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, in NSW.

Adelaide Koala and Wildlife Hospital, in South Australia (coping it hard since Xmas day)

Currumbin Wildlife Hospital, in SE Queensland.

Ipswich Koala Protection Society, in Queensland.

Koalas in Care (NSW, takes paypal)

Vets Beyond Borders is a large organization which will accept donations, and also coordinated AVERT - the Australian Veterinary Emergency Response Team. Vets, vet nurses and vet techs can register as volunteers there.

And there are other organizations that can be helped in other ways.

Medical Pantry, a collective which gathers unused or surplus medical supplies for redistribution. They will be helping supply what they can.

If you have space in your home, Airbnb Open Homes lets you register your home for displaced people or relief workers to offer them accommodation.

There are fodder drops being organized for livestock in affected areas but…well, some of these areas are not accessible yet and nobody’s quire sure what’s alive down there. But there will be a need for fodder and agistment paddocks for horses and livestock.

Some shelters or vet hospitals will also need things like feed/waterbowls and dog crates to house wildlife. A local organisation might have a pickup point near you, or some clinics will have staff registered to go as volunteers when asked.

In addition, some local knitters/sewers/crafters guild will be turning old cotton and flannelette material into pouches and wraps for injured wildlife. If you’ve got a local group, see what they’re doing and what you can donate out of the cupboards. I know Wonderground in South East Melbourne has a sewing day this Sunday (5thof Jan) and they are local to me, but see which groups are local to you.

This is the most up-to-date list of crafted products required that I have at the moment.

(From Animal Rescue freecycle)

[this-bear-has-wings]

Anyone interested in the sewing patterns for the craft projects mentioned can find them here.

[truly-fantastic-me]

“wouldn’t you rather earn something than have it just handed to you?”

Yeah when it comes to actual awards and fancy goods, but when it comes to basic needs, basic human decency, and accomodations, those things should always be handed to people. No one should have to “earn” those things.Value people as people, not base it on how much they produce. 

[mythiass-deactivated20230515]

yeah but that creates a severe dependency that could be exploited easily, and creates a slippery slope @musical-clarity

[thebaconsandwichofregret]

Actually studies show that people who live in places with universal income (who are given money with no strings attached just for being citizens) do far better work than those who don’t and are more enthusiastic to do work.

This is because they still want nice things and will work for those but the part of their energy that was devoted to worrying about if they have enough money to pay the rent and bills this month is now freed up to do other things.

Some people will always be lazy and take advantage of the system, but they are always a tiny percentage and it seems ridiculous to me to punish the majority and severly hamstring their abilities just because a handful of people will simply live of basic income rather than work.

[keep-counting-stars]

Do you have sources? I’m trying to convince a friend

[thebaconsandwichofregret]

Providing Personalised Support to Rough Sleepers. An Evaluation of the City of London Pilot by Juliette Hough and Becky Rice (2010)  - This is a study on what happens when you just give homeless people money instead of setting up expensive bureaucratic programs. Spoilers: the vast majority of people get off the streets.

Policy Brief: Impacts of Unconditional Cash Transfers by Johannes Haushofery and Jeremy Shapiroz - A look at the new trend of charities just giving people in need money and letting them get on with it. (Case study is a charity called GiveDirectly)

Cash Transfers and Temptation Goods. A review of Global Evidence by the World Bank Policy Research Working Group - This study shows that poor people who are just given money do not spend any more than they usually would on luxury goods such as alcohol and tobacco and in some cases the spending on these items actually decreases.

“Cash Transfers for Children. Investing into the Future” An Editorial article in The Lancet - This is the study that out and out says giving people money makes them less lazy and less dependant on the state. Direct quote:

“Emerging data from cash transfers, conditional or unconditional, largely dispel the counter arguments that these programs prevent adults from seeking work or create a dependency culture which perpetuates intergenerational poverty.”

The Town With No Poverty by Evelyn Forget - A look at the case study of Dauphin Manitoba that introduced “mincome” to the poorest citizens to bring everyone above the poverty line.

Why Not Guarantee Everyone a Job? Why Negative Income Tax Experiments of the 1970s Were Successful by Allan Sheahen (warning this link is a download link, not a webpage) - Study of a similar “mincome” experiment in Denver that found that when people did stop working as many hours as they had done before the money it was because they were furthering their education or working hours better suited to raising their children. One woman who had dropped out of High School to get a job in order to provide for her children went back into education and ended up with a psychology degree and a job as a researcher.

“Daniel Moynihan and President-Elect Nixon: How Charity Didn’t Begin at Home” by Peter Passell and Leonard Ross for The New York Times - This is a look at how President Richard Nixon (Yes, that Richard Nixon) wanted to introduce basic income to the USA and was defeated by ignorant congressmen and senators that trusted their gut over the clear evidence. 

The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend: An Experiment in Wealth Distribution by Scott Goldsmith - This is a look at Alaska’s policy of using the State oil revenue to give every single citizen $1000 a year.

Relationships Between poverty and Psychopathology - A study that outlines how growing up poor exposes children to a myriad of psychological problems and mental illnesses.

Assessing the Economic and Non-Economic Impacts of Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, North Carolina - The Harrah Cherokee Casino is widely studied and a resounding success as a case study for Basic Income.

An Estimate of the cost of child poverty in 2013 by Donald Hirsch - This is a British study that estimates child poverty costs £29 billion (£44 Billion-ish). Basically child poverty is massively expensive for governments and Basic Income could essentially pay for itself by removing these expenses.

When Pundits Blamed White People for a Culture of Poverty by Matt Bruenig - Article that discusses how the idea that poor people are lazy and deserve to suffer is racist, classist and morally dangerous.

Rediscovering Poverty: How We Cured ‘The Culture of Poverty’ Not Poverty Itself by Barbara Ehrenreich - An article on how trying to improve the morals of the poor so they can work harder and get themselves out of poverty is a ridiculous waste of time and money and quite frankly an insult to the people we force into these programs. My favourite waste of money that Ehrenreich points out is the $250 million dollars that President Clinton set aside for ‘Chastity Training’ for impoverished single mothers, the US government in the 90s simply assuming that poor women were too stupid to understand where babies came from and that’s why they were poor, rather than, you know, having no money, no support structures and no affordable child care and healthcare.

In the Shadow of Speenhamland: Social Policy and the Old Poor Law by Fred Block and Margaret Somers - Speenhamland was a town in the UK where a Universal Income was introduced at the end of the 18th Century. After a few years it was declared a terrible failure and proof that poor people are evil and lazy and should be punished for being poor not helped out of poverty. Speenhamland led to the creation of Workhouses and the abolition of the Poor Laws that had worked as a form of social welfare up to that point. For 150 years Speenhamland was used by politicians and academics all over the world as proof that poor people were almost pathologically incapable of being trusted with their own money. Except the whole thing was a lie. The man sent to study Speenhamland hated the project and was unable to correctly interpret the data or factor in cultural issues that were also affecting the town. Modern researchers almost unanimously agree that Speenhamland was a success but the damage that 150 years of ignorance has done is deep and long lasting.

All of these examples and hundreds more can be found in Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman which lays out the argument for this issue far better than I ever could and also discusses issues such as raising the minimum wage and drastically cutting working hours. 

@keep-counting-stars have fun debating your friend. 

[jumpingjacktrash]

politicians will always be against universal income, because people who are anxious and exhausted are easier to control.

don’t wait for politicians to take the initiative. they won’t. it’s not in their best interests.

[thatveganwhiterose]

How much of a fucking monster do you have to be to argue against every person having adequate food, water, shelter, healthcare and other means to just fucking SURVIVE.

[llleighsmith]

Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a little sunshine, a little rain. Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from one boot to another―why don’t you get going? For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees. And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money, I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.

– Mary Oliver, from “Black Oaks”

[kafk-a]

Mary Oliver, from Felicity: Poems