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Short-eared owl WIP

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an idea

let conservationists, veterinarians and zoologists- ie, people who have dedicated their lives to loving, saving and learning about animals- speak for other species instead of allowing uneducated politicians and lying “activist” groups to make bullshit laws hindering our progress.

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domestication syndrome is one of the coolest findings from recent genetics

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VET BILLS 2018 COMMISSIONS OPEN!

It’s been a rough few months of vet bills. :(  Between my horse, my rats, and several reptiles, it seems like everyone needed patching up.  I’m opening commissions to help refill my emergency fund!

Commissions are $15/hour.  You can get as much/little time as you like.  Simple lineart and sketches can be done in as little as an hour!  Full paintings with background can take as many as 15-16 hours.  The examples have sample time if you click on the image.

If you’re interested, message me!  Let me know your concept and what you’d like.  Also, these aren’t limited to pet portraits.  

REBLOGS HELP TOO!  THANKS!

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Gotta love these guys. You can practically hear the little voice going “I’m just a seed pod, I’m just a seed pod!”

Two-rayed Banjo Cat, Amaralia hypsiura

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©Maia Howell - [Flickr][Tumblr][Instagram][Facebook][Redbubble][Ko-Fi]

Do not remove credit (this includes the caption).  Do not use in edits of any kind without asking first.  Do not insert links to your own blog.

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these are from a walk I took to my local park a month or so ago so. many. chicks! there were a few families of coots with chicks that must’ve been DAYS old, and a fair few (older) goslings too! it was a wonderful few hours outside 🏞

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great blue heron

wakodahatchee wetlands, fl

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PSA: Snakes do NOT measure their food

They are opportunist hunters, if they smell food they strike and coil with no pretense as to size. The rumor of a snake ‘sizing up’ a person came from someone who wanted to scare people into fearing snakes more and has become a stupid wives tale that gets spread near constantly. Snakes have zero evolutionary reason to attempt to ‘size up’ their prey. Prey animals would never allow this. Here’s the snopes article about it.

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*paleontologist voice, 1842* these lizards, they’re just AWFUL. they’re the WORST

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Don’t believe big chain pet stores on reptile care EVER. They tell you what they need to to sell you more and not for the good of the animal, and 90% of the time they have NO idea what they are talking about. They know they are more likely to sell one cage and two ball pythons, than two cages and two ball pythons. So their employees are fed lies about care to pass on to customers to make more money. It is a money making corporate business, not a mom and pop shop that actually cares about the animals.

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wild vs domesticated

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YES GOOD

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Sometimes people who keep giant snakes give them little drawers and say “but in the wild they never stretch out!”

These people are wrong. This is what a giant snake should live in. Look at this! I couldn’t even get it in the whole panorama! The enclosure continues beyond that tree thing! The zoo says this is a fifteen footer, and her enclosure is really great.

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Australia’s birds are not being protected by environmental laws, report says | The Guardian

Some of Australia’s favourite birds are threatened with extinction and Australia’s environmental laws are failing to protect them, a new report by BirdLife Australia has found.

The report identified in the existing laws a slew of loopholes, exemptions, omissions and discretionary powers open to politicisation, each of which have been exploited to allow the decline of birds including the Carnaby’s black cockatoo, the swift parrot and the southern black-throated finch.

“The Turnbull government must urgently reform our national environment laws and ensure they are properly upheld,” said Jenny Lau, BirdLife Australia’s acting head of conservation.

The report attempts to build a case for what the Australian Panel of Experts on Environmental Law, working in conjunction with the Places You Love Alliance, called a blueprint for the next generation of environmental laws.

That blueprint called for national oversight to be expanded to cover land clearing, impacts on climate change and protected areas, as well as the establishment of a national sustainability commission, which would have real power to manage cumulative impacts on the environment that are often not considered over hundreds of individual decisions.

The spectacular Carnaby’s black cockatoo in Western Australia illustrates the way ministerial discretion opens the way for politicisation, the report said.

Despite being listed as endangered under federal environment law, its population has declined by between 5% and 11% each year since 2010. Pine plantations have become an important habitat for the bird but those are being harvested, without replacement, at a rate of 1,000 hectares per year since 2004. The plantation has declined from 23,000 ha at one point to 7,000 ha today, the report said.

BirdLife Australia said it had written to state and federal environment ministers requesting that “harvesting without replacement” of those plantations be considered a “controlled action”, and therefore subject to federal environmental assessment. Although the federal minister has the power to determine it as a “controlled action,” BirdLife said that hasn’t happened, showing the system is vulnerable to politicisation.