#In Habitat

[gutterselkie]

Hmm let me get a poll for something real quick

I want to see how many people have easy access to nature, as I assume most of tumblr lives in urban areas such as cities or large suburbs, and a lot of people seem to not know much about the native species of plants and animals in their area. If you answered several, please reblog with which ones! And if the natural area is not mentioned, add it in a reblog or comment :)

[thrivingisthegoal]

Golf Courses ARE Being Converted

The Solarpunk "fantasy" that so many of us tout as a dream vision, converting golf courses into ecological wonderlands, is being implemented across the USA according to this NYT article!

The article covers courses in Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Colorado, and New York that are being bought and turned into habitat and hiking trails.

The article goes more into detail about how sand traps are being turned into sand boxes for kids, endangered local species are being planted, rocks for owl habitat are being installed, and that as these courses become wilder, they are creating more areas for biodiversity to thrive.

Most of the courses in transition are being bought by Local Land Trusts. Apparently the supply of golf courses in the USA is way over the demand, and many have been shut down since the early 2000s. While many are bought up and paved over, land Trusts have been able to buy several and turn them into what the communities want: public areas for people and wildlife. It does make a point to say that not every hold course location lends itself well to habitat for animals (but that doesn't mean it wouldn't make great housing!)

So lets be excited by the fact that people we don't even know about are working on the solutions we love to see! Turning a private space that needs thousands of gallons of water and fertilizer into an ecologically oriented public space is the future I want to see! I can say when I used to work in water conservation, we were getting a lot of clients that were golf courses that were interested in cutting their resource input, and they ended up planting a lot of natives! So even the golf courses that still operate could be making an effort.

So what I'd encourage you to do is see if there's any land or community trusts in your area, and see if you can get involved! Maybe even look into how to start one in your community! Through land trusts it's not always golf course conversions, but community gardens, solar fields, disaster adaptation, or low cost housing! (Here's a link to the first locator I found, but that doesn't mean if something isn't on here it doesn't exist in your area, do some digging!)

[briery]

Greenhouse Botanical Garden, Grueningen by Lidija Grozdanic from In Habitat.

[charlietheepicwriter7]

The Joker was apprehended, sitting on the ground as Batman guarded him, but the kid--"Bruce Wayne's newest ward, how tragic! Hehehe!"--was nowhere to be found. Nightwing and Red Hood desperate searched the warehouse until a shuffling noise grabbed their attention.

A kid, black haired just like the kid in the Joker's broadcast, crawling out of a pile of boxes. "Is it over?" the boy asked quietly.

Nightwing guided him to the only exit, unfortunately walking past the boy's own kidnapper. "Yeah, kid. It's over. Come on-"

Like a shot, the boy rushed the Joker and kicked him right in the balls.

The Joker wheezed like a dying squeaky toy. Red Hood froze. Nightwing immediately snatched the boy up by the armpits, but all that did was give the boy the height to attack again, punting Joker in the jaw. The clown went down and cracked his head on the floor. He did not get back up.

There was a moment of silence before Red Hood roared with laughter, his helmet distorting the sound.

[the-blaze-empress]

unironically i think mumbo and tommy have a fucking great dynamic together. like. on the surface tommy is the unhinged one and mumbo is the calm collected normal one. but then when theyre together it can almost switch. mumbo just says things and goes along with the wildest things so nonchalantly and it can completely disarm tommy because what the fuck why is mumbo talking about bbls in such a calm tone???? tommy seems unhinged and maybe he is but its unhinged in that he's deliberately gone and taken the pins out of the door for a specific result. mumbo harbours something much more unassuming but much more fucking insane and sure theyre such a niche unlikely duo but i love the whole two videos they have together

[thearomancer]

Watching a tumblr post I’ve seen on actual tumblr appear in a YouTube compilation or on some other app always feels like how I imagine wild life photographers must feel when they see an animal in the zoo they’ve photographed in the wild.

[simon-roy]

revisiting some aliens I haven't drawn in 12+ years for an upcoming short comic - and its lovely to see them again

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Currently sat in a summer school type thing we're hosting in work and some English architect is telling us about sustainable design in Wales, except she hasn't bothered learning a single Welsh name and if I have to listen to one more "I don't know how to say 'Welsh name' so I'm going to use 'shitty English name/nothing while laughing at it' I'm going to throw this slanty drawing desk at her head

[alarmcurtain]

no but discovery channel laios—

[hope-for-the-planet]

Only four months after dams blocking migration were removed, the first Chinook salmon traveled 230 miles to return to the Klamath River Basin. This was the first fish to come home to their ancestral migration routes since 1912.

Over 100 years shut out and it only took them four months to return home once they had the chance.

From the article:

“The return of our relatives the c’iyaal’s is overwhelming for our tribe. This is what our members worked for and believed in for so many decades,” said Roberta Frost, Klamath Tribes Secretary. “I want to honor that work and thank them for their persistence in the face of what felt like an unmovable obstacle. The salmon are just like our tribal people, and they know where home is and returned as soon as they were able[.]"

[gauntletqueen]

Literally sitting on a coffin lid this place rules

[wellfine]

[massiveladycat]

oswald is the only kid in the fnaf franchise to clutch a 1v4 with animatronics and make not so worn down springtrap stunned with one HAND HE GOT SPRINGTRAP SITTING ON THE FLOOR FOR A MINUTE??? OSWALD WAS THROWING HANDS WITH 6 FOOT ANIMATRONICS AND WON. AND HE DIDNT HAVE GLAMROCK FREDDY. MY NEW FAVORITE PROTAGONIST DEADASS!!!

[pandadrake]

Spider-Society Ask Me Anything segment featuring the Super Sentai because that is literally what Miguel’s team is. Toei Spider-man in BTSV or I riot.

Those weird games they make actors play on talk shows to promote popular films like the Avengers movies or something. IDK, I wanted to draw the 90s kids.

Intended this to be a quick drawing to take a break, but I always overestimate my ability to draw new characters.

[dandelionsresilience]

Good News - June 15-21

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $Kaybarr1735! And if you tip me and give me a way to contact you, at the end of the month I'll send you a link to all of the articles I found but didn't use each week!

1. Victory for Same-Sex Marriage in Thailand

“Thailand’s Senate voted 130-4 today to pass a same-sex marriage bill that the lower house had approved by an overwhelming majority in March. This makes Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia, and the second in Asia, to recognize same-sex relationships. […] The Thai Marriage Equality Act […] will come into force 120 days after publication in the Royal Gazette. It will stand as an example of LGBT rights progress across the Asia-Pacific region and the world.”

2. One of world’s rarest cats no longer endangered

“[The Iberian lynx’s] population grew from 62 mature individuals in 2001 to 648 in 2022. While young and mature lynx combined now have an estimated population of more than 2,000, the IUCN reports. The increase is largely thanks to conservation efforts that have focused on increasing the abundance of its main food source - the also endangered wild rabbit, known as European rabbit. Programmes to free hundreds of captive lynxes and restoring scrublands and forests have also played an important role in ensuring the lynx is no longer endangered.”

3. Planning parenthood for incarcerated men

“[M]any incarcerated young men missed [sex-ed] classroom lessons due to truancy or incarceration. Their lack of knowledge about sexual health puts them at a lifelong disadvantage. De La Cruz [a health educator] will guide [incarcerated youths] in lessons about anatomy and pregnancy, birth control and sexually transmitted infections. He also explores healthy relationships and the pitfalls of toxic masculinity. […] Workshops cover healthy relationships, gender and sexuality, and sex trafficking.”

4. Peru puts endemic fog oasis under protection

“Lomas are unique ecosystems relying on marine fog that host rare and endemic plants and animal species. […] The Peruvian government has formally granted conservation status to the 6,449-hectare (16,000-acre) desert oasis site[….] The site, the first of its kind to become protected after more than 15 years of scientific and advocacy efforts, will help scientists understand climatic and marine cycles in the area[, … and] will be protected for future research and exploration for at least three decades.”

5. Religious groups are protecting Pride events — upending the LGBTQ+ vs. faith narrative

“In some cases, de-escalation teams stand as a physical barrier between protesters and event attendees. In other instances, they try to talk with protesters. The goal is generally to keep everyone safe. Leigh was learning that sometimes this didn’t mean acting as security, but doing actual outreach. That might mean making time and space to listen to hate speech. It might mean offering food or water. […] After undergoing Zoom trainings this spring, the members of some 120 faith organizations will fan out across more than 50 Pride events in 16 states to de-escalate the actions of extremist anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups.”

6. 25 years of research shows how to restore damaged rainforest

“For the first time, results from 25 years of work to rehabilitate fire-damaged and heavily logged rainforest are now being presented. The study fills a knowledge gap about the long-term effects of restoration and may become an important guide for future efforts to restore damaged ecosystems.”

7. Audubon and Grassroots Carbon Announce First-of-its-Kind Partnership to Reward Landowners for Improving Habitats for Birds while Building Healthy Soils

“Participating landowners can profit from additional soil carbon storage created through their regenerative land management practices. These practices restore grasslands, improve bird habits, build soil health and drive nature-based soil organic carbon drawdown through the healthy soils of farms and ranches. […] Additionally, regenerative land management practices improve habitats for birds. […] This partnership exemplifies how sustainable practices can drive positive environmental change while providing tangible economic benefits for landowners.”

8. Circular food systems found to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, require much less agricultural land

“Redesigning the European food system will reduce agricultural land by 44% while dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 70%. This reduction is possible with the current consumption of animal protein. “Moreover, animals are recyclers in the system. They can recycle nutrients from human-inedible parts of the organic waste and by-products in the food system and convert them to valuable animal products," Simon says.”

9. Could Treating Injured Raptors Help Lift a Population? Researchers found the work of rehabbers can have long-lasting benefits

“[“Wildlife professionals”] tend to have a dismissive attitude toward addressing individual animal welfare,” [… but f]or most raptor species, they found, birds released after rehabilitation were about as likely to survive as wild birds. Those released birds can have even broader impacts on the population. Back in the wild, the birds mate and breed, raising hatchlings that grow up to mate and breed, too. When the researchers modeled the effects, they found most species would see at least some population-level benefits from returning raptors to the wild.”

10. Indigenous people in the Amazon are helping to build bridges & save primates

“Working together, the Reconecta Project and the Waimiri-Atroari Indigenous people build bridges that connect the forest canopy over the BR-174 road[….] In the first 10 months of monitoring, eight different species were documented — not only monkeys such as the golden-handed tamarin and the common squirrel monkey (Saimiri sciureus), but also kinkajous (Potos flavus), mouse opossums (Marmosops sp.), and opossums (Didelphis sp.).”

Bonus: A rare maneless zebra was born in the UK

June 8-14 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[rebeccathenaturalist]

It's always good news when a rare native species rebounds from the brink of extinction. The Kirtland's warbler was once down to about two hundred individuals, but with conservation efforts the population is almost to five thousand. This is still a very small number, but it's a heartening change.

The warbler was removed from the U.S. Endangered Species List in 2019. While this may seem like a good thing, it means these birds have lost some of the legal protection that earned them breathing room to recover. It also highlights the very procedural, quantitative way in which government entities try to define whether a species or habitat is "safe" or not. It's not as though once the warbler was off the list its problem all disappeared. Plus there are many species that face extinction that have never been listed simply because the data hasn't been sufficient--or even existent--to prove the threat.

And it also reflects the reductionist view toward science that is still all too common. While restoration ecologists and other conservationists are well aware of the interconnectivity of an ecosystem and how it is more than the sum of its parts, the idea that a single species is endangered in isolation ignores the complex interplay between species and habitat, and how habitat loss is the single biggest cause of endangerment and extinction across the board.

So while we celebrate rising numbers of Kirtland's warblers, we also need to be focused on protecting and restoring the pine forests of the upper Midwest that they prefer in summer, and their wintering grounds in the Bahamas. Moreover, we need to appreciate the need of all the beings in these habitats to have their homes and feeding grounds protected in total, not just a single species here and there. The warbler is just a starting point, and its continued success relies on the health of the intricate systems of which it is a part.