#animal habitat

[gina025]

Common kingfisher

[mmwm]

LINK FEST: 3 OCTOBER 2023

Links that may or may not be related to gardens, food, travel, nature, or heterotopias and liminal spaces but probably are. Sources in parentheses. article: Five Simple Ways to Create Habitat this Fall (Davis Mizejewski and Mary Phillips/National Wildlife Federation). All good ideas. 2-min video: Hands of Sicily (Marko Roth/Vimeo). A meditation on place through hands in motion. article with…

[pixoplanet]

26 Aug 2023 – Happy Painted Dog Day! Painted dogs are amazing apex predators of the African savanna, who by regulating prey populations, help preserve this important ecosystem. ☮️ Peace… Jamiese

[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.

[sunny-prongs]

Sirius *show a weird and ugly animals pic to Regulus*: Look

Regulus *eyes immediately shining and taking his brother's phone to get the name and make research*

Sirius *looking at James*: Told you he would like it.

James *confused*: But this animal was so ugly??

Sirius *laughing a bit*: Uglier it is, better Reggie love it.

Sirius *stop laughing and looking at James with a smirk*: Probably why he love y-

James: Fuck off Pads!

[jadafitch]

Florida mangroves, for Mass Audubon and Storey Publishing‘s Nature Smarts Workbook, Ages 7-9.

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - October 8-14

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles on Patreon!

1. All 160 dogs at Florida shelter found homes ahead of Hurricane Milton

“[The shelter] offered crates, food and anything else the dogs would need in exchange for the animals to spend just five days with the foster parents if the human didn't want to keep them for longer. […A]fter about a day of receiving around 100 messages every 30 minutes, Bada said, all 160 were gone from the shelter and in safe and warm homes.”

2. Restoring Ecosystems and Rejuvenating Native Hawaiian Traditions in Maui

“[Volunteers] are restoring water flow to the refuge, removing invasive species, and restoring a loko iʻa kalo using ʻike kūpuna, ancestral knowledge. […] This human-made ecosystem will provide food for community members and habitat for wildlife while protecting coral reefs offshore.”

3. Solar-powered desalination system requires no extra batteries

“In contrast to other solar-driven desalination designs, the MIT system requires no extra batteries for energy storage, nor a supplemental power supply, such as from the grid. […] The system harnessed on average over 94 percent of the electrical energy generated from the system’s solar panels to produce up to 5,000 liters of water per day[….]”

4. Threatened pink sea fan coral breeds in UK aquarium for first time

“The spawning is part of University of Exeter Ph.D. student Kaila Wheatley Kornblum's research into the reproduction, larval dispersal and population connectivity of Eunicella verrucosa. […] Pink sea fans are believed to have been successfully bred by only one other institution, Lisbon Oceanarium, in 2023.”

5. Tiny 'backpacks' are being strapped to baby turtles[….]

““We analysed the data and found that hatchlings show amazingly consistent head-up orientation – despite being in the complete dark, surrounded by sand [… and] they move as if they were swimming rather than digging[…. This new observation method is] answering questions about best conservation practices,” says Dor.”

6. New California Law Protects Wildlife Connectivity

“A new state law in California will instruct counties and municipalities to conserve wildlife corridors when planning new development. […] This could entail everything from creating wildlife crossings at roads or highways, employing wildlife-safe fencing, or not developing on certain land.”

7. ‘I think, boy, I’m a part of all this’: how local heroes reforested Rio’s green heart

“By 2019, [the program] had transformed the city’s landscape, having trained 15,000 local workers like Leleco, who have planted 10m seedlings across […] roughly 10 times the area of New York’s Central Park. Reforested sites include mangroves and vegetation-covered sandbars called restinga, as well as wooded mountainsides around favelas.”

8. Alabama Town Plans to Drop Criminal Charges Over Unpaid Garbage Bills

““Suspending garbage pickup, imposing harsh late penalties and prosecuting people who through no fault of their own are unable to pay their garbage and sewage bills does not make payment suddenly forthcoming,” West said. [… The city] has agreed to drop pending criminal charges against its residents over unpaid garbage bills.”

9. New Hampshire’s low-income community solar program finally moves forward

“The state energy department is reviewing seven proposals for community solar arrays that will allocate a portion of their bill credits to low-income households. […] New Hampshire’s strategy of working with utilities to automatically enroll households that have already been identified streamlines the process.”

10. The Future Looks Bright for Electric School Buses

“EPA has awarded about $3 billion in grants from the infrastructure law, which paid to replace about 8,700 buses. Of those, about 95 percent are electric. [… Electric buses are] cheaper to operate and require less maintenance than diesel buses and will soon be at cost parity when looking at the lifetime cost of ownership[….]”

October 1-7 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.)

[inamindfarfaraway]

Stage one: Dev calling Hazel random words that start with H to insult and annoy her and her hating it

Stage two: Dev calling Hazel by her real name and her treasuring it

Stage three: Dev calling Hazel random words that start with H as affectionate nicknames and her calling him random D-words right back

[despazito]

I'm curious, what do you like/find interesting about pelicans? Do they deserve the hate they get?

we literally have living dinosaurs that have evolved their lower mandible into a net to catch prey. and they can invert it

also dalmatian pelicans are massive and have great hairdos

no animal 'deserves' hate, pelicans are just being maligned because they're opportunistic hunters that will eat cute charismatic baby animals if given the chance. people call herons evil for the same reason.

[toyastales]

Cardinals

[hmtaxidermy]

Something a little fancy for this evening

[larapaulussen]

[feather-bone]

Border collie! Had the chance to see a dog herding sheep recently and it was very cool, her name was Kate and she did such a good job. When she was done herding the sheep she moved onto herding the folks watching her demonstration. :-)

[ID: an illustration of a border collie, a long-furred dog with black and white markings, rolling onto its back slightly. It is facing the viewer with a joyful expression and is surrounded by daisies on a purple background. End.]

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Three words: Dam removal WORKS.

In fact, it works immediately. The day after the dam removal on the Klamath River was completed, an effort spearheaded by the Yurok and other indigenous people of the area, salmon were seen swimming upstream past the old dam site. It didn't take years, or months, or even days. It took hours.

And now salmon can access plenty of historic habitat that was locked away for many years. This is a huge development, because habitat loss is the single biggest cause of species endangerment and extinction. Every time--every time--we restore a species' habitat, we give them a better chance to survive the multi-pronged environmental onslaught we've been subjecting them to.

Even if that habitat is imperfect, if it offers them food, shelter, and opportunities to safely reproduce. Nestled within an intricate network of relationships with other species that took thousands of years to develop, these salmon now have a better chance of weathering the years to come. Long live the salmon!