#california cool

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

People never seem to want to hang out at animal habitats. If they can’t see something immediately, they just leave. If you’re patient enough to stay, sometimes incredibly magical experiences happen. Like this one.

Those are California condors. Biggest wingspan in North America, incredibly endangered, and the only species with approval from USDA for emergency use of the poultry avian flu vaccine.

Towards the end of the day, once things got quiet, I sat down near where one was foraging and just hung out. Then… they noticed me.

I can only upload one video so I’m going with the one where I was showing them my glasses, since they kept trying to peck at my shoelaces and fingers and I wondered what else they'd be interested in.

They stayed there with me for at least five minutes, given the duration of video I took. Just chilling, watching me, interacting a little. It was just us - nobody else approached. Until eventually they chose to go do their own thing, and I sat there in awe for a while.

It’s worth it to wait, when you can.

[vegetarianburrito]

Master Bedroom

Large transitional master bedroom idea with light wood floors, white walls, a regular fireplace, and a stone fireplace.

[redheadredliiips]

Powder Room - Bathroom White cabinets, a one-piece toilet, and a freestanding vanity are all featured in this small powder room with a coastal theme and medium-toned wood floor and wallpaper.

[lechapardeur]

Family Room - Modern Family Room Huge modern open concept family room library idea with white walls, a regular fireplace, a stone fireplace, and a wall-mounted television.

[prisimic]

Denver Bathroom Powder room - contemporary black tile black floor powder room idea with furniture-like cabinets, black walls, an undermount sink and black countertops

[ca-dmv-bot]

Customer: PORSCHE 911 VERY COOL DMV: 911 EMERGENCY Verdict: ACCEPTED

[monstameme]

Chicago Library

[bloody-vampire-lolita]

Open Living Room

[spinus-pinus]

Mallard Anas platyrhynchos

11/11/2023 San Diego Zoo Safari Park, California

[raycatzdraws]

ribbonwood

[lappophotography]

Beautiful morning at the 17 mile drive

[reasonsforhope]

Note: Reasons to Be Cheerful has had weirdly huge formatting issues for the past six or so months, so if that version is a mess, this link should work better.

"Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), the Sunshine State’s largest power utility, employs all the people you might expect: electricians, lineworkers, mechanical engineers — and a few you might not. For over 40 years, the company has kept a team of wildlife biologists on staff. Their task? Monitoring the giant carnivorous reptiles that reside in one of the state’s nuclear power plants. 

Saving the American Crocodile

What sounds like a low-budget creature feature is actually a wildly successful conservation story. It goes like this: In 1975, the shy and reclusive American crocodile was facing extinction. Over-hunting and habitat decline caused by encroaching development had pushed its numbers to a record low. By 1975, when it was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, there were only 200 to 300 left. 

Three years later, in 1978, workers at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant in Homestead, Florida happened upon something that must have made them gasp: a crocodile nest along one of the plant’s 5,900-acre “cooling canals.” Rather than drive the crocs away — perhaps the easiest solution — FPL hired a team of biologists and implemented a Crocodile Management Plan. Its goal was unconventional: provide a suitable habitat for the crocs within the workings of the nuclear power plant, allowing both to coexist.  

Over the course of the next 30 years, FPL’s wildlife biologists monitored nests, tagged hatchlings and generally created a hospitable environment for the reptiles. As it turned out, the plant’s cooling canals provided an ideal habitat: drained earth that never floods on which to lay eggs directly adjacent to water. Over the years, more and more crocs made the cooling canals home. By 1985, the nests at Turkey Point were responsible for 10 percent of American crocodile hatchlings in South Florida. In 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service downgraded the American crocodile’s status from endangered to threatened, singling out FPL for its efforts. 

The program continues to this day. To date, biologists have tagged some 7,000 babies born at the plant. In 2021, there were a record-setting 565 crocodile hatchlings at the Turkey Point facility. 

"Reconciliation Ecology"

Turkey Point’s efforts are an example of what is known in the conservation world as “reconciliation ecology.” Rather than create separate areas where nature or animals can thrive in isolation from humans, reconciliation ecology suggests that we can blend the rich natural world with the world of human activity. Michael Rosenzweig, an emeritus professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, was a leading force in establishing this concept. The author of Win-Win Ecology: How the Earth’s Species can Survive in the Midst of Human Enterprise, Rosenzweig has pointed out that although human encroachment has typically been considered a threat to biodiversity, the notion that the world must be either “holy” or “profane,” ecologically speaking, is simply not true.  

“In addition to its primary value as a conservation tool, reconciliation ecology offers a valuable social byproduct,” writes Rosenzweig in his first chapter. “It promises to reduce the endless bickering and legal wrangling that characterize environmental issues today.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, May 5, 2022. Article continues below. All headings added by me for added readability.

Dr. Madhusudan Katti, an associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, was inspired by Rosenzweig when he did his postdoc at Arizona State. Katti has now been in the field of reconciliation ecology for two decades and teaches classes on the subject. “To me it’s finding solutions to reconciling human development with biodiversity conservation,” Katti says.

This common ground between development and conservation can be consciously planned, like FPL managing a crocodile habitat at a nuclear power plant or the state-sponsored vertical gardens and commercial farms on high-rise buildings in Singapore. Other examples include the restoration of the coral reef around an undersea restaurant in Eilat, Israel, or recent legislation in New York City requiring patterned glass on high-rise buildings, making windows more visible to migratory birds. Other planned examples of reconciliation ecology can be more individually scaled: a rooftop garden in an urban setting, modifying your garden to earn a “backyard bird habitat” certification from the Audubon Society, or even just mowing your lawn less often...

Reconciliation Ecology: Nature's Already Doing It Without Us

But there are countless examples of “accidental” incidents of reconciliation ecology, as well. One of Katti’s favorites is the kit fox of California’s San Joaquin Valley. “The kit fox was one of the very first species listed on the Endangered Species Act,” Katti says. Its decline was caused by habitat loss through agricultural and industrial development, as well as the extermination of the gray wolf population, which led to an increase in coyotes. So kit foxes adapted and moved to new habitats. One of these was the city of Bakersfield, California.

“Bakersfield, surrounded by oil pumps, would be the last place you’d expect to find an endangered species,” Katti says. But researchers think kit foxes have migrated to Bakersfield because they actually have more protection there from predators like coyotes and bobcats. “The kit foxes have figured out that if they can tolerate the human disturbance and live with people, then they are safer from all these other predators,” he says. 

Living in the city has led to some interesting behavioral changes. In the wild, for instance, a female kit fox gives birth to her young and raises them by herself in a den. But in the city, researchers have observed multiple females raising their litters together in the same den. “It’s like a form of cooperative breeding,” Katti says. “That wouldn’t happen in the wild.” ...

The Big Picture: How We Think about Conservation

Reconciliation Ecology isn’t just we humans welcoming animals like crocodiles and foxes into our environments, though. It’s also living with nature in a way that most Western societies haven’t done since the Enlightenment. “In recent years, there’s been a recognition that the ‘fortress conservation’ model — keeping nature separated from humans and not thinking of or valuing human-inhabited landscapes — those ideas are outdated,” says Katti.

In fact, in Katti’s classes on reconciliation ecology, he embraces the notion of reconnecting people with their land if they have been unjustly separated from it. “The term reconciliation also applies to all the colonial legacies where both nature and people have been harmed,” Katti says. “For Indigenous communities, the harm done to ecosystems, it’s happened together. So you can talk about addressing both. That’s where a lot of my thinking is at the moment.” 

A hopeful version of this sort of reconciliation is happening in California where colleagues of Katti’s who are tribal members are re-introducing “tribal burns” in some areas. Controlled burns have been a part of many Indigenous cultures for millenia, both as a way to prevent devastating forest fires, but also to encourage the growth of certain plants like hazel that are used for basket-weaving and other crafts. 

“The notion that people don’t belong there and ‘let nature take care of itself’ doesn’t really work,” Katti says. “That’s the legacy of Western European Enlightenment thinking — a divide between human and nature. That is a real faulty view of nature. People have been part of the ecosystem forever.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, May 5, 2022

[vintage-tigre]

[arc-hus]

Desert Palisades House, Palm Springs, USA - Woods + Dangaran

[cowboybuddie]

bethesda seem to really struggle with towns/cities period!! their creative choices tend to be pretty interesting (e.g white run is everyone’s fav city for a reason, diamond city and good neighbour aren’t bad either) but a lot of them feel empty, without purpose. if they do have a purpose, it’s one singular thing like fishing or chems. some of the “cities” in skyrim are downright villages, with maybe one quest and then nothing. in fallout, there is still rubble in settlements, lived in places where people eat, sleep and shop- there is just piles of rubbish everywhere. like, can you imagine a settlement like vault city or shady sands in a modern fallout game? it would look insanely out of place. an equivalent of the imperial city in skyrim? a fever dream!

as cool as some of bethesda’s concepts are, it seems like logistics defeat so much, especially in fallout. i want farms, water pumps, explanations for their clean water, NEW factions, reuse of actual buildings, fishing, hunters, scavengers, washrooms, armourers. if the ncr can print posters and make flags with professional quality, society’s doing pretty okay. even the shadiest and least developed parts of fallout 1 and 2 had more of a semblance of society than the majority of 4.

rest in peace ncr, ur incompetent but ur flag is really cool bro

[rocknrolltrailertrash]

☆Living After Midnight☆