#ethically questionable animals

[rachaelmayo]

What do you get when you cross a cockatoo and an octopus? ...A call from the ethics board and revocation of your grant, most likely... 😜

This is The Nefarious Octoparrot, another personal favorite, from 2008.

Mom fostered an umbrella cockatoo for a year or so. That bird was, in fact, a cat with feathers. A smart one. She got into everything, and was naturally a cat-3 hurricane wherever she went. Great bird. I imagined how much fun she would be if she had octopus arms to help her get into stuff... And here's where I landed. This obviously isn't an umbrella cockatoo; it's a fantasy birb with parrot and cockatoo overtones. The octopus details are also entirely fantastic rather than modeled on any extant species. (Though there might have been nudibranch inspiration for the colors and patterns.)

Prismacolor pencil over watercolor.

[cherrywhite]

every single time (template from @mhuyo)

[marblemartian]

to anyone looking to get a ball python:

please either rescue or adopt. the saturation is fucking Insane and giving more money to breeders who have Hundreds of these snakes in itty bitty barren racks their entire lives only perpetuates the suffering of innocent snakes. the practice is no better than that of puppy mills more often than not.

thats not to mention the number of surrendered ball pythons is insanely high BECAUSE of this over-saturation. first time pet people go to expos, bring home a snake they dont know how to care for, get bored of it and surrender it. those snakes deserve love.

if you do decide to purchase from a breeder, please make sure theyre a small scale breeder with proper husbandry practices and actual enrichment for their snakes.

make sure you meet their breeder snakes, that theyre in good health, and ask for photos of their enclosures. they dont have to be giant terrariums, just enough for them to Actually move and stimulate their brain and allow thermoregulation. so many Large ball python breeders have a bin that is large enough for the snake to sit there. thats IT.

[kedreeva]

Sorry about the color mix up. I appreciate the reply and additional info! I guess bc I know nothing about peafowl (and the fact i dont breed any type of animal), I'm having a hard time understanding how being sterile would be unethical. I do somewhat get the shortened life span. I really would like to understand this, I just sometimes need stuff explained like I'm 5.

Up front, there's no "somewhat get" to a shortened lifespan being caused by a mutation in captive populations. If an animal is capable of living 20+ years (and some live 30+ or even 40+!) and some non-essential mutation is causing them to live 7-9 years, it's flat out absolutely unethical to breed that mutation, full stop, regardless of anything else going on. That's indicative of a MAJOR problem in their genetics. There's NO ethical reason to breed that because humans like how it looks. So, even without the sterility, these birds would 100% be unethical to produce.

The short answer on sterility is this: we don't know WHY they are sterile, but they shouldn't be, and that means something has gone wrong. When something goes wrong with an animal, and it's something genetic that can be passed on, the ONLY responsible and ethical thing for a breeder to do is to stop using that animal for breeding and closely monitor any already-produced offspring for signs of the problem, and likely not breed them, either.

The longer more complicated answer is this: sometimes it's possible to separate the problem from the aesthetic when it comes to morphs, like it was for cameo + blindness, but sometimes it's NOT, like it wasn't for spider + head wobble for ball pythons. In those instances, it's... difficult. Because you're LIKELY going to produce animals that suffer the same problem as their parent(s), in the attempt to separate the problem from the aesthetic, and sometimes that's ALL you're going to produce. As a breeder, it's your absolute responsibility to NOT release the offspring into the general population, where the problem may be replicated without control, and to keep or cull the affected individuals if the problem cannot be separated from the aesthetic, or AT BEST find them guaranteed pet-only homes that will NEVER breed them.

Sometimes the problem IS purely aesthetic or harmless, like it was for pied in peafowl, and sometimes it's not, like it was for vitiligo in peafowl. The problem comes when you ASSUME a mutation is the first, and treat it like the first when it's really the second. This has caused FAR reaching consequences in the peafowl community, and I'm sure in others, where now the autoimmune disease that first bronze had has been passed into genpop by folks who thought they were breeding a harmless new variation of pied. Hybrid animals are often sterile (not in peafowl though, hybrid cristatus-muticus birds are fertile) because of a mismatch in chromosome pairing numbers, and often that's harmless. So, in some cases sterility is not an issue because it's the expected result or is otherwise harmless... but in the case of peafowl, it's NOT an expected result and we don't know if it's caused by something harmless or not.

Some species, like mice and horses and cattle and dogs, genetic testing and DNA mapping done with millions of dollars has proven that while some stuff isn't purely aesthetic, it also doesn't cause harm to the animal in a way that affects quality of life or that can be adapted for in captive care. For example, in chickens, the frizzle gene causes curled feathers in single copy and an absence of feathers in double copy. This gene is considered ethical to produce IF the breeding is done responsibly by putting a single copy bird over a zero copy bird, which produces smooth coats and frizzle coats, but it is unethical to produce double frizzles (called "frazzles") because frazzles cannot thermoregulate, can easily sunburn, and easily suffer skin injury during normal chicken activity.

For peafowl, we have NO genetic testing. We do not have the genome mapped. As far as I know there's a research group working on it (mostly for green peafowl though, in conservation efforts), but that's not remotely finished or available to the public to test anything. We don't know where any of the morph mutations sit, or what is causing them or if they do anything beyond just change the color. Sometimes color mutations are the result of malfunctions in enzymes. For charcoal specifically, we don't know what the mutation does, besides what we can observe on the outside- the birds have half or less the lifespan of normal birds, poor feather quality, and the hens are sterile. Is the sterility harmless like it is in some hybrid animals, or is it actually a major organ failing? Is it the only major organ that fails due to this mutation, or is it just the first sign of their shortened lives? Is it some deficiency in something the birds need to be healthy? Does it hurt the bird? We don't know, but we do know the mutation and the problems (multiple, please do NOT forget that this is one OF MORE THAN ONE problems) can't be separated, and so until we do know why and whether it's harmless or not, the ONLY ethical response to seeing a problem in a major organ's function linked inextricably to a mutation in color is to not propagate that mutation. If someone wanted to fork over the millions it takes to sequence and map genomes and then determine exactly what is going on with peafowl, that would be nice and good, but I don't see that happening. When I win the lottery big, I'll be doing it, but til then we can only follow normal breeding guidelines

Also, to put this into perspective... peafowl mature sexually around 3 years old. They are chicks until the turn of the new year following their hatch. They are yearlings that year, and immature 2yo next year. They aren't actually considered fully grown until 6 years old, and should live another 14+ years. Charcoal birds die a 1-3 years after full maturity. Is it a coincidence that they fail to thrive shortly after full sexual maturity, or is it linked? Again, we don't know. We don't know if the sterility is fine or if it's just a symptom of something worse.

Even without the sterility, though, charcoal has enough issues it would be unethical. If it was JUST sterility, with no other deleterious effects, then maybe it would be different. But it's not.

[cubbihue]

me: i am doing very important things. big deep research for my story. lots of research. research you woudlnt even believe. for my story. important work. very important for my story.

my google tab:

[merlyn-bane]

publicly kissing @meebles on the forehead for being extremely lovely about the inevitable byproduct of cowriting a dinosaur cowboy au with someone for whom dinosaurs are a special interest

[julianhuxley]

Caption reads: Half a cupful please: Compo, one of the famous London Zoo tea-party chimpanzees who visited Whipsnade for the birthday celebrations, gets some milk.

Source: Illustrated London News, May 31, 1952.

[artfightdramaconfessions]

the axel situation is crazy to me especially considering the amount of money he's (rumored) to get payed. All of that for art that is definitely not at a professional level delivered late, and sorry to be harsh, horrible animation. The team reveals last year and the previous genuinely had me baffled, couldn't you commission literally anyone else? An actual animator maybe?

.

[maslows-pyramid-scheme]

Not to sound like an insufferable vegan, but nobody's ever given me a compelling reason why an animal's life is less valuable than my own

[thornheartfelt]

Save me f/os, save me (<- has an animal welfare and ethics exam that is 3 hours long tomorrow)

[always-a-joyful-note]

As I have somehow become entangled in the Ensemble Stars fandom (I hate it here. Don't follow me to these waters, you guys) and am slowly reading the stories after the main one of music (and after watching the anime), I have come to the conclusion that Nito Nazuna is (probably unintentionally) Velveteen Rabbit coded.

If you don't know the story (spoilers for it ahead, you can read the short story here), it's basically about how a stuffed rabbit given to a boy as a Christmas present gets neglected in favour of newer mechanical toys. During his neglect, an older toy tells him a story about how the love of children to their toys can make them real, which the rabbit desperately wants but has little hope for. But by chance, a nanny gives the boy the rabbit to sleep with, cementing it as the boy's favourite toy. Sure, it gets more worn and other rabbits point out how it can't hop, but at least its loved...until the boy contracts scarlet fever and, for disinfecting reasons, the rabbit has to be taken out to be burned. Yeah, messed up...but as it waits for its fate, the stuffed rabbit sheds a tear where a flower with a fairy grows. The fairy proceeds to tell him that the boy's love made him real and takes him to the forest where he's able to finally hop away with the other rabbits.

I know it's a stretch. But a former toy/doll, incredibly loved but not really seen as real and that destroying him even if he's fine with it...then neglected when his "owner" contracts a sickness...then finding a spark of life that frees him from his inability to move...a transformation from loved doll to a real something that learns to love himself. Tell me that isn't Nazuna, and the rabbit imagery even fits. He breaks free from his constraints not to be alone but to be with others of his kind, to move of his own will with others! It's just so...we are all human and our relationships are so complex and someone else's tragedy that also makes you hurt for them can also be the reason you find your own self -

Honestly, I'm not sure if this is actually Velveteen Rabbit coded since I've only seen that story in the anime, but like...if you squint, it fits?

[the-busy-ghost]

Warning- this is a very petty post, but I think I'm entitled to at least one petty, pissed-off reaction every time I finish a classic novel that hit harder than I expected so take this as my quota for the year.

Also spoiler warning for a book that came out over a century ago but still, I didn't know the plot going in so don't want to ruin it for anyone else, if you haven't read it shut your eyes. (Also Local Tumblr User Going Wild Over Book Published a Hundred Years Ago That Everybody Else Already Read should probably be categorised as akey part of indigenous tumblr culture at this point).

Anyway I just finished the War of the Worlds and in between studying I've thinking about Themes and Motifs as you do, and idly looking for further analysis. I then accidentally ran into an article called 'A Quiet Place II Succeeds Where the War of the Worlds Failed' and:

Now I haven't seen any of the Quiet Place films, this is not a rant against them and of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But re: the ending of The War of the Worlds, I have to ask, did this guy somehow miss, uh, the entire point of the book or am I just utterly insane?

[lonleyhumanbeing]

One of my favorite ship dynamics- in terms of thinking about it and I find them so fascinating is the ones that work, but thanks to their past you can’t ship them that much. Like, you can ship them but with questionable ethics and with using the word ‘but’ a lot.

Some examples:

Mika and Seiji from Durarara. They’re cute enough but I mean… he did almost murder her after she stalked him. But they do love each other in their own way.

Erza and Jellal from Fairy Tail. They’re adorable and I can’t wait for them to officially be together. But he did basically keep her friends as slaves while she walked free with that knowledge and guilt. I know he was being manipulated but it’s what Erza thought for like 7 years

The Reaper and Aguri from Assassination Classroom. I know they didn’t know together long but they were so cute. But the Reaper was the top assassin in the world who killed over 1,000 people so…

And the one that got me thinking about all this: Yukine and Nora from Noragami. She did a lot of bad things and as of Chapter 80 (where I am) she is most likely being manipulated or is manipulating Yukine. But he could teach her how to love and to be a human…

[mothusband]

applied for another job which thankfully didnt ask me 100 questions about my education (only 2!) so hopefully that works out, bc i dont think the first place is going to get back with me lol

[hazard-and-friends]

local used bookstore has what is, objectively, just a book on dog fighting. there are pictures. of course i got it.

[trans-phone-eater]

Hey so like if you just didn't care about ethics or fear of bio engineering then could you create a lifeform that's basically just a continuously growing lump of flesh and could you just keep harvesting flesh off of Gregory the flesh monstrosity