#nonnative fish

[floridafishkeeper]

Sometimes you're climbing around in tunnels under the highway and you find The Horde. A writhing mass of walking catfish, brown hoplo catfish, and snow queen plecostomus. All invasive here in Florida. I managed to score two hoplo catfish, hoplosternum litorale, for my cichlid tank.

[streamlass]

And it's not like sterile fish *won't* upset the ecology. These are the sort of anglers who give the sport a bad name.

Like it or not, game birds are often the same: stocked pheasants aren't doing anything but eating seeds native birds could use, feeding coyotes, & amusing the more annoying type of hunter. Take up grouse hunting. Better yet, push for restoration of prairie chickens!

The Fish That Climbed a Mountain 

“These fish had been conscripted to serve as paratroopers in the state’s first attack, dropped behind enemy lines.“ 

Who controls what is put into the lakes of America? 

Alex Brown’s new Longreads essay is the wild tale of a tiny fishing club’s battle with the feds over alien trout.

Ready for a fantastic fish story? Read it here. 

[bogleech]

Simple lifeform facts I take for granted that I've now seen blowing people's minds on here:

That sea urchins walk around and have mouths with teeth on their undersides

That corals are related to jellyfish

Barnacles being related to crabs and shrimp

Ants being an offshoot of wasps

Termites being totally unrelated to ants and all similarities just being convergent evolution (they're actually a group of cockroaches, but even science didn't know that part until a few years ago)

Starfish having an eye at the end of each arm

That the bodies of ticks and mites are also their heads, essentially big heads with legs (they even frequently have eyes way up on "the body")

Sperm whales have no upper teeth, and also their bodies are flat from the front

Goats also having no upper (front) teeth

Tapeworms having no mouth at all and just absorbing nutrients over their entire body surface

That flies are bigger pollinators than bees

That moths are bigger pollinators than bees

That wasps are just as important pollinators as bees (more important to many groups of plants) and when we say they're "less efficient" at it we just mean individually they get a little less pollen stuck to them.

That honeybees are nonnative to most of the world and not good for the local ecosystem, just good for human agriculture

That earthworms are also nonnative and destructive to more habitats than the reverse

There being no hard biological line between slugs and snails; all slugs aren't necessarily related to each other and there are gastropod groups where some have shells and some don't

That ALL octopuses (not just the blue ring) have a venomous bite

Most jellyfish and sea anemones being predators that eat fish

"Krill" being shrimp up to a few inches long and not some kind of microbe

Blue whales therefore being the deadliest predators to ever evolve as they eat up to several million individual animals per day

That krill are still "plankton" because plankton refers to whatever animals, algae and other organisms are carried around by the sea's currents, not to any particular group of life or a size category

Fungi being no more related to plants than we are, and in fact more like a sibling to the animal kingdom if anything

Venus fly traps being native to only one small area of North America in all the world

Parasites being essential to all ecosystems

Leeches not having a circular ring of teeth anywhere

That algae is not a type of plant

That most seaweed is just very big algae

That enough wood ends up in the ocean that plenty of sea life evolved to eat only wood

Speaking of which the fact that the "ship worms" that make tunnels in wood are just long noodly clams

Butterflies technically just being a small weird group of moths we gave a different name to

That insects only get wings once they reach maximum size and therefore there can never be a younger smaller bee or fly that's not a larva

Spiders not being any more likely to kill their own mates/young than just a cat or dog might, for most species maybe a lot less often?

[strawberry-pockii]

(●'◡'●) i'm never drawing a lionfish again. leander is a lionfish, AND OH BOY DO I HAVE A LOT TO TALK ABOUT

kuras' concept mhin's concept vere's concept ais' concept elyon's concept

lionfish:

so first and foremost. leander is a sea witch kinda vibe. hence the extra stuff around him. he uses giant kelp as a belt to store ingredients for vague sea witch stuff. his necklace holds some bioluminescent phytoplankton. his belt also has a shell of an abalone on it

his scar is probably left over reminders of a tangle with a jellyfish

LIONFISH STUFF!! so lionfish are super invasive, and outside their natural ranges they tend to be a big issue because nothing eats them or knows how to. leander is not native to lowtown, but boy did his influence seem to spread quickly

i imagine leander quickly settled into a reef and formed his little-- wait i need a name for his group. seasnakes?? i'll workshop it

lionfish can be found in groups, but they're not immensely social animals. while leander is the leader of the adders, it didn't speak to me like... an equal system? so to speak. he likes the followers he accrues, but i don't know if he cares for them outside of a shallow reason. he doesn't need a pod, therefore he isn't a organism that travels in pods. he just needs A group.

the red flag man deserved to be venomous. lionfish are very venomous, hence why few things can eat them in nonnative habitats

lionfish are very territorial. leander will get the ass of the divers that drift too far into his territory

other possibilities: moray eel, dottyback, false killer whales. eels are cool and all, but don't make for a very interesting design so i passed. dottybacks are cool fish that mimic other fish in order to be deemed as not a threat, and then eat the eggs of other fish, and false killer whales are dolphins that are aggressive to other dolphins but once again are a pod animal and pod animal just didn't feel Quite Right.

thanks for sticking around for all these designs!! i will be doing sen and elyon, but there's a big piece i want to finish before hand

[kays-catch-of-the-day]

Good morning yall! Hope you're ready for a new fish today cuz we got an all timer here today!

Today's fish is none other than my personal favorite fish, the Brook Trout (salvelinus fontinalis)! These beauties are native to Eastern North America, in both Canada and the United States, ranging from Lake Superior, to the coastal waterways from the Hudson Bay to Long Island, though they have spread far beyond their native ranges, mostly via aquacultural practices and artificial propagation, making them invasive species in many regions of North America and the world at large!

Two ecological forms of Brook Trout have been recognized by the US Forest Service, the longer-living potamodromous (fish whose migration occurs fully within fresh water) population, known as coasters , and the anadromous (fish whose migration occurs from fresh water to salt water) population, known as salters. Adult coasters typically reach lengths over 2 feet in length and weigh up to 15lbs, compared to adult salters, which average between 6 to 15 inches and about 5lbs. They're characterized by their vibrant coloration, with olive green bodies and spectacular yellow and blue rimmed red spots, white and black trimming along their orange fins, and dense, irregular lines along the top of their bodies. Often, the bellies of male Brook Trout becomes bright red or orange when spawning.

During the spawning season, female Brook Trout will construct a depression in the stream bed, referred to as a "redd", where groundwater percolates upward through the gravel. Male Brook Trout will approach the female, fertilizing the eggs. The eggs are only slightly denser than water, and can easily be swept away by the current. To avoid this, the female will bury the eggs in a small gravel mound, from which they hatch 4 to 6 weeks later. During this incubation period, the eggs receive oxygen from the streamwater that passes through the gravel beds and into their gelatinous shells. Once they hatch into small fry fish that retain their yolk sack for nutrients, which compensates for the lack of nutrients provided by the parents during the early stages of development. Following the consumption of the yolk, the fry Brook Trout will shelter from predatory species in rocky crevices and inlets, growing from fry to fingerlings, until reaching full maturation at the ripe old age of 6 months.

Despite their native range spanning across low-elevation lakes and watersheds, Brook Trout are increasingly confined to higher elevations in the Appalachian Mountains, especially in southern regions of Appalachia. Over seas, however, Brook Trout have thrived in introduced populations in much of Europe, Argentina, and New Zealand since as early as the 1850's! Their typical habitats include large and small lakes, rivers, creeks, and spring ponds in cold temperate climates. They thrive in clear spring water with moderate flow rates and healthy vegetation populations and other resources which provide natural hiding places. Although they are more resilient and adaptable to varying environmental changes, such as pH levels and temperatures, Brook Trout struggle in temperatures warmer than 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Their diets include aquatic insects at all stages of life, adult terrestrial insects such as grasshoppers and crickets, crustaceans and frogs, molluscs, invertebrates, smaller fish, and even small aquatic mammals such as voles, and even other young Brook Trout! This highly indiscriminate diet and environmental resiliency allows for their success across the globe.

Given all of this, Brook Trout are classified as a Secure by NatureServe's conservation metrics, but that label may be misleading; these incredible fish face severe and repeated extirpation (localized extinction) in many of their native habitats due to habitat destruction, pollution, damming, and invasive species. Meanwhile, Brook Trout present the danger of extirpation to other fish in their nonnative habitats, indicating that efforts must be taken to curb these populations. In short, there are more than enough Brook Trout, but they simply are not where they are meant to be.

A true fish out of (the specifically correct body of) water, the Brook Trout scores within the top percentile of all fishies on our highly advanced fish ranking scale.

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

I’m glad you liked the pictures and facts :) Maretarium is so amazing!! Everyone should know about it I think

Also silly me, the fish with the pike is actually a common bream 🤦 I’ve had too many moments where I’ve mistakenly called a carp a bream or a bream a carp! Something I need to practice at. Took me a bit to look at the picture again and go, “hmm, no… that’s not right…” ^^’

I need a shirt that says “Ask me about the Helsinki Natural History Museum” or perhaps “Ask me about Maretarium” because besides fish those are the two things I consistently keep talking about all the time I feel sifjskfnskgmwkgamgnskvnskfm

I need to post more about them. You people don’t even know. You have no idea about the things that are in there

[fishenjoyer1]

Fish of the Day

Today's fish of the day is the redside shiner!

The redside shiner, scientific name Richardsonius balteatus, is a common minnow fish in the Western North America! Also called the Bonneville redside shiner, red-sided bream, Richardson's minnow, and silver shiner. Found in schools based around species, this fish has two currently named subspecies, those being R. b. hydrophylox and R. b. bealeatus, although recent data implies that this may not be the case, showing there may be three subspecies instead. However there isn't enough current knowledge to say for certain. These fish can be found across the Western North America, in Southern British Columbia, Alberta, and then across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and Western Montana and Wyoming. Primarily found in the Columbia and Colorado river systems, in slow or still moving waters. These fish are native in Washington, Oregon, and Utah, but are invasive species harming salmonid populations in other locations. Common in lakes, mid-small sized rivers, ponds, ditches, and creeks, preferably found over gravel, sand, and vegetation. In the colder nights and winters, this fish is known to temporarily migrate to deeper waters, where they are more protected from the freeze. 

These fish are small, only three inches in length as juveniles, and only up to 5-7inches (18cm) as adults. As fry these fish start a silver color, very similar to spawning salmon and trout, but as they age they can turn silver, brown, olive, and of course, in the breeding seasons red and gold. The fry feed on zooplankton, algae, crustaceans, and, the trait of which makes them a concern in nonnative areas, trout and salmon fry. These fish at all ages are opportunistic, eating anything they can, including their own fish eggs. Adults tend to eat: insects, aquatic or terrestrial, mollusks, plankton, small fish, and eggs. Due to their small size they're predated on by larger fish in their environments, along with loons, and minks.

During spawning season, which runs from May to July, males will turn a brassy color, and gain a red stripe running behind the eye and along the lateral line, signifying that they are of breeding age. Spawning occurs in the afternoon and evening when adults move to spawning streams (or lake fish will move to inlet streams), where females and males will pick one another to thrash side by side, variously releasing eggs and sperm. These eggs then are abandoned to stick to the bottom of the stream on rocks and vegetation. Eggs will then hatch in 14-15 days after fertilization, forming schools with the other various redside shiners hatching. This is the time in which some subspecies prey upon trout fry, and others simply compete with trout for food. These fish will then sexually mature around 2-3 years of age, and will live for around 5 in total.

That's the redside shiner, everybody! Thank you for being lenient well I've been on fish hiatus briefly as I got a feel for my school term. However, fish of the day should return for at least a few days a week, but I will be attempting to get these out all five days, so keep an eye out! Have a wonderful day!

Sources:

McPhail, J. D. (2007). Redside Shiner. Pearson Ecological. https://pearsonecological.com/fish-l2-single/redside-shiner/

Utah Natural Heritage Program. Species database - Utah Natural Heritage Program Field Guide. (2019). https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=richardsonius+balteatus

Nico, L., & Fuller, P. (2004, August 6). Redside Shiner (Richardsonius Balteatus) - species profile. USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database. https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=644

[hope-for-the-planet]

Usually, sharks don't have much interest in lionfish--this is due partially to their venomous spines, but also to the fact that the sharks don't recognize the nonnative fish as prey. The lack of predation by native predators like sharks is part of what makes lionfish such a damaging invasive species.

However, sharks became more interested after spearfishermen working to cull invasive lionfish started feeding the fish they were killing to nearby sharks. After receiving many lionfish "handouts", the fishermen observed sharks hunting and eating lionfish on their own.

This spurs hope that sharks could be "taught" to view lionfish as a viable source of food and contribute to limiting their numbers.

[hamartia-mmff]

the pack | moodboard dumpster

I might have a problem (: but have fun anyway <3

Corrupted! Asylum Nurse! Liri x Corrupter! Asylum Patient! Prophy

inspiration: Einer flog über das Kuckucksnest | The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether (Edgar Allan Poe) | Joker & Harley Quinn, Arkham Asylum | 1800s Asylums | Horror Vibes

synopses: Das AU spielt irgendwann in den 1840ern in einer Irrenanstalt, in der Liri als Krankenschwester arbeitet und Prophy, der Stimmen hört und Selbstgespräche führt, wegen einer verstörenden Mordserie einsitzt. Anfangs stempelt Liri ihn noch als den üblichen Spinner ab, aber schon bald setzten sich seine Worte in ihrem Kopf fest und das Flüstern seiner kratzigen Stimme folgt ihr durch die Korridore. Als sie den Fehler macht und anfängt seinem Wahn zu lauschen und sich ihr Verstand immer mehr verabschiedet, ist es auch schon zu spät...Ihm die Zwangsjacke abzunehmen und Prophy aus seiner Isolationszelle zu lassen erscheint plötzlich gar nicht mehr so verrückt...wer regiert eine Irrenanstalt schließlich besser, als der Irrste aller Irren?

Priest! Vi & Nun! Bastet x Incubi! Zelos & Rhys

inspiration: brain rot | basically every incubus story ever | corruption vibes | lmao most innocent pack members x most perverted pack members is kinda fun, I don't make the rules

synopses: AU in dem Priester Vi und Nonne Bastet aus Versehen (ja wirklich!) Incubi Zelos und Rhys beschwören. Diese wiederum wollen die armen unschuldigen Seelen nicht in Ruhe lassen...this isn't that deep (: Vi & Bastet are probably dying after Zelos and Rhys have to explain what kind of demon they are...so nothing to see here

Hänsel! Sune & Gretel! Fly x Witcher! Prophy

inspiration: fairytale stuff obviously | die Vorstellung von Prophy als Hexer, der in einem Knusperhäuschen sitzt und ähhh...sehr zartes Fleisch isst und kleine Kiddies mit gruseligen Süßigkeiten anlockt hat mich nicht losgelassen :')) u can't tell me he won't Fly und Sune als Geschwisterpärchen fand ich einfach nur süß, so als "Nesthäkchen" des Rudels und in Kombi mit Prophy noch so viel besser.

synopses: Hänsel! Sune & Gretel! Fly wurden im Wald ausgesetzt. Auf der Suche nach dem Nachhauseweg treffen sie auf den Hexer! Prohpy. Während Hänsel! Sune so gar nicht versteht, warum seine Schwester die hagere Gestalt so seltsam und suspekt findet, ist Gretel! Fly etwas skeptischer...Oh der Kerl hat Süßigkeiten? Warum hat er das nicht gleich gesagt? Natürlich gehen wir mit ihm in zu seinem Haus aus Lebkuchen ((:

Siren! Jay x Harpy! Liri

inspiration: greek mythology | there wasn't enough wlw in this moodboard dumpster I kinda ship it | just love the liri bird and jay fish vibe together | girlboss moments lmao

synopses: AU with just two girl pals hunting men and eating them, nothing more...nevermind they probably share their prey and kisses (:

Kitsune! Asuka x Bakeneko! Bastet

inspiration: japanese mythology | soft and cute stuff | girl(boy) pals | I wanted some fluff

synopses: Yokai AU in dem sich Kitsune Asuka und Bakeneko Bastet in menschlicher Gestalt auf ein japanisches Festival schleichen. Bastet ist nur leider super tollpatschig und wird sofort verlegen, wenn sie ein Typ anspricht, wodurch sich vor lauter Nervosität ihr gegabelter Katzenschweif sofort zeigt. Kitsune Asuka hat also alle Hände voll zu tun, damit das Yokai-Duo nicht auffliegt und ganz vielleicht kann er ja auch Bastet mit den Männern helfen...Bastet ist nicht zu helfen

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"In these circumstances, the commercial economy of the fur trade soon yielded to industrial economies focused on mining, forestry, and fishing. The first industrial mining (for coal) began on Vancouver Island in the early 1850s, the first sizeable industrial sawmill opened a few years later, and fish canning began on the Fraser River in 1870. From these beginnings, industrial economies reached into the interstices of British Columbia, establishing work camps close to the resource, and processing centers (canneries, sawmills, concentrating mills) at points of intersection of external and local transportation systems. As the years went by, these transportation systems expanded, bringing ever more land (resources) within reach of industrial capital. Each of these developments was a local instance of David Harvey's general point that the pace of time-space compressions after 1850 accelerated capital's "massive, long-term investment in the conquest of space" (Harvey 1989, 264) and its commodifications of nature. The very soil, Marx said in another context, was becoming "part and parcel of capital" (1967, pt. 8, ch. 27).

As Marx and, subsequently, others have noted, the spatial energy of capitalism works to deterritorialize people (that is, to detach them from prior bonds between people and place) and to reterritorialize them in relation to the requirements of capital (that is, to land conceived as resources and freed from the constraints of custom and to labor detached from land). For Marx the

wholesale expropriation of the agricultural population from the soil... created for the town industries the necessary supply of a 'free' and outlawed proletariat (1967, pt. 8, ch. 27).

For Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1977) - drawing on insights from psychoanalysis - capitalism may be thought of as a desiring machine, as a sort of territorial writing machine that functions to inscribe "the flows of desire upon the surface or body of the earth" (Thomas 1994, 171-72). In Henri Lefebvre's terms, it produces space in the image of its own relations of production (1991; Smith 1990, 90). For David Harvey it entails the "restless formation and reformation of geographical landscapes," and postpones the effects of its inherent contradictions by the conquest of space-capitalism's "spatial fix" (1982, ch. 13; 1985, 150, 156). In detail, positions differ; in general, it can hardly be doubted that in British Columbia industrial capitalism introduced new relationships between people and with land and that at the interface of the native and the nonnative, these relationships created total misunderstandings and powerful new axes of power that quickly detached native people from former lands. When a Tlingit chief was asked by a reserve commissioner about the work he did, he replied

I don't know how to work at anything. My father, grandfather, and uncle just taught me how to live, and I have always done what they told me-we learned this from our fathers and grandfathers and our uncles how to do the things among ourselves and we teach our children in the same way.

Two different worlds were facing each other, and one of them was fashioning very deliberate plans for the reallocation of land and the reordering of social relations. In 1875 the premier of British Columbia argued that the way to civilize native people was to bring them into the industrial workplace, there to learn the habits of thrift, time discipline, and materialism. Schools were secondary. The workplace was held to be the crucible of cultural change and, as such, the locus of what the premier depicted as a politics of altruism intended to bring native people up to the point where they could enter society as full, participating citizens. To draw them into the workplace, they had to be separated from land. Hence, in the premier's scheme of things, the small reserve, a space that could not yield a livelihood and would eject native labor toward the industrial workplace and, hence, toward civilization. Marx would have had no illusions about what was going on: native lives, he would have said, were being detached from their own means of production (from the land and the use value of their own labor on it) and were being transformed into free (unencumbered) wage laborers dependent on the social relations of capital. The social means of production and of subsistence were being converted into capital. Capital was benefiting doubly, acquiring access to land freed by small reserves and to cheap labor detached from land.

The reorientation of land and labor away from older customary uses had happened many times before, not only in earlier settler societies, but also in the British Isles and, somewhat later, in continental Europe. There, the centuries-long struggles over enclosure had been waged between many ordinary folk who sought to protect customary use rights to land and landlords who wanted to replace custom with private property rights and market economies. In the western highlands, tenants without formal contracts (the great majority) could be evicted "at will." Their former lands came to be managed by a few sheep farmers; their intricate local land uses were replaced by sheep pasture (Hunter 1976; Hornsby 1992, ch. 2). In Windsor Forest, a practical vernacular economy that had used the forest in innumerable local ways was slowly eaten away as the law increasingly favored notions of absolute property ownership, backed them up with hangings, and left less and less space for what E.P. Thompson calls "the messy complexities of coincident use-right" (1975, 241). Such developments were approximately reproduced in British Columbia, as a regime of exclusive property rights overrode a fisher-hunter-gatherer version of, in historian Jeanette Neeson's phrase, an "economy of multiple occupations" (1984, 138; Huitema, Osborne, and Ripmeester 2002). Even the rhetoric of dispossession - about lazy, filthy, improvident people who did not know how to use land properly - often sounded remarkably similar in locations thousands of miles apart (Pratt 1992, ch. 7). There was this difference: The argument against custom, multiple occupations, and the constraints of life worlds on the rights of property and the free play of the market became, in British Columbia, not an argument between different economies and classes (as it had been in Britain) but the more polarized, and characteristically racialized juxtaposition of civilization and savagery...

Moreover, in British Columbia, capital was far more attracted to the opportunities of native land than to the surplus value of native labor. In the early years, when labor was scarce, it sought native workers, but in the longer run, with its labor needs supplied otherwise (by Chinese workers contracted through labor brokers, by itinerant white loggers or miners), it was far more interested in unfettered access to resources. A bonanza of new resources awaited capital, and if native people who had always lived amid these resources could not be shipped away, they could be-indeed, had to be-detached from them. Their labor was useful for a time, but land in the form of fish, forests, and minerals was the prize, one not to be cluttered with native-use rights. From the perspective of capital, therefore, native people had to be dispossessed of their land. Otherwise, nature could hardly be developed. An industrial primary resource economy could hardly function.

In settler colonies, as Marx knew, the availability of agricultural land could turn wage laborers back into independent producers who worked for themselves instead of for capital (they vanished, Marx said, "from the labor market, but not into the workhouse") (1967, pt. 8, ch. 33). As such, they were unavailable to capital, and resisted its incursions, the source, Marx thought, of the prosperity and vitality of colonial societies. In British Columbia, where agricultural land was severely limited, many settlers were closely implicated with capital, although the objectives of the two were different and frequently antagonistic. Without the ready alternative of pioneer farming, many of them were wage laborers dependent on employment in the industrial labor market, yet often contending with capital in bitter strikes. Some of them sought to become capitalists. In M. A. Grainger's Woodsmen of the West, a short, vivid novel set in early modern British Columbia, the central character, Carter, wrestles with this opportunity. Carter had grown up on a rock farm in Nova Scotia, worked at various jobs across the continent, and fetched up in British Columbia at a time when, for a nominal fee, the government leased standing timber to small operators. He acquired a lease in a remote fjord and there, with a few men under towering glaciers at the edge of the world economy, attacked the forest. His chances were slight, but the land was his opportunity, his labor his means, and he threw himself at the forest with the intensity of Captain Ahab in pursuit of the white whale. There were many Carters.

But other immigrants did become something like Marx's independent producers. They had found a little land on the basis of which they hoped to get by, avoid the work relations of industrial capitalism, and leave their progeny more than they had known themselves. Their stories are poignant. A Czech peasant family, forced from home for want of land, finding its way to one of the coaltowns of southeastern British Columbia, and then, having accumulated a little cash from mining, homesteading in the province's arid interior. The homestead would consume a family's work while yielding a living of sorts from intermittent sales from a dry wheat farm and a large measure of domestic self-sufficiency-a farm just sustaining a family, providing a toe-hold in a new society, and a site of adaptation to it. Or, a young woman from a brick, working-class street in Derby, England, coming to British Columbia during the depression years before World War I, finding work up the coast in a railway hotel in Prince Rupert, quitting with five dollars to her name after a manager's amorous advances, traveling east as far as five dollars would take her on the second train out of Prince Rupert, working in a small frontier hotel, and eventually marrying a French Canadian farmer. There, in a northern British Columbian valley, in a context unlike any she could have imagined as a girl, she would raise a family and become a stalwart of a diverse local society in which no one was particularly well off. Such stories are at the heart of settler colonialism (Harris 1997, ch. 8).

The lives reflected in these stories, like the productions of capital, were sustained by land. Older regimes of custom had been broken, in most cases by enclosures or other displacements in the homeland several generations before emigration. Many settlers became property owners, holders of land in fee simple, beneficiaries of a landed opportunity that, previously, had been unobtainable. But use values had not given way entirely to exchange values, nor was labor entirely detached from land. Indeed, for all the work associated with it, the pioneer farm offered a temporary haven from capital. The family would be relatively autonomous (it would exploit itself). There would be no outside boss. Cultural assumptions about land as a source of security and family-centered independence; assumptions rooted in centuries of lives lived elsewhere seemed to have found a place of fulfillment. Often this was an illusion - the valleys of British Columbia are strewn with failed pioneer farms - but even illusions drew immigrants and occupied them with the land.

In short, and in a great variety of ways, British Columbia offered modest opportunities to ordinary people of limited means, opportunities that depended, directly or indirectly, on access to land. The wage laborer in the resource camp, as much as the pioneer farmer, depended on such access, as, indirectly, did the shopkeeper who relied on their custom.

In this respect, the interests of capital and settlers converged. For both, land was the opportunity at hand, an opportunity that gave settler colonialism its energy. Measured in relation to this opportunity, native people were superfluous. Worse, they were in the way, and, by one means or another, had to be removed. Patrick Wolfe is entirely correct in saying that "settler societies were (are) premised on the elimination of native societies," which, by occupying land of their ancestors, had got in the way (1999, 2). If, here and there, their labor was useful for a time, capital and settlers usually acquired labor by other means, and in so doing, facilitated the uninhibited construction of native people as redundant and expendable. In 1840 in Oxford, Herman Merivale, then a professor of political economy and later a permanent undersecretary at the Colonial Office, had concluded as much. He thought that the interests of settlers and native people were fundamentally opposed, and that if left to their own devices, settlers would launch wars of extermination. He knew what had been going on in some colonies - "wretched details of ferocity and treachery" - and considered that what he called the amalgamation (essentially, assimilation through acculturation and miscegenation) of native people into settler society to be the only possible solution (1928, lecture xviii). Merivale's motives were partly altruistic, yet assimilation as colonial practice was another means of eliminating "native" as a social category, as well as any land rights attached to it as, everywhere, settler colonialism would tend to do.

These different elements of what might be termed the foundational complex of settler colonial power were mutually reinforcing. When, in 1859, a first large sawmill was contemplated on the west coast of Vancouver Island, its manager purchased the land from the Crown and then, arriving at the intended mill site, dispersed its native inhabitants at the point of a cannon (Sproat 1868). He then worried somewhat about the proprieties of his actions, and talked with the chief, trying to convince him that, through contact with whites, his people would be civilized and improved. The chief would have none of it, but could stop neither the loggers nor the mill. The manager and his men had debated the issue of rights, concluding (in an approximation of Locke) that the chief and his people did not occupy the land in any civilized sense, that it lay in waste for want of labor, and that if labor were not brought to such land, then the worldwide progress of colonialism, which was "changing the whole surface of the earth," would come to a halt. Moreover, and whatever the rights or wrongs, they assumed, with unabashed self-interest, that colonists would keep what they had got: "this, without discussion, we on the west coast of Vancouver Island were all prepared to do." Capital was establishing itself at the edge of a forest within reach of the world economy, and, in so doing, was employing state sanctioned property rights, physical power, and cultural discourse in the service of interest."

- Cole Harris, “How Did Colonialism Dispossess? Comments from an Edge of Empire,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 94, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), p. 172-174.

[fictfrenzy]

*laces fingers and props chin on them like a rich and seductive dame in a film noir* so, tell me about your fish man. assume i know nothing.

ok fishman's name is Sebastian Solace hes from a roblox gsme called Pressure that takes place literal like trillions of miles into the sea (in the hadal zone). he was a criminal on deathrow that got kidnapped by Urbanshade, a company thats kind of like SCP but they also do experiments on the humans in their possession (and creatures too— so. i guess the SCP company, but like different). ANYWAYS you play as a guy who was also on deathrow and also got kidnapped by Urbanshade, theyre sending you down bc Sebastian released like a ton of the fucked up anomalies that Urbanshade contains, and all of thr ummm the fucking uhhhh the bases i guess i forgot what theyre called, rely on this one crystal for power, and mistah shade (ceo of urbanshade) is like “oh i got it lets send fhe thousands of criminals we have on standby on a suicide missiom for my special crack cocaine meth crystal” and everyone else is like "of cous’ mistah shayde” SO ANYWAYS they send you down to get the crystal bc they need the crystal duh. thays the plot of the game booyah. UM more on sebby flapface, heres a copypasted wall of text i sent one of my friends who asked me for fun facts abt him: his birthday is February 3rd uh 7 months after his transformation an investigation revealed he was innocent.... his VA accepted the role because "[sebastian]'s cute i have to book it" (additioanl fun fact, his VA gets paid 250 dollars PER LINE, hes also the VA of an Ultrakill character), Seb also smokes tobacco, he also played electric guitar, he listens to Metallica & general rock, he likes cats, he HAD a cat, he likes sweets and spicy snd sour stuff, he likes cheese empanadas and reeses peanut butter cups, he loves sour patch kids, after his transformation he likes meat a Lot more, he Can eat raw steaks, he likes garlic bread, hes Not lactose intolerant, he likes cereal, he did engineering in college, he had a business major but changed to engineering and also had a music minor, he has a lil brother and an older sister, his eyes are sensitive to lught, hes able to build an immunity to drugs easily, he doesnt like sleeping, his Human self is 5'10, additional fun fact 1 stud = 28cm or 0.8 meters, AND outside of the copypaste hell: his Transformed self is iirc 62"4' ? Hes also composed of human dna (duh) , and bc he was part of an experiment to give humans functional gills , he got combined with a mantis shrimp, ummm a (female) angler fish (cuz he has. An angler), a blue whale, a great white shark , a silver spiny fin, a sea snake, and one of them is censored/unknown . He was accused of killling 9 people also but as stated previously he didnt actually do it and he doesnt even know the investigation happened )not that? him knowing wojldve done anything? hes. like. a creature). Also his shop currency is data abt/from Urbansahde that he plans to sell to a rival company (imagination inc. iirc) so theyll get him out of there 👍 You are hte best person on earth for letting me ramble bro nonne of my friends do that 💔 ANYWAY I HOPE IM ACCURATE BC THIS IS ALL FROM LIKE . BEFORE AT LEAST 3 UPDATES AGO i checked the official wiki tho and i seem to be mostly accurate regardsless yay

[floridafishkeeper]

The hoplosternum litorale I brought back and added to the invasive tank. I have a few larger tanks for various cichlids and medium sized catfish. I put these guys at 8-9" each. Absolute units. Blessedly these guys adapt to captivity readily and there's always people looking to home them.

[itsoctopuses]

Week 19 Observations

5.7.25

Vine Sphinx Moth

Eumorpha vitis

Observed at Galveston Island State Park 5.4.25 and 8.24.24. It is native to this area as well as commonly found across Texas, Arizona, Mississippi down to Argentina.

They can fly up to 30 mph making it one of the fastest flying insects. They can hover like a hummingbird when getting nectar. Their tongue, or proboscis, is one of the longest among butterflies and moths, this allows them to reach further for the nectar deep down in tubular flowers.

They are most active at night and are attracted to light.

The caterpillars, or hornworms, can be very destructive to plants especially grapevines. They are not dangerous to humans. They can be pests as caterpillars but also plays an important role in the pollination of grapevines.

#vinesphinxmoth #eumorphavitis #citizenscience #native #sphinxmoth #moth #insect #nature #outdoors #may #may7 #2025 #picoftheday #project365 #day127

5.8.25

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Archilochus colubris

Observed 5.8.25 at Galveston Island State Park. They are not native to this area though are common during their spring and fall migrations to and from Central America where they winter.

They are the only birds that besides flying forward also have the ability to fly backwards and hover in place. Their wings beat up to 50 times a SECOND allowing them to make precise movements.

To keep up with their high metabolism, they consume their weight in nectar and insects daily. They prefer red or orange, tubular flowers and are attracted to feeders with red nectar. They play a vital part in plant reproduction because they transfer pollen while visiting a hundred flowers per day getting nectar. They see color so well they can also see into the ultraviolet spectrum.

They make a rapid, squeaky chirp, usually when they feel threatened. Their average lifespan is about 4 years.

#rubythroatedhummingbird #archilochuscolubris #citizenscience #nonnative #bird #fauna #nature #outdoors #may #may8 #2025 #picoftheday #project365 #day128

5.9.25

Coral Bean

Erythrina herbacea

Observed at Galveston Island State Park 5.8.25. It is native, ranging from Texas, along the Gulf of Mexico coasts, to South Carolina.

The bright red, tubular flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies when it blooms in spring. There are small, curved thorns on the stems and leaves that protect the plant from small animals. The leaves constantly turn towards the sun, a process called phototropism.

The seeds are poisonous but the young leaves and flowers are safe to eat after boiling. Native Americans have used the coral bean for purposes such as for laxatives and to increase perspiration. In Mexico, the seeds have been used to paralyze fish and as a rat poison.

They have the potential to become invasive, rapidly spreading through seed production.

#coralbean #erythrinaherbacea #citizenscience #native #plant #flora #flowers #nature #outdoors #may #may9 #2025 #picoftheday #project365 #day129

5.10.25

Decollate Snail

Rumina decollata

Observed 5.10.25 at home on Galveston. It’s a nonnative species and was introduced to North America from North Africa for pest control of brown garden snails. They are omnivores and because they eat plants as well as other invertebrates they are prohibited from areas like the Pacific Northwest so protect native snail species.

They are most active at night or during rainy weather and will hide under leaf litter and soil to keep from drying out. They can burrow deep in the soil to survive cold and dry periods.

They mature quickly at about 10 months and start laying eggs. They are hermaphrodites which enables them to self fertilize but they often mate with another snail before laying up to 500 eggs in their lifetime.

The mantle (area of tissue between the body and shell) of the snail secretes layers of calcium carbonate along the opening edge of the shell, growing in length and width as the snail grows. Unlike most snails, it loses the older whorls of the shell giving it the characteristic cone shape.

#decollatesnail #Ruminadecollata #citizenscience #snail #invertebrates #mollusk #nonnative #nature #outdoors #may #may10 #2025 #picoftheday #project365 #day130

5.11.25

White Ibis

Eudocimus albus

Observed at Galveston Island State Park5.11.25. Native range includes coastal states from Delaware to Texas and down to Central America and the Caribbean.

Highly social species, feeding, nesting and roosting in flocks.

They use their long, curved bills to probe the ground to find prey such as crustaceans, fish and insects. An adaptable species, living in various wetland habitats and urban areas.

They have unique mating rituals that include bathing, group fighting, and head shaking. They build their nests in trees and both parents care for the young.

Ibis species have fossil records dating back millions of years!

#whiteibis #eudocimusalbus #citizenscience #ibis #bird #native #nature #outdoors #may #may11 #2025 #picoftheday #project365 #day131

5.12.25

Firewheel

Gaillardia pulchella

Observed on Galveston 5.12.25 (and most other days this spring). Native to southern US, Arizona to Florida and northern Mexico.

In the sunflower family. A good source of pollen for native butterflies and bees.

Thrives in sun and partial shade. Heat and drought tolerant. Is a low maintenance, short lived perennial that can easily spread its seeds to reproduce. Can grow up to 2 ft and found in fields, disturbed areas and along roadsides.

#firewheel #Gaillardiapulchella #citizenscience #native #wildflower #nature #outdoors #may #may12 #2025 #picoftheday #project365 #day132

5.13.25

Lilac Chaste Tree

Vitex agnus-castus

Observed at Lafitte’s Cove in Galveston and also at my apartment complex 5.11.25. Nonnative plant, introduced from the Mediterranean area.

If not maintained it could become invasive in warmer climates. Its fragrant flowers attract all kinds of pollinators making it an important ornamental addition to landscapes.

It has been used both for culinary and medicinal purposes. In the kitchen the leaves and fruits have been used for spice or in spice blends. Medically, it has traditionally been used to help with menopause, menstrual and premenstrual issues.

#lilacchastetree #Vitexagnuscastus #citizenscience #nonnative #plant #tree #flora #vitex #nature #outdoors #may #may13 #2025 #picoftheday #project365 #day133

[crevicedwelling]

What foods should I give my dear palmetto bug?

I assume that’s referring to an American cockroach (Periplaneta americana) but there might be a few other nonnative and one native species that that name could refer to. regardless, roaches generally like the same foods; offer some dead leaf litter as decor and occasional snacks (all roaches eat some detritus, termites are roaches that took that to the extreme!). squashes of all types, oranges, carrots, and apples are good vegetable staples, while fish flakes and dog food in very small amounts help supplement them with protein. never give too much protein, this gives roaches gout! I find that Periplaneta enjoy starchy food too, so crumbs of bread and a rolled oat or two would be a nice treat for it

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:

At first glance the hills and valleys covered in coastal sage scrub oak are little more than a featureless green swath. On closer inspection, however, you can recognize it for what it truly is: the beating heart of one of the most genetically rich ecosystems on the planet. Birds, insects, mammals, fungi, and even some other plants find refuge under the boughs of coastal sage scrub oak, while water drawn up from its deep roots spreads out to sustain ground-dwelling organisms.

Species name:

Coastal sage scrub oak or Nuttall’s scrub oak (Quercus dumosa)

Description:

The coastal sage scrub oak rarely grows more than about 7 feet tall, but it can spread outward a great distance thanks to its lateral branches and multiple trunks. The trees’ small, spiny leaves emerge in the spring soft and bright green, but gradually toughen and darken to a dusty dark green by summer. Their acorns tend to be thin and elongated, almost conical.

Where it’s found:

The coastal sage scrub oak, as its name implies, is found along coastal areas in Southern and Baja California. The full extent of its range is the subject of spirited debate, as it shares many similar physical characteristics with other scrub oaks found more inland. In San Diego County, the remaining populations of coastal sage scrub oak exist in fragmented populations, usually in wildlife reserves, like islands in a sea of urban development.

IUCN Red List status:

Endangered

Major threats:

Urban development destroyed much of this tree’s habitat, and its remnant population still faces this threat, along with several others. The introduction of grasses and other highly flammable nonnative species, like eucalyptus, have increased fire frequency and intensity. Escaped ornamental plants and grasses can outcompete oak saplings for light, space, and water. And climate change is resulting in disruptions to precipitation, which stresses all populations.

My favorite experience:

While collecting tissue samples after a spring rain, I took a moment to look at the tracks imprinted into the soft ground. Animal prints were everywhere — mule deer, raccoon, fox, opossum, roadrunner, and what I hoped were those of an exceedingly large bobcat and not a mountain lion. I rarely saw any of these animals during the day but, thanks to the rain, it was clear that they were all around me — present but hidden within the oaks.

My favorite experience:

What I could see, however, were the many birds flying from tree to tree, reminding me of fish swimming among outcrops of coral. Insects buzzed all around. Galls created by tiny wasps were starting to grow from some of the oaks. By summer, some of these galls would grow to the size and color of a peach, bobbing slowly in wind scented with wildflowers, sunbaked dust, and sagebrush. I knew that under my feet deep roots reached toward the precious groundwater that would sustain the forest during the dry season, and spreading from those roots were mycorrhizal fungi that would work with the oaks to support each other.

I grew up among the firs, cedars, hemlocks, and maples of the Pacific Northwest. I always thought forests needed to be composed of tall, majestic trees christened with carpets of rolling moss. Yet this sea of small, scraggly oaks held so much life. My perspective grew. It’s one thing to read about this ecosystem and another matter entirely to truly see it and understand how precious it is.

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

sorry to keep bugging you lol but if you don't mind, where did you see the tenches?? i've never seen one in an aquarium and sadly they are an invasive species in my area, but their numbers are low anyways. i'd absolutely love to see one in real life. thanks!!

-- tench loving anon

I saw them at Maretarium! I’ve talked about it a bunch in the past, it’s a public aquarium that displays native and nonnative Finnish fish, and it is indeed located in Finland. Statistically speaking there’s a good chance you’re not from Finland which unfortunately means it’s quite a trip ^^’ How unfortunate that they’re an invasive species, but perhaps one day there will be an aquarium housing tenches near you and you will get to see them in real life!