💌
Love you, Ash!!
I love you too!! And I'm so very grateful for you!
I am constantly amazed by your compassion for others, and your drive to stand up for what's right. Even when it's not easy, I see you consistently defending and supporting those who need it, and attempting to actively protect them and help in any you can. You want people to be okay, even if that means you are in the line of fire.
Your sense of integrity is something that I look up to and admire, because it's always for the right reasons. You are a very genuine, kind, and empathetic person that strives to do the right thing.
You are an amazing writer, an inspiring person, and someone that I'm so lucky to have met and be part of this community with. Thank you for everything you have done, and continue to do 💜
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"Human Kim's mate is dead?!" cries Calis.
"What?! Kim has a mate?!" cries Max
"She is your comrade! How did you not know she has-had a mate?!?"
"But what about Fenrir-wait is Fenrir dead???"
"Human Kim had her bonding band before courting Fenrir, I'm talking about her other mate."
"She's cheating?? Fenrir is the other man...orc???"
"Do humans not have multiple mates?"
"I mean...not usually no...but wait lets back up a minute. How do you know Kim's mate is dead and what do you mean by bonding band, do you mean a ring that goes on a finger?"
"I cannot believe you, her comrade of 5 years, have not noticed her longing rubbing her ankle. How she no longer has the bright orange band on her left ankle. How she looks at her communication device...phone? and looks at what I guess is a photo."
"...wait the orange band? Made out of fabric? Like string?"
"So you have noticed, why have you not consoled her then??"
"...hold on a sec. I'll be back in a moment."
"Are you getting her? Bring her to the command room then, we shall have something for her."
"....how many people think her mate is dead!?"
.
"Why are we going to the command room?"
"Just keep walking. I have a question for you but I need you to answer in front of a lot of people."
"Ookay?" the humans enter the command room and see it decorated dark and somber. Friends and close co-workers are there dressed in black or their respective mourning attire. Calis steps forward.
"Hu-Kim...Kim we are so very sorry for the loss of your mate...may they join the galaxy as a brilliant star and may you both reunite someday in the great beyond..." They slowly grab her five fingered hand with their four fingered hand.
"...If anything were to happen to Gala...I can't even begin to imagine what you are going through. If there's anything you need, anything at all, just ask."
"...Calis...thank you so much...but I don't have a mate?"
"That's what I was saying!" exclaims Max. "If she did then she would've told me, her work best friend!!"
"...but the band on your ankle and your sadness?"
"...Kay I did not notice that but yeah what's up? You alright?" he turns to his short friend
"Ohhh, you mean my friendship anklet?"
"Friend-ship anklet? ...not a bonding band?"
"It was made by my best friend, no offense Max, on Earth the last time I saw her in person 'bout...almost 2 years ago? Anyways it finally fell off since its string and I just miss having it."
"None taken."
"So no one died? She's still alive?"
"Yeah, I just texted her yesterday about the anklet and she said she'll just tattoo one on me cause it'll ward off Max...no offense Max...she just can't accept that I have more than one best friend."
"Again none taken...wait is this the friend who hated you at first and you didn't know so you kept being friendly to her until eventually she accepted you and you've been best friends for like almost 10 years?"
"She...hated you?"
"Oh yeah, she thought I was really annoying but I'm pretty dense so I just kept being nice and going to eat lunch with her throughout high school until after like...2-3 months she gave up and accepted my friendship. Oh! and I didn't know any of this until like this year." she grins
"That's a beautiful friendship right there...makes me jealous about how boringly we met and bonded over anime and musicals."
"On most planets beings would maul you over your annoyance...would you like some of the cake we got you before we knew no one died?"
"Yes please! Also thank you everybody but sadly...and luckily no one died!!" she calls out to the dozen or so aliens and humans in the command room.
"...wait you thought I was having an affair with Fenrir!?" cries a horrified Kim
"That's what I was saying!!" screams Max
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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.
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