A frustrating part of the mainstream vegan “love all animals and protect the environment” mindset is the fact that things need to die in real-life ecology all the time but deer hunting season makes icky feelings and carp culls aren’t cottagecore

The vegan “any animal death ever is morally wrong” mindset doesn’t hold up when:

We don’t have any of the large predators we used to (black bears, mountain lions, or gray wolves) but still retain large deer populations. If nothing is removing animals, they’ll quickly overload the carrying capacity of the environment and have massive losses to starvation and disease that can also pass on to livestock. Human hunters replace the large predators that our landscape can no longer support.

It’s kinder to euthanize an un-releasable hawk rather than try to find it a permanent home with humans. Wildlife rehabs have extremely limited space and resources and are usually run entirely on donated money and volunteer time. Only a few are large and stable enough to care for permanent residents long-term, and those spots are few and far between.

An invasive species poses a danger to threatened native wildlife. I will admit- Australian possums are adorable. But not in New Zealand, where they’re an invasive species that eats the eggs of ground-dwelling birds that previously had no such predators. The landowners I worked with replanting native bush, all native Maori, had no qualms about setting the dogs on them.

I don’t know how to end this except. Sometimes things just gotta die and acting otherwise just isn’t a realistic expectation.

Highlights from the notes over the past 6 months include a lot of angry vegans saying “you’re blowing things out of proportion, no vegans actually think like this!” and a lot of people who work in conservation and education saying “Every day. I have to fight people who think like this.”

As a bonus this post was originally inspired by the vegan who called me racist for saying we should kill invasive species

Hot damn. Great question, I'd love to tell you.

High Fantasy

Look, this rainfrog is called Breviceps bagginsi, so I don't have a lot of choice, now do I?

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Also, I would go with them to the end. Into the very fires of Mordor.

Low Fantasy

Phyllomedusine hylids have a certain weird clown marionette vibe to them. Just look at these Pithecopus rohdei.

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Lovecraftian

The male Rhinoderma darwinii raises his tadpoles in his vocal sac.

Sci-Fi

Gephyromantis pseudoasper sometimes wear handsome stripes—very Space Age™

But more importantly, their calls evoke a battle with laser-blasters.

I filmed this calling male in 2017 at an obscene hour of the morning.

Horror

Trichobatrachus robustus, aka the Hairy Frog, has flanks and thighs covered in weird, hair-like outgrowths that increase oxygen exchange over its skin, and BREAKS ITS FINGERS TO STAB YOU WITH CLAWS MADE OF BONE

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Romance

Breviceps males physically glue themselves to the back-ends of females, and if that's not romance, I don't know what is.

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Comedy

Nyctimantis arapapa are probably amongst the funniest-looking frogs out there.

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Adult

The 'poly' in Polypedates may be a double entendre

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Crime and Mystery

Calyptocephalella gayi is a Galaxy Brain frog.

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Speculative

Myobatrachus gouldii is basically what would happen if you decided to try to build a turtle, but you only had frog pieces in the kit.

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no webcomic will ever be as funny as this strip from oglaf

i know its been added but the follow up is also hilarious

I don’t know why, but this one is always my favorite!

i think it’s p awesome that the first compasses invented in china were not magnetic, but in fact mechanical - the cart with the little wooden man pointing south was built in a way that no matter which way the cart turned, the little man would always point south

this is a model of what it looked like

how does this work? it’s so cool and confusing

the gears are aligned in a way to always turn the little man in the opposite direction as the cart at the same rate of rotation. so if the man points at you, and you turn the cart clockwise 90 degrees, the man will be turned counterclockwise 90 degrees, and still be facing you. if you turn the cart counterclockwise 90 degrees, the man will be turned clockwise 90 degrees, and still be facing you

as for how they got the cart to point south to begin with, that goes into fengshui and cardinal direction geomancy. but long story short, the workshops that built these carts would have their front doors facing south to begin with (using the sun and the stars to figure out which way is south), so all they would have to do is build the cart facing that direction, and the little man will always point south

thank you!

My favorite little subgenre of the occult is "Fake Martial Arts" because what if that was the one type of magic that was literally 100% real. I love the idea that there's some dude in a strip mall dojo named Sensei Todd Wayne who can teach you how to kill birds with ki blasts.

[Image description, text: Good afternoon,

This letter is regarding your vacation two weeks ago, and how you let me babysit Smokey, Oreo, and Jennifer. I'd just like to give you a letter of thanks.

As you know, I'm an old man. You don't see me outside often anymore, as these joints aren't as lively as they used to be. To add to that, two years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, my dad got diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. After his death, I was left alone in my home. I don't have a wife or kids. I could go to sleep one day and never wake up again. Every day is spent just sitting around and wondering what I have done for this world.

Until I met Smokey, Oreo, and Jennnifer.

Your pets are the cutest, funniest, and most troublesome (In a good way, don't worry, they didn't mess up the house too much!) individuals. They gave me the motivation to restart my life again. I started waking up early in the morning. I began to take walks outside with your pets for the first time in years. Every 10 minutes, whenever I felt sad for a second, they would bark or rub against my leg and make me laugh.

The highlight of their stay was when I took them to the park. It was the longest time I've spent outside in a while. It didn't just bring back pet interaction. I also met other people, started talking, and made friends with a handful of fellow human beings. I was so happy to finally be able to talk with friends again, interact with others, and feel like I'm part of the human race.

I realize I sound very existential right now, but I'm telling the truth. It's nice knowing I'm doing something for someone, even if it's my neighbor.

I adopted two dogs soon after. (You may have been hearing noise from my home, pardon them!) I now take regular walks to the park with them and talk with friends I made there. Anyways, I'd just like to say: thank you so much. You brought back meaning to my life. And that's all that matters.

Sincerely,

Robert (P.S. I think it's time for you to mow that lawn, haha!)

Description ends.]

Did you know Urianger's Japanese voice actor is the same one for Jaden/Judai Yuki from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX?

respect our men in uniform (goths in the summer)