TUMBLR! Tomorrow, September 3 2016, is once again INTERNATIONAL VULTURE AWARENESS DAY!
If you are already a vulture PRO, it’s all good, keep scrollin’, baby. NOT A VULTURE PRO? THEN READ ON, FRIEND.
VULTURES: SOME ARE LIKELY GOING EXTINCT, RAPIDLY: As you are aware, vultures exist. But did you know that many species of vultures are so critically endangered, that researchers are worried that some might be extinct before the turn of the decade? It’s 2016, bud, so that’s in only four years. Horrifyingly, a handful of vulture species have dropped by a staggering 90% since the 1980s. The White-Rumped Vulture alone has lost 99.9% of its population since the 1990s. You know all those “You were a child of the 80s/90s if you remember ____” memes floating around? Slap some vultures in there with the words “the most abundant raptor in the world during your childhood is now one of the most endangered”. That’s right folks, in the span of your lifetime, this bird has gone from several million, to less than 9,000. Other species have seen similar declines. SO WHO CARES, THEY ARE GROSS/UGLY: First of all, how dare. Vultures are my beautiful children. But seriously, vultures are very important no matter how beautiful (or.. ugly…) you think they are. Vultures are wicked good at eating carrion, and unlike most other scavengers, vultures are a dead-end for many diseases. What this means is that when a vulture eats a carcass that has botulism, rabies, tetanus, anthrax, fusobacteria
(linked to colon cancer), clostridium, (and many more), the vulture’s digestive system KILLS these diseases/bacteria, and does not pass them in its feces. One article suggests that vulture digestive systems can kill in excess of 12,000 species of bacteria that are found in rotting carrion. Not only do vultures provide this “service”, but scientists are hopeful that by studying how vultures digest these notoriously hard to kill nasties, that it will benefit humanity directly.
I DON’T EAT CARRION, SO I WON’T GET THOSE DISEASES ANYWAY: Well no, m… most of us don’t eat carrion, but guess what? We all drink water and share the same planet. Several types of these bacteria can filter down into the water table if not “cleaned up” by vultures. And while I’m sure some of you drink chemically treated municipal water, many people still rely on wells, especially in rural areas where there is more likely to be wild animal and farm animal carrion. Plus, rabies: It’s a thing. Ever since most of the vulture population in India has been wiped out, there has been a rabies breakout. Rabies is scary, do you really want to play around with that nonsense? Not me. Eat all the carrion, PLEASE, vultures. Even if vultures were not so valuable to humans and the environment (though they totally ARE), they are worth saving anyhow. We screwed this up, let’s dang well fix it.
OKAY, I’M DOWN WITH SAVING VULTURES. HOW DO WE DO THIS? Like many conservation issues, this is tricky and the answers are not always easy. Migratory or “wandering” birds in particular are tough to help because they can fly hundreds of miles in a day, and in doing so, cross international boundaries. If you have listened to world politics at all lately, you’ll know getting two countries to agree on something (especially something as “lowly” as helping vultures) is.. well, it’s tough. Vultures may have a lot of protection in one country, then fly across the invisible boundary, only to be poisoned in the next. In Africa, habitat loss, poisoning, poaching (kill the vultures so that their circling won’t lead authorities to rotting, poached animals), power lines, and illegal trade are wiping vultures out at an alarming rate. In India and other regions, much of the same, but also mixed with the devastating use of antibiotics in cattle which is extremely fatal to vultures.
If you can’t donate (I feel ya– I know that all ages and demographics love vultures! And not all can spare money) then that’s okay. Do something for International Vulture Awareness Day. Tell someone how cool vultures are, or draw a little vulture doodle. There are a lot of really neat species to choose from. Do a vulture interpretive dance at the mall, and tell people about vultures. Yell from the rooftop, from your twitter, facebook, or tumblr, about vultures. Wear some vultures on your BODY (by which I mean a shirt. Not actual vultures. Actually, I really need to get this. Look at their faces
❤
). Tag stuff with hashtags like #IVAD and #internationalvultureawarenessday and #lovevultures and make it trend, or whatever social media magic is these days.
Down with rabies, hug a vulture! (d.. don’t, don’t actually hug a vulture. Unless it’s a plush vulture. Oh snap- that’s right, you can totally buy a plush vulture and help vultures with your vulture.)
Also.
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Not Ugly
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:
(Cinerous Vulture)
* – I’m not affiliated with any of these organizations, I just want vultures to stay on this planet
That’s still in the Midwest, so I’m sensing a pattern
picture time!!!
the Ohio state goose I painted and the Michigan state goose!
and the two missionary geese that I painted!
I was serving a whole time mission for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints, so that would explain why I have so many pictures of geese and that some are painted as missionaries!
Those are some beautiful lawn geese. Thank you so much for sharing them!
Thank you also for confirming my memories of these things are real!
Birds with antlers!! This wonderfully weird series is brought to you by Munwie of Deviantart. Check out her gallery for even more of these surreal splendors.
A CROW TRIED TO GO IN OUR CLASSROOM AND HE HAD A PEN
yes hello i am here to learn geometries
That crow is more prepared than some of my students.
You’ve all just like, completely skipped over the possibility that this crow has seen people using pens in this room, found one, and is trying to return it. There’s been videos of crows picking up sweet wrappers and stuff and placing them in bins after seeing humans put their litter in bins. I really do believe that this crow is trying to return the pen and that is ADORABLE AS HELL.
THEY ARE SO SMART I LOVE THEM
Crows are thought to be self aware by some scientists. Its perfectly possible the crow wants to return the pen to humans. Knowing it belongs to humans.
Corvids. Who KNOWS. 🙂
Another cool crow deal: Once, when trying to assess if crows could reason and use tools, scientists had two crows who didn’t know each other each take a wire from a table (one was hooked, one was straight) and try to grab meat from a bottle with it. The crows could see each other, though they had separate bottles. Only the straight wire worked for this, so they hypothesized that if crows could reason, the second trial would have the two crows fighting over the straight wire. The second trial started and, to the surprise of the scientists, the two crows both went for the bent wire, one held it down and the other unbent it. They both got meat out of their bottles. They came to a peaceful solution without verbal communication. Crows are probably smarter than we are.
A Quiet Respite 