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fandom-hoarder · 7 days

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#chipmunk #animals in the city #animal videos #my video

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nataywrites · 1 year

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A plea for the plight of the world.

Hello there, friend! I hope your day is a beautiful one. Here, the sunshine dapples the leaves of the trees and casts shadows on the grass and pavement. It is not yet time for the evening birdsong, but I can hear them occasionally chirping about two-legged intruders moseying around on their territory.

Have you ever thought about the effect we have on our environment? The effect that we have on our furry, feathery, scaly, exoskeleton-bearing, and mucus-encased neighbors? There hasn't been a day that I haven't thought about the climate and our encroachment on animals' homes. Every night there are deer in our neighborhood. Bees and other insects make their homes inside the bricks and wood of our tenement. Birds make precariously placed nests in the eaves and on the lanterns.

I recall a documentary made about the foxes that have made their dens in the backyards of suburban Madison homes. Fox Tales | About | Nature | PBS There was another documentary on bears. It said that the Black Bear, one of the nine species of bear in the world, is the only thriving species. Bear Essentials of Hibernation | NOVA | PBS

The year before last, our family went on a little road trip to Hayward, a town known for Rock Fest, Northwoods camping, and fishing. The main street is bedecked with seasonal restaurants and t-shirt shops. We traveled there to meet with friends and then go foraging in the beautiful forests surrounding the town.

On the way home, I saw a dead bear cub on the side of the highway. The wife and kids were dozing in their seats. Just me and that bear cub, bleeding on the gravelly shoulder, were party to the stars and the bright moon in the sky. I silently mourned that little bear for miles after I had passed it. I still do. I mourn the raccoon I saw on the road today and the deer I passed by last week.

I remember seeing a meme on Facebook about a woman that made funerary art for the dead animals she found while out driving. She placed rocks, flowers, and twigs around them in beautiful halos and also strategically on their bodies to hide the horrible wounds that the poor creatures endured in their last moments. Sometimes I want to do that too, but not for notoriety. It's my apology for being a human. For the part I play in the extortion of our planet, whether or not I had known about my complicity in the past.

I am still complicit, even though I do my best. I limit driving as best I can (I live in a rural community, so many things, like affordable groceries, therapists, and specialists, are in neighboring towns.) I don't use the air conditioner until it is truly needed and avoid wasting water. Whenever we go to visit forests and parks, we try to leave them in better shape than we found them. I challenge my kids to pick up as many pieces of trash as they can on our walks. We put them in a bag and drop them in the bin when we get home.

This isn't a hard and fast cry for change. The situation is too complicated for that. I just ask that we, as humans, think about the changes we are making. Our fellow animals do not have the capability of speech, but they feel. They react to our encroachment on their homes. This is a plea for compassion and understanding. I ask that you, my dear friend keep your mind open. In my heart, I believe we can make a change. I believe we can mitigate some of the damage we are doing. By making a change for ourselves, we are modeling that behavior to others. Step-by-step, person-by-person, we are making a healthier, happier world.

With Love,

Natay

#environment #climate #animal habitats #animals in the city #human impact

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53v3nfrn5 · 3 months

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Stationery from Animal Crossing: City Folk (Nintendo Wii, 2008)

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reasonsforhope · 2 months

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Sometimes you just have one of those moments where the progress we've made as a culture get thrown into stark relief. You look at something and go "Holy shit, that would never have happened when I was a kid."

Today, I had one of those moments when I realized that the teenage boys I'm working with are just. genuinely, openly enthusiastic about going to Build-a-Bear for their outing.

These are sixteen and seventeen year old boys! They just had a whole conversation about what to name their "cute", mostly new squishmallows! They're genuinely excited that they're going to Build-a-Bear this weekend and asking other kids to pick up specific accessories for them!!

Holy shit, that never would've happened when I was 16. None of the boys would have dared to be visibly interested - and neither would most of the girls! There would have been a million gay jokes and "Haha, you're a girl" jokes and "What are you, a baby?" jokes. Teenagers weren't even supposed to care about anything back then!

Less than 15 years later, and I'm watching three 17 year old boys treat all that as not even worthy of comment.

So let's call that a reason for hope. Even when the kids aren't alright, in some ways apparently they are alright. Go Gen Z, honestly. It's so lovely to watch you guys just openly doing and saying stuff that, when I was a teen, would've been a social death sentence.