outdoor cat enthusiasts r like: if my cat was about to get hit by a car or eaten by a predator it would simply not do that. rip to the thousands of cats that die on the roads and under porches and other such shelters alone and scared after getting torn to shreds by a predator but my cat is different
For throw back Thursday here is an image of a mute swan pair I photographed back in early March of this year. I’m a bit of a file hoarder when it comes to my images. I will usually save things that are sharp and have room for me to play with their composition thinking to myself “I will find a use for this at some point”. On days where I don’t get out and shoot or have more recent images to process I will often go back and think “How did I miss this during processing?!” Taken 3/9/21. https://fineartamerica.com/featured/mute-swan-couple-henry-wagner.html
The tone difference in foraging guides between native plants and invasive plants is literally so funny to read
Terry imma need examples
Foraging guide entry on native plants: Make sure you only take a small amount from a well-established patch. Leave some for the wildlife, and yourself next year! Please get involved in land restoration programs to protect this plant for the future :)
Foraging guide entry for Japanese Knotweed: RIP RIP TEAR KILL REND DESTROY EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT E V I S C E R A T E EAT EAT EAT EAT
It’s similar for wildlife.
Brochure about native fish: Remember to only fish for approved species at the appropriate time of year and only with a license and correct fishing gear. These rules exist to make sure we don’t damage local fish populations and these amazing animals can be around for future generations!
Brochure about invasive lionfish: You can kill them with a SPEAR, you can kill them with a HOOK, you can kill them with your BARE HANDS (but watch out for the spines)…did we mention the flesh of this spicy devil fish is DELICIOUS?? Do your part for the environment and CONSUME THE PROBLEMSRIC LION OF THE SEA.
This is a juvenile red lionfish(Pterois volitans). As it matures, those conspicuous pectoral fin spots will disappear, and it will develop the striking brownish-red stripes characteristic of its adult form.
While originally found in the Indo-Pacific region, P.volitans has become an invasive species in the Northwestern Atlantic and the Caribbean, possibly through introduction as released exotic pets.
Their pelagic larval phase (not shown here) has certainly helped their invasive cause. As tiny larvae, they ride the currents, allowing them to disperse and establish populations throughout their new ‘home’.
As invaders, they have the potential to upset the balance of local reef ecosystems, affect fisheries production, and threaten human health (since, being members of the Scorpaenidae family, they are venomous).
A progress image of a piece I completed recently that will be on display at BeinArt Gallery in Australia in January! It’ll be a few weeks before I will post the whole image. Cute pigeons and phone photos for the win!
Between constantly posting pieces from my Corey Helford Gallery exhibition, I’ve been working on a few pieces for a couple places in January 2017. Below is a progress teaser for my piece, “New Home” that will be included in the “Flesh and Bone” exhibition at the wonderful beinArt Gallery! It’ll be my first time showing with this gallery that has a jaw-dropping list of artists. Eekkk!
*releases pack of dads into home depot* go……be free
invasive species encroach on lesbian territory
This is a common misconception because they’re such similar environments, but you should be aware that dads are native to Home Depot, while lesbians are actually native to Lowe’s. At this point, however, both dads and lesbians have made themselves at home in both Home Depot and Lowe’s to the point that trying to separate them back into their original ranges would probably do more harm than good to the delicate ecosystem of large chain hardware stores.
A properly raised and socialized Dad will be perfectly comfortable cohabiting with Lesbians. Its not really “encroaching on another’s territory”. You wouldn’t say that about foxes in a forest that also homes bobcats, would you? No. It’s just two different species that have both evolved to live in similar/the same environment. As long as they recognize each other as equals, Dads and Lesbians are more than capable of cohabitation.
Now, if you were to release a pack of Lumberjacks into a Lowes or Home Depot, that’s where chaos will reign. Being adapted to a far harsher and more demanding environment, the Lumberjacks would simply push Dads and Lesbians both out and also consume far more than a sustainable amount of resources. It would be like releasing bears at a country club.
As a former timber-harvester… I feel this is potentially accurate in theory. But highly improbable in actuality.
Lumberjacks, like most megafauna species generally require more space than the average hardware store, even a big box store could provide. The misconception is that Lumberjacks are a social species because of how they often work and live together.
This is a matter of necessity, not preference, and a survival technique for thriving under the LogBoss.
A “pack” of Lumberjacks, if not under the environmental pressure of a LogBoss will naturally disperse until they each have a wide territory.
Lumberjacks rarely fight for territory.
One on one, a Lumberjack could drive out a Dad or Lesbian, however the latter tend to travel in social packs.
Lumberjacks will passively retreat on the presence of large numbers of people. Kind of like Sasquatch.
Getting a “pack” of Lumberjacks assembled would be hard enough unless they were forced into a Hardware Store by a LogBoss. In that case, they would already be in a heightened and potentially agitated state far above their natural behavior. This artificial scenario can be likened to a circus animal running amok. If it had been in the wild, the incident would not have occurred.
Free-roaming Lumberjacks are the cryptids of the Hardware ecosystem. They are surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive.
Please stop labeling Lumberjacks as dangerous roving social predators. They are intermediate level omnivores and remarkably peaceful unless threatened.
As a hardware store worker I can say that this is all 100% accurate.
now how in the FUCK am i supposed to leave tumblr when a god tier post like THIS is just is just waiting for me daily?!?!?!
question where does the “art student” or “DIYer” “crafter” or “soap maker” or “miniaturist“ etc. who has ventured into the store for supplies fall into the ecosystem/what is their impact of said ecosystem?
Most of the above are native to craft and hobby stores (art students, historically, are native to museums, but having been introduced to hobby stores, have found a niche for themselves and thrived), but all can be seen in hardware stores on occasion due to territorial overlap. They are generally low-impact, as they tend to stick to specific small areas and primarily utilize different resources. While a large group of any of them can be disruptive (art students, in particular, are known to travel in packs), in general, they are more likely to have territorial disputes with one another than with the local fauna.
A point of clarity -“crafter” is a bit misleading; while it conjures a specific image, much like ‘fish’ or ‘reptile’ it actually covers a broad array of wildly disparate species, and in general, more descriptive nomenclature is preferred. Fiber artists in particular are a genus to watch out for, particularly in groups. Beware a roving pack of domesticated quilters. They fear nothing, will go anywhere, and due to their social nature, will often seek interaction from other species that thrive best in solitude. They are quite friendly, and will happily adopt members of other species; the concern is that their adoptees do not always wish to be adopted.
Hemlock trees in Connecticut have been having a tough go of it thanks, in part, to a small sap-sucking insect: the hemlock woolly adelgid.
First identified in Connecticut in the 1980s, this invasive Japanese insect eats through conifer trees and has contributed to die-offs of native conifers like the Eastern hemlock (pictured above with a woolly adelgid infestation).
But Carole Cheah with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station said something might finally be causing adelgids to die off: all this cold weather.
“I have been looking for adelgids since the summer,” Cheah said. “I have been hardly able to find any adelgids at all. Even in places where I used to be able to collect adelgids.”
For years, Cheah’s been going out to look for adelgids all over Connecticut.
Woolly adelgids are active during more mild parts of the season, when temperatures are in the 30-to-40-degree Fahrenheit range.
(Slide-mounted HWA adult (left) and developing HWA (right))
But through years of sampling, Cheah said she’s found extreme winter temperature drops (at least -11 F in the northwest corner, -8 F in central Connecticut, or -6 F along the shore) are killing massive numbers (more than 90 percent) of adelgid populations.
So are successive days of sub-zero temperatures.
“My feeling is that, at least with regard to the adelgid, we no longer have such a serious threat as we had just a decade ago,” Cheah said. “I feel very optimistic about the future for our eastern hemlocks.”
But Cheah cautioned it’s a tempered optimism.
Hemlocks are susceptible to drought, which notably impacted the state in 2016 and 2017.
Cheah also said increased snowfalls could actually insulate surviving adelgids, helping them to ride out extreme winter weather.
Meanwhile, northwestern adelgid populations appear to be developing some cold-resistance, and urban “heat islands” could warm up adelgids in more developed portions of the state.
Then there’s another, more cold-tolerant, insect, which may be taking the adlegid’s place: the elongate hemlock scale.
“We should not take our eye off the [elongate hemlock] scale, because that is not going to be as impacted by the winters,” Cheah said. “Even though the hemlock woolly adelgid may have lessened its impact on the hemlocks, I believe the scale needs to be further researched and is definitely impacting them now.”
(Image Credits: Scott M Salom, Virginia Tech / U.S. Department Of Agriculture & Nathan Havill / USDA Forest Service)
A weed is a highly successful plant that shares a close relationship with humans. In many instances, weeds are seen as nuisance plants, interfering with the goals and intentions we have for a piece of land. In natural areas, they are blamed for, among other things, threatening the existence of the native flora, despite the fact that human activity and disturbance brought them there in the first…
The Wonderful World of Plantlets, Bulbils, Cormlets, Tubercles, and Gemmae
The Wonderful World of Plantlets, Bulbils, Cormlets, Tubercles, and Gemmae
Probably the most well known strategy that plants have for dispersal is by way of seeds. Seeds are plants in embryo, and new generations of plants are born when seeds, released from their parent plants, find suitable locations to germinate. But one of the most amazing things about plants in general is that they have the ability to reproduce in a variety of different ways, and many plant species…
So far, the lists of weeds at each of the Weeds of Boise sites look pretty similar, with several weed species showing up at nearly every site and other species only occasionally making an appearance. This isn’t a surprise really. The flora of any region typically has several species that are dominant, along with species that occur less frequently. Wild urban flora – or in other words, the…
When I first learned that Japanese knotweed was edible, I had my doubts. Sure, lots of plants may be edible, but are they really something you’d want to eat? I know Japanese knotweed as one of the most notorious weeds on the planet. Its destructive, relentless, and prolific nature has landed it on the world’s 100 worst invasive species list, right up there with black rats, Dutch elm disease, and…
The Boise River, which winds its way through the City of Boise, is flanked by a series of parks known collectively as the Ribbon of Jewels, named in honor of prominent women in the community. Most of these parks are vast expanses of turfgrass scattered with large trees and are meticulously maintained, except near the river where the vegetation is allowed to run a little wild. It is within these…
Researchers at the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) have counted as many as two million large and small goldfish this year in Hamilton Harbour, Canada, fish that are likely descendants of people dropping unwanted pets in the water.
The fish, which are threatening the local ecosystem, seem to be thriving thanks to climate change, and poor water conditions that have discouraged native species from flourishing.
I’m drawing a Team Knotweed shirt for my lab, here’s a sneek peak at the Japanese knotweed and giant knotweed leaves that’ll be on it. The giant knotweed is drawn from a leaf collected from one of our research sites at Barking Slopes.
Here’s a reminder to kill this fucker with no hesitation if you see them!
For context: this is a spotted lanternfly, it is highly invasive in the US, and causes damage to crops and plants. If you see them please report the sighting here and kill on sight.
More info
This species is a huge threat to ecosystems all over the United States. I hate to kill a bug but if I see this species I’ll do it quickly and humanely as possible, and report the sighting to the proper authorities! Here are some tips from the USDA on how to help minimize lanternfly infestation
here’s my controversial plant opinions of the day:
your garden can be both native and non-native plants. Its fine. It is not evil to plant non-native plants. Avoid invasives and noxious weeds but many non-native plants are good and fun
not all nativars are the Worst Ever or completely useless for pollinators the way many people claim BUT they do lower genetic diversity if cloned and not seed bred. This is more an issue if you are trying to reestablish a wild area or preserve a species, less so if you are landscaping your suburban house
Not all non native plants growing wild need to be eradicated or are horribly invasive, especially if they are growing in disturbed areas that we created. Hesperis matronalis for example grows places like roadsides, train tracks, and areas where invasives have already choked out natives.
Invasive plants are a symptom of a problem, not a problem themselves. They are not evil. It does not do any good to assign moral worth to plants. Native plants are not “good”. Invasive plants are not “the enemy” They just are. They are filling a niche that our society left open for them.
If you are going to remove invasive plants en masse, you have to have a plan for whats going in its place. Garlic mustard, for example, tends to build up in population and then decline in number… unless the population is disturbed in which case it starts back up again.
Given that climate change is a thing and the fact that we have changed the environment on a micro level by putting in dams and streets and neighborhoods with lawns and shopping centers…. most definitions of native plants are bogus. The idea that traditonal native plants are better adapted to our local environment is no longer true. The winters are getting colder, watersheds are changing all the time, and your new development with all the topsoil shaved off in the baking sun with so much deer pressure even deer resistant plants don’t stand a chance… the native plants are not native to that environment.
Oh, the problem is capitalism btw. Our infrastructure and livelihoods depend on creating environments where invasives thrive and natives cannot.
Individuals can help on a very small scale by planting their yards in an environmentally friendly way but if a highway project and new industrial center is going in down the street… nothing is going to help the local environment except lobbying and supporting conservation organizations
because this is 100% what I think about all the time in regard to militarized language around invasive plants and purity language around native ones and generally moralizing ecology into attitudes that idealize nature’s purity and inform other kinds of xenophobia and black and white thinking … all while largely ignoring indigenous issues, land back efforts, environmental racism, etc.
I’m regards to restoration efforts within North America, the “target” output is often restoring disturbed land back to “pre-European settlement.” And why is it such a big deal that invasives are removed? To answer this question we need to know what it means to be invasive. There’s going to be a few different answers but simply an invasive plant is something that can quickly take over an area and crowd out other species (whether it’s native or not). I’m not sure where this notion of “purity” is coming from, I haven’t seen that, but if that’s true that’s just wrong. There are some natives which are invasive themselves and need managing. Big bluestem grass and sumac are two examples of plants which are native to regions of N. America and can be invasive.
The common idea among those who are interested in restoration and reclamation (and who truly know how things work at an ecological standpoint), is that us humans need to be “stewards of the land,” and by managing systems like prairies, forests, marshes, etc. we can ameliorate the environment that we’ve so disturbed and destroyed. To do this, invasive species management is probably near the top of the list. The reason why is because most non-natives don’t support the animals and insects which live in whatever region they’re introduced, like honeysuckle for example. I’ve heard that birds can eat their fruits but I’m not sure if that’s true exactly because for most other animals (including us), their berries are poisonous. Plants like milkweed or even oaks cannot compete against the agressive nature of plants like honeysuckle.
I also will say I’ve seen a few times now where people who don’t really know anything about ecology or succession are making the calls on how to handle sites and it’s just causing so many issues. As noted above, if you’re planning on removing invasives that are pretty widespread through an area, you will need to have a plan for what’s to come next. Either seed in good supporting plants (clover for example), or beneficial natives or SOMETHING please because all that work that was done to remove those invasives will be for nothing. They’ll just come right back the next year and you’ll have to do it all over again. Not to mention, a major rain event will create such bad erosion that you’ll be paying for heavy damages and it’ll make it harder for other species to establish.
TL;DR when removing invasives have a plan for after and understand how the site will change! You’re creating disturbance and need to understand how that will change the system you are working in. You also need to understand this system for establishing plants or managing the site. There’s a lot more going on in this work besides “removing invasive plants.” Use seeds, plugs, etc to establish vegetation to keep invasives out. Also try and learn how these plant species interact with the environment around them.
This is good info and insight for folks into invasive species/native plant restoration work!
I want to clarify that my original post was in response to home gardening plant groups (like facebook groups) and attitudes among individual amateur native plant activists, not ecology professionals.
The “purity” aspect i see usually comes from misunderstanding what an invasive plant is and how restoration and conservation works.
