this map of the day says wolves are the most dangerous animal in estonia. which sure, wolves are dangerous.

but we also have bears. which are listed as the most dangerous in russia. and russia also has wolves

what makes an estonian wolf more dangerous than a russian wolf? if a russian wolf crosses the border is it now more dangerous? what if it stands with one leg in saatse and one leg in pskov oblast? is it half dangerous. if i yell "tra küll" at a russian wolf is that like its sleeper agent activation phrase?

Given that Finland has both wolves and bears but the map shows some kind of deer or elk I assume it's actually about which animal is the deadliest? Elk kill people not by being dangerous but by running in front of cars and getting into crashes. But then again, do wolves actually kill people in Estonia?

It's deers and moose's not elks. Although I don't know if these are actually dangerous either, because the culprit is usually sitting in the car and not paying attention to traffic (most often scrolling on his cell phone while driving, even though he shouldn't), and also not paying attention to road signs and signs warning of deer/moose danger and then wondering why a moose/deer is crashing through the windshield. However, moose are also stupid and don't give way to motorists, so collisions between a car and a moose are devastating. Here, on the other hand, we respect bears and avoid them and they avoid us, so collisions are rare. Sometimes there are those individuals who seek out the hunter and kill them so that they don't cause harm to people and themselves. Look, schools still teach (hopefully at least) common sense and practicality when it comes to moving around in nature. At least they taught it when I was still in school. But for some, practicality and common sense seem to be an unknown concept or simply an undesirable thing to learn.

And greetings from Finland

As an alternative to 'sugar, spice, and everything nice'

I present: 'salt, vinegar, and everything sinister'

Nothing fills me with rage quite like seeing "no overnight visitors" on an apartment advertisement, like, who the fuck do these random landlords think they are, to deny someone the ability to host a friend or a sibling for the night, to even feel comfortable dictating the terms of a paying tenant's sex life, like seriously fuck off all the way to hell

hex your shitty landlord and watch their life crumble into pieces

There's a very effective hex called a "tenant's union" and you can learn the sinister rituals through covens dedicated to the craft. <|:)

should i eat first or shower first *has phone in couch time for another 3 hours due to choice procrastination, a behavioral phenomenon observed in pigeons and rats as well*

i' m something of a pigeons and rats myself

i do not care if someone learned compassion from a cartoon or a comic or an anime im just glad they're here with us now a better person fighting the good fight. should it have taken something so trivial? maybe not- but it's in the past! and this is the now! and if they're objectively better for it who cares

"it took gay shipping for this adult to stop being homophobic 😬" ok but they stopped being actively homophobic. that's what you just said. that's literally the only important part you understand that right? this is a win for everyone you get that?

we all start somewhere and im going to be real buddy i only care about the harm you did or didn't cause on your journey and where you ended up. whatever set it off only matters as much as you want it too

Surely that is a major part of why we want more representation in mainstream media in the first place. It's very weird to campaign for good portrayals and then get mad when they work.

"They were homophobic until their own kid came out as queer!!!!" Ok. So what I'm hearing is that they're not homophobic anymore. What I'm hearing is that their child came out as queer and their parent then looked at their prejudices and questioned whether or not those prejudices outweighed their love for their child. What I'm hearing is that their love for their child won out against the prejudices they'd spent years espousing. What I'm hearing is that they grew as a person and they're an improved version of themselves now.

"It's very weird to campaign for good portrayals and then get mad when they work."

Learning to draw creepy pictures :)

May 2014: Senator Bill Heffernan complains about the lack of metal detectors in parliament, tabling a pipe bomb he's brought with him as evidence

someone questioned the quality of the image and thought it might be AI and I'm here to confirm this is real

Do you know how badly you have to fuck up for this to happen

"High along the peaks and ridges of the mountains in Ecuador, a 25-year-long conservation program is bearing succulent fruit in the form of cleaner water and abundant wildlife.

Established in the year 2000, Quito’s fund for the protection of water has allowed a critical South American ecosystem unique to the world and vital to both plants and animals to reclaim vast tracts of its former landscape, and people are noticing the difference.

“Before the water fund, the páramo in Antisana was very degraded. The only thing you would see was sheep.” Silvia Benitez, the Nature Conservancy’s Director of Freshwater for Latin America, said in a statement. “The change has been amazing. Vegetation is back. The wetlands are restored.”

“Now people see groups of deer. They see puma. I saw a fox. I had never before seen a fox in this area.”

The story of this quarter-century success began when the United States nonprofit the Nature Conservancy partnered with Quito’s water utility company, known as EPMAPS. The second-highest capital city on Earth by altitude, Quito is surrounded by a famous ecosystem called the páramo, a biodiversity hotspot where masses of mosses, lichen, high-altitude palms, and endemic grasses create a mountain environment unlike any other.

The páramo covers slopes above 10,000 feet in elevation all over the Andes Mountains, and acts like a giant sponge absorbing and condensing moisture from the lower ground before releasing it in streams and rivers further down. The Nature Conservancy estimates that in Colombia, where páramos cover just 2% of land area, this hydrological service provides 70% of all municipal water. It’s estimated that páramo sequesters 6 times more carbon than tropical rainforest.

EPMAPS and the Nature Conservancy organized $21,000 in seed money to kick-start a trust fund that would charge downstream users of water from the páramos around Quito for the conservation measures needed to protect them.

Called the Fund for the Protection of Water, or FONAG, it’s accumulated $2.5 million in annual contributions over the last 25 years, and as a result, páramos are retaking ranchland that once displaced them, and the wildlife like whitetail deer, Andean bears, Mountain tapirs, and condors are returning as well.

“Since FONAG’s beginning, its priority has always been the protection of the water sources. But when you conserve water sources, it’s almost automatic that you have other co-benefits—biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and social benefits,” said Bert de Bievre, Technical Secretary of FONAG.

Local communities have become very involved in FONAG’s work. Two dozen have become páramo rangers, local ranchers have moved their animals to lower elevations, agriculturalists have worked with EPMAPS to switch to low-impact methods of cultivation away from watersheds, and the Nature Conservancy runs a nursery that grows many of the endemic páramo plants for use in reforestation.

The Quito-FONAG model is now being implemented across the northwestern areas of South America, and it shows how much can be achieved by simply letting rivers run free.

“Each year, the global water sector spends $700 billion on building and repairing pipes and reservoirs, using grey solutions to engineer themselves out of a problem created by deforestation, agriculture or other threats upstream,” said Brooke Atwell, Associate Director of the Nature Conservancy’s Resilient Watersheds strategy.

“If we were able to reallocate just 1% of that spending ($7 billion) toward protecting nature, it would eclipse all global philanthropic spending on conservation today.”"

-via Good News Network, April 1, 2025