Have you guys seen that clip
Go off Kermit
Seeing people shoot raptors in other countries is fucking wild to me because we have a whole system of super strict laws governing how you can handle an individual FEATHER off of an eagle, and it doesn't have to even be a dead eagle. One can molt and you can find it on the ground and if you're caught with it the warden will fuck your entire life. What do you mean people are out there shooting them to protect a fucking pheasant. A pheasant??? That thing I have to avoid running over approximately 459 times any time I leave a major highway???
My good friend @prismaticate has asked a very good question here, and while I’m not entirely sure I’m qualified to explain it and would love some input from more qualified sources, my SUPER simplified understanding of why the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and its numerous modern revisions and addendums have clauses about this included is this:
-It’s basically impossible to tell a feather that’s been picked up off the ground from one that’s been taken from a poached bird
-This used to be a MAJOR problem when bird-feather hats and the like were in high demand back in the day, because several bird species on the edge of extinction kept getting poached in spite of the new laws protecting them since people would just say they “found” any feathers from protected species used in the stuff they were selling, and you couldn’t prove otherwise unless you literally caught them in the act of poaching
-This eventually got SO bad that they had to just make it illegal to have the feathers at all, with certain exceptions made for members of different indigenous groups, or authorized organizations that display them as part of efforts to educate the public about the species they belong to
@zooophagous is this a reasonable rundown? Was there anything I missed/any better sources you might recommend to learn more about this? I know it’s probably far more nuanced than that, but this was kind of the explanation I’d always seen floating around. 😅
That's pretty much the gist of it! Eagles and eagle feathers have more laws on top of that because of their sacred uses in certain indigenous practices, how they relate to legal falconry, and because eagles at one time were highly endangered while at the same time being a national symbol. Where a cop or a game warden may shrug and look the other way if you, say, illegally picked up a chickadee feather from your bird feeder, if they see a real eagle feather they will notice and will be VERY interested in where it came from.
Not long ago here someone was arrested and charged for violating these laws because they tried to sell a plains feather bonnet at a pawn shop, claiming they had "found it while exploring an abandoned house."
The clerk suspected it was real eagle, the warden confirmed it was, and because those feathers are so tightly tracked they were able to locate the family of the previous owners who said the item had been stolen some time ago.
If nobody knows you have it, obviously you can get away with it. But if they see it, or God forbid you try to SELL it, the hammer will fall.
Im surprised every time people think it's a crazy sounding law, it is genuinely one of the only things preventing a lot of native birds from extinction or any asshole could kill as many as they want and just say they found them on the ground
Wait, poaching wasn’t about the meat, it was about the feathers?
The collapse of bird populations in the USA in the late 1800s thru early 1900s was very much about feathers.
At its peak the feather trade had feathers that were worth more than gold. Commercial hunters would shoot birds out of the sky and sell feathers by the pound, in literal huge crates. Egrets were especially sought after for their beautiful breeding plumage, which was used in fancy hats and accessories. This wrought havoc on the poor birds because they only ever had this plumage during breeding season, so not only were the breeding birds dying, they were leaving next generation's chicks and eggs behind to die of neglect.
Beyond hats, the gentleman's art of fly tying was also a popular art form, more for the sake of showing off one's rare collection of feathers and art than for actual fishing.
There was some meat hunting as well before the banning of commercial hunting, mostly ducks and geese, which also drifted close to extinction as they were taken to be sold in markets.
Even white tailed deer, the ubiquitous animal that's found all over north America in truly ridiculous numbers, came dangerously low. But meat wasn't where the money was when it came to birds. It was feathers.
The Lacey act banned commercial hunting in the United States, putting an end to the constant unregulated commercial killing to fill market stalls with meat (which incidentally is why you don't see venison in most supermarkets in the states. Only farmed deer is legally allowed to be sold.)
And the Migratory Bird Treaty Act made it a crime to not only kill a bird, but to even posess a single feather from one. Most people won't buy a hat that would get them arrested if they wore it outside, so the market for feathers was gutted.
Even though feather hats aren't popular in this day and age, nobody is in a hurry to amend these laws, as birds in general are well loved and popular animals and still very much threatened by other stressors such as pollution and habitat loss.
So, in the off chance you find one, what....do you do with a feather? Leave it? Report it to local authorities?
You take a picture of your cool find and leave it on the ground
it should be 100% legal to go in abandoned buildings. like nobody is using it for anything why can't i go in
Isn't this how you get murdered?
no. it's how you get poisoned by mold or crushed by broken floorboards or whatever but there aren't murderers just hanging out in every abandoned building like cockroaches
this is so fucking dumb, like we squatt abandonned buildings every other day, you really think the very fact of it being abandoned means you're going to get murdered or that it's going to collapse ? the only threat that's actually hard to deal with in those cases is cops coming to dislodge you, they're the only murderers in abandoned buildings
The people acting like murderers spawn from the ether from abandoned buildings should just say that they hate homeless people.
40,000 years ago, early humans painted hands on the wall of a cave. This morning, my baby cousin began finger painting. All of recorded history happened between these two paintings of human hands. The Nazca Lines and the Mona Lisa. The first TransAtlantic flight and the first voyage to the Moon. Humanity invented the wheel, the telescope, and the nuclear bomb. We eradicated wild poliovirus types 2 and 3. We discovered radio waves, dinosaurs, and the laws of thermodynamics. Freedom Riders crossed the South. Hippies burned their draft cards. Countless genocides, scientific advancements, migrations, and rebellions. More than a hundred billion humans lived and died between these two paintings—one on a sheet of paper, and one on the inside of a cave. At the dawn of time, ancient humans stretched out their hands. And this morning, a child reached back.
A Timeline of Humanity:
never getting over how genuinely distressed tai lung looks when po does his shuffling trick. mid fight this man stops and panics because he cant figure out a childrens magic trick
Y’all in the American SW and west Mexico better check the national hurricane center and your weather for this weekend and next week.
Hurricane Hilary is about to make landfall and that whole desert area is supposed to get a years worth of rain or more. Death Valley is supposed to get twice the annual rainfall. Severe winds, massive flooding, and landslides are all strong possibilities.
This is gonna get ugly. Please spread the word. This is a majorly anomalous event and people may be unaware of the threat headed their way.
Flash floods are definitely gonna kill people, so here’s your regularly scheduled PSA:
Desert soil does not absorb a significant amount of water. It reaches maximum saturation very very quickly, and all the rest of the water rushes downhill. Even if you can’t tell that the ground is not perfectly flat, the water can. And it will move. Quickly. No, faster than that. Nope, still faster. If you try to cross moving floodwater, you will get swept downstream and probably die.
Do not try to wade in/cross flood water that is any deeper than the thickness of the sole of an average athletic shoe, no I am not kidding, the water will get deeper literally while you’re standing in it.
This goes for cars, too. I’ve seen entire vehicles getting swept downstream in flash floods because the driver thought they could cross the “puddle” and Found Out.
Stay safe, y’all.
A couple of inches of moving water is more than enough to move a car. Don't fuck with it.
I’d care if the person I reblogged this from committed suicide.
Reblog this from anybody. literally. ANYBODY. even if you dont like them or even know them that well. YOU COULD SAVE THEIR LIFE.
i dont care if you dont like the person you reblogged this from or even if you dont even know them. FUCKING REBLOG. this can save a goddamn life.
i must do what needs to be done
reblogging bc i can, and also bc i wanna because nobody should ever feel horrible enough to consider that and i care about everyone a lot!!
I would sob so hard
Ofc I’d care!
(I also am pretty sure I’d sink into deep depression if that happened)
I’ve thought about it…
I’d be sad if any of you did it…
Inde your art is so cool like- and you as a person are neat and funny and I barely know you as a (semi)recent follower and an internet stranger, but. You are cool. Idk if you need to hear this lmao but <3
Aww! Tbh I do need to hear stuff like this, it makes me happy, older followers know they kinda have to keep me happy or uhh.. I might.. do something wrong.. To myself- you guys have seen that sad side of me.
Still upset that the can't have shit in Cincinnati meme got berenstain bearsd into Detroit as someone who lived in Cincinnati it deserves that recognition you really can't have shit there not even your own meme
Justice for the unfortunate souls still living in Cincinasty 💔
literally even stole the post. come on