There’s No One AFAB In My Family, It’s Just Me And My Dad (my Mom Left When I Was Little). So My

hold up im reading more about the lionfish thing and this one island in Honduras has had such a huge problem with lionfish that the measures they have taken include

• getting special exemption from the Honduran government to allow divers access to harpoons and spears which are otherwise illegal in fishing

• public campaign to teach people how to prepare and eat lionfish (apparently they are very tasty once the poisonous spines are removed) (but watch out)

• holding lionfish combination hunting competition and cookout (reportedly they killed and cooked 1,700 in a day) (someone killed 60 of them with a rubber band spear gun???)

• most recently and apparently out of desperation, the divers in charge of culling the lionfish in the Roatan Marine Park just started. feeding the lionfish they killed to sharks. bc what else are you gonna do with it

• the sharks don’t seem to notice or be affected by the poison and begin hanging out with the divers

• the sharks then were seen hunting and killing the lionfish on their own

like this is nuts to me sorry. the sharks just had to be shown “hey this is food, did you know?? you can eat these!! here try one!!” we are possibly altering an entire foodchain bc we like feeding the big ocean wolves

Reptiles and Power Outages

1.  Do not feed your reptile.  If your area is expected to lose power, you’ve got some advance notice.  Reptiles NEED heat to digest their food; without that heat, that food is just going to rot.

2. Continue to offer water.

3. Know your reptile’s requirements.  What’s life-threatening for one critter might only be a mild nuisance to another. 

4.  If you still have hot water, you can fill up some jugs with hot water and put these in your reptile tanks.  Cover your reptile tanks with tin foil to conserve heat.

5. You can make small space heaters with a tea light, a pot, and something to elevate the pot by a few centimeters.  Light the tea light and put the pot over it, making sure there’s a gap at the bottom so oxygen can still reach the candle.  This produces more heat than you’d expect.

6. You can pack up your reptiles in reptile shipping boxes.  These are insulated cardboard boxes.  You can also use styrofoam containers.  Line the bottom of the box with crumpled newspaper.  You take your reptile, put them in a small container—-like a deli cup with holes poked into it or a critter keeper or something similar—-and put them on top of the newspaper, and kinda nestle some extra paper around it loosely.  Insert a handwarmer between the box and paper layer, so it’s NEAR the deli cup but not in direct contact with it.  Finally, cover them with more loosely crumpled paper to help conserve the heat.

It’s VERY important that your reptile does NOT come into direct contact with the handwarmer.  These get VERY hot.  They also consume oxygen, so airflow is essential. 

You can also use reptile shipping packs.  These tend to last longer (40 hour packs are the most common, but they can last as long as 72 hours).

7.  Wood stoves are super helpful!  Bring all your reptiles into one room and close the door.  The goal is to keep one room cozy at this point.

You probably won’t be able to maintain the ideal temperatures for your animals, but don’t worry too much about that.  These animals are hardier than that.  Keep warm and keep safe!

If your r.ats and m.ice thaw out in the freezer, throw them out.  They’re no longer safe for your reptile.

Jo Brown

Biologist and artist

Journals

😳

I didn’t know cheetahs meow I’ve always thought they roar my whole life has been a lie

Please reblog if you think that “they/them/theirs” is a valid set of pronouns.

Trying to make a point to my father.

strawberry stuffies! ✩•̩̩͙*ೃ

˚.˚ଘo(∗ ❛ั ᵕ ❛ั )੭່˙ like and reblog if you save˚.*

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