Conservationist RAAAAAAAAAGE
I'm spending a lot of time recently reading the abstracts of research done by University of Hawai‘i professors that could be potential academic advisers for me in my future graduate studies. Am being exposed to a lot of really really cool research... on the other hand, am being exposed to a concentrated dose of one of the major hazards of my chosen profession: Really Depressing News.
This one guy is doing his work mostly on Hawai‘i ‘Akepa (and sometimes other forest birds), and it's all There Is Not Enough Food and Everyone's Covered In Lice And They're Starving And There Aren't Enough Females And The Species Is Going Extinct And It's All Because Of This One Nonnative Bird, and I am starting to become filled with partially misdirected rage at Japanese white-eyes.
...I know it's not their fault we brought them here and set them loose, they're just doing what they do naturally. I don't care. Give me a way to exterminate them and I am on that so fast.
Other things that make me raeg: feral cats. Mosquitoes. Feral pigs. Mouflon sheep. The local hunting community. A very much longer list that I should probably not go into right now, for my own well-being.
*cuddles honeycreepers to chest in an impotently protective gesture*
ETA: This research is just riddled with quiet, unassuming pitfalls and gut-punches. Like, "In addition, birds with lice were less likely to be recaptured than birds without lice." A quiet, sedate, emotionless statement, but what it really means is that some of the birds cannot hold up under the onslaught of tiny parasites chewing on their skin and they die. i_i
This one guy is doing his work mostly on Hawai‘i ‘Akepa (and sometimes other forest birds), and it's all There Is Not Enough Food and Everyone's Covered In Lice And They're Starving And There Aren't Enough Females And The Species Is Going Extinct And It's All Because Of This One Nonnative Bird, and I am starting to become filled with partially misdirected rage at Japanese white-eyes.
...I know it's not their fault we brought them here and set them loose, they're just doing what they do naturally. I don't care. Give me a way to exterminate them and I am on that so fast.
Other things that make me raeg: feral cats. Mosquitoes. Feral pigs. Mouflon sheep. The local hunting community. A very much longer list that I should probably not go into right now, for my own well-being.
*cuddles honeycreepers to chest in an impotently protective gesture*
ETA: This research is just riddled with quiet, unassuming pitfalls and gut-punches. Like, "In addition, birds with lice were less likely to be recaptured than birds without lice." A quiet, sedate, emotionless statement, but what it really means is that some of the birds cannot hold up under the onslaught of tiny parasites chewing on their skin and they die. i_i