The Truth Cannot Be Fashioned

I bought all 4 in one order when they came back and requested my previous orders to be cancelled. So far 2/4 cancellations have successfully gone through and I'm not feeling too optimistic about the other 2 getting cancelled before they're shipped.

TL;DR, I might end up with an extra that I could sell for what I paid + shipping

Hate of pigeons didn’t start until the 20th Century. Before that was about 9,900 years of loving them. The rock pigeon was domesticated 10,000 years ago and not only that, we took them freaking everywhere. Pigeons were the first domesticated bird and they were an all-around animal even though they were later bred into more specialised varieties. They were small but had a high feed conversion rate, in other words it didn’t cost a whole lot of money or space to keep and they provided a steady and reliable source of protein as eggs or meat. They home, so you could take them with you and then release them from wherever you were and they’d pretty reliably make their way back. Pigeons are actually among the fastest flyers and they can home over some incredible distances (what fantastic navigators!). They were an incredibly important line of communication for multiple civilisations in human history. You know the first ever Olympics? Pigeons were delivering that news around the Known World at the time. Also, their ability to breed any time of year regardless of temperature or photoperiod? That was us, we did that to them, back when people who couldn’t afford fancier animals could keep a pair or two for meat/eggs. 

Rooftop pigeon keeping isn’t new, it’s been around for centuries and is/was important to a whole variety of cultures. Pigeons live with us in cities because we put them there, we made them into city birds. I get that there are problems with bird droppings and there’s implications for too-large flocks. By all means those are things we should look to control, but you don’t need to hate pigeons with every fibre of your being. You don’t need to despise them or brush them off as stupid (they have been intelligence tested extensively as laboratory animals because guess what other setting they’re pretty well-adapted to? LABORATORIES!) because they aren’t stupid. They’re soft intelligent creatures and I don’t have time to list everything I love about pigeons again. You don’t need to aggressively fight them or have a deep desire to kill them at all. It’s so unnecessary, especially if you realise that the majority of reasons pigeons are so ubiquitous is a direct result of human interference.

We haven’t always hated pigeons though, Darwin’s pigeon chapter in The Origin of Species took so much of the spotlight that publishers at the time wanted him to make the book ONLY about pigeons and to hell with the rest because Victorian’s were obsessed with pigeons (as much as I would enjoy a book solely on pigeons, it’s probably best that he didn’t listen).  My point is, for millenia, we loved pigeons. We loved them so much we took them everywhere with us and shaped them into a bird very well adapted for living alongside us.

It’s only been very recently that we decided we hated them, that we decided to blame them for ruining our cities. The language we use to describe pigeons is pretty awful. But it wasn’t always, and I wish we remembered that. I wish we would stop blaming them for being what we made them, what they are, and spent more time actually tackling the problems our cities face.  

And also pigeon poop was a very valuable fertilizer before we had other options, people would hire guards to stop thieves from stealing their flock’s poop.

We never intended to train her for educational programs. It was a job reserved for our raptors. It was our pigeon who decided she would be a part of what we were doing. One day, when we entered her enclosure to change water and food, she decided to fly to my hand and perch like our raptors do. 

No training, no treats, just the reward of being with us. 

What we hadn’t noticed for the couple months prior was her watching us. This brilliant little bird had been watching us every day as we trained and worked with our raptors. Finally she decided she didn’t want to be left out any longer. She made her place on our hands.

This occurred several times before we finally put her on a glove and brought her into the public. Needless to say, she was right at home. She fluffed up and preened the entire evening while people gawked and asked us why we had a pigeon on one glove and a hawk on another. 

Since then, we’ve added 5 more rescued pigeons to our growing flock. And our pigeon (Tybalt) has become a mainstay ambassador for our programs. Each of our pigeons are incredibly fun to watch and interact with. Pigeons simply don’t get enough love. They are marvelous creatures incredibly suited to life alongside people both physically and mentally. 

Photo by .jocelyn.

They have a complex and fascinating social structure, both within a flock and with other individuals:

Photo by Ingrid Taylar

AND THEY ARE JUST SUPER CUTE, HONESTLY:

Most wild animals all look alike within a species, with TINY, RARE individual variations in terms of rare color morphs, unusually big or small animals, different facial markings and other subtleties. But there is no evolutionary benefit to having species where everyone looks slightly different, and in fact, it’s beneficial for species to be similar and consistent, with a distinctive aesthetic. Especially if you’re trying to blend into the environment - a black wolf is all very well, but it looks positively silly in the summer tundra, where its grey/brown/brindley cousins blend in. A white deer has a great aesthetic - and a very short lifespan in the forest. Distinctive Protagonist looks are rare in the wild, simply because natural selection usually comes down heavily on them.

To humans, most wild animals are visually indistinguishable from each other.

As a result, most wild animals are like

“Oh it’s obvious - you can tell the twins apart because Kara has a big nose.”

Wild animals usually have a pretty consistent aesthetic within their species. It’s important to them!

SO WHAT IS GOING ON WITH PIGEONS?

Look, in one small picture you’ve got a red color morph in the center, several melanistic dark morphs, a few solid black birds, a few variations on the wildtype wing pattern, a PIEBALD, a piebald copper color morph…

Like, there are LAYERS UPON LAYERS of pigeon diversity in most flocks you see. Pure white ones with black wingtips. Solid brown ones with pink iridescent patches. Pale pinkish pigeons.

WHY IS THAT? When other wild animals consider “being slightly fluffier than my brother” to be dangerously distinctive in most circumstances? BECAUSE CITY PIGEONS AREN’T TRULY WILD.

MANY OF THEM (POSSIBLY MOST OR ALL) ARE FERAL MIXES.

THEY WERE ONCE BELOVED PETS, SPECIAL MESSENGERS, EXQUISITE SHOW-WINNERS, AND PRIZED LIVESTOCK.

THEIR PRETTY COLORS WERE DELIBERATELY INTRODUCED BY HUMANS.

AND NOW THEIR HUMANS DON’T LOVE THEM ANY MORE.

See, pigeon fanciers bred (and still breed!) a huge array of pigeons. And the resulting swarms of released/discarded/escaped/phased out “fancy” pigeons stayed around humans. What else were they going to do? They interbred with wildtype pigeons.

Lots of the pigeons you see in public are feral. They’re not wild animals. They’re citizen animals. They’re genetically engineered. And now that’s what “city” pigeons are.

These “wild” horses are all different colors because they’re actually feral. Mustangs in the American West are the descendants of imported European horses - they’re an invasive domestic species that colonized an ecological niche, but they are domestic animals. Their distinctive patterns were deliberately bred by humans. A few generations of running around on the prairie isn’t going to erase that and turn them back into wildtypes. If you catch an adult mustang and train it for a short period, you can ride it and have it do tricks and make it love you. It’s a domestic animal. You can’t really do that with an adult zebra.

No matter how many generations these dogs stay on the street and interbreed with one another, they won’t turn back into wolves. They can’t. They’re deliberately genetically engineered. If you catch one (even after generations of rough living, even as an adult) you can make it stare at your face, care about your body language, and love you.

City pigeons? Well, you don’t have to like them, but they’re in the same boat. They’re tamed animals, bred on purpose, living in a human community. Their very bodies are marked with their former ownership and allegiance; they cannot really return to what they once were; if you caught one, you could make it love you (in a limited pigeon-y way.) They have gone to “the wild,” but not very far from us, and they’d be happy to come back.

So next time you see a flock of city pigeons, spare a moment to note their diversity. The wing patterns. The pied, mottled and brindled. The color types.

All of it was once meant to please you.

taylor:

While this particular need is in the San Francisco Bay Area, pets all over the country need short and long-term fostering!

From Oakland Animal Services:

It’s summer and everyone’s schedules are filling up. Maybe you’ve been thinking about getting a dog but you know you have a trip soon. Or maybe you’ve been considering fostering, but are putting it off until your schedule clears up.

Well guess what! Even a week out of the shelter does our pooches a world of good. They can catch up on their snoozes, get some loving attention, and enjoy a little quiet time in a home.

Just as important, our fosters give us a wealth of information about the dogs we just can’t get in a shelter environment. This leads to us being able to make better matches for their forever home.

Worried about the expense of buying all that dog stuff? We got you! Our foster pups come to you fully outfitted. So this summer, in between all the other activities, maybe try out having a foster dog?

Just go to www.oaklandanimalservices.org and look under How to Help to learn more about being one of our amazing foster parents!

put ur zodiac sign in the tags & if you like or dislike:

It’s not “vegan wool”, it’s plastic.

It’s not “vegan leather”, it’s plastic.

It’s not “vegan fur”, it’s fucking plastic. It’s all plastic.

It’s all fucking plastic, and every time you wash it, or damage it, or try to dispose of it, that plastic winds up in the water, in the earth, in the air.

Hell, the damage has already done when the fucking thing’s been made. As the OP says, it’s all oil and oil products; it creates pollution just to produce synthetic fabrics and materials, even before you try to throw them away, which, I mean, good luck with that.

A lot of vegan ideology is built up around a very superficial set of ethics that are supposedly about protecting animals, wildlife and the environment, but they fall apart when you look even a little bit below the surface. Every time you eschew an animal-based product in favour of something “synthetic” for the sake of “saving an animal’s life”, you’re creating pollution and trash that won’t go away for thousands of years, damaging the Earth and making life so much worse for countless animals and people.

This is by no means an attempt at shaming you, @drtanner or @800-dick-pics. Nor can I from across the world change your opinion. If you do so however, it’s been up to you. Many years ago I argued the exact same way as you. So I get it. This is aiming towards being conversational.

Does your leather jacket come free of harm?

Is harming animals relevant when producing items for us?

Is the fact that we used to need animal products in our lives still a necessity today?

Is it moral to use use animal products when there are more eco-friendly and kinder alternatives today?

Is fashion leather only a biproduct of the meat and dairy industry?

Are chemicals used in leather production facilities harmless to the people employed there? Are they even treated like we should treat humans? Do they even have basic health care?

Is plastic (poly-urethane) the only other viable option to substitute leather? (especially in modern times 2019)

You don’t have to answer the above, they’re more in terms of food for thought. And don’t feel pressed or provoked here, just hear me out.

I’m not suggesting that plastic isn’t bad at all. It’s superbad. We all know it is and of its catastrophic impact on the environment. The microplatics that end up inside the fish you still eat, clogging beaches, choking birds, turtles, dolphins and more. I remember ok twitter someone said “You’ll stop using straws to save fish? But won’t stop eating fish to save fish? Lol” Anyway, it’s pretty indiscriminatory in the way that it ruins all of us.

Here comes the big but; BUT, suggesting plastic is bad (rightfully so) does not mean that leather is a better or even a good source for us to clothe ourselves in. Currently 290 million cows are killed globally just for the sake of handbags, belts, jacket, hats and shoes. The same industry predicts a 40% increase of this global herd in order to support the demands of the growing market. It’s honestly surprising @drtanner @800-dick-pics that you didn’t even mention the possibility of an ecological impact from this industry. And that’s just cows. Then you have sheep, dogs, minks, cats, sharks, lambs and many more industries with millions suffering the same fate. Ever stop to think about the mental health of slaughter house emplyees for another example?

Again, not a biproduct, it’s an industry of it’s own.

@800-dick-pics don’t come here with void arguments regarding indiginous tradition or their lack of access to alternatives. They are never the leading consumer base (or even close) for these products and are in many cases self sustaining. Don’t ever use the indiginous as a shield to deflect your own responsibility. I can’t speak for (I’m guessing american white vegans?) But here in Sweden the vegan movement is pretty big and I have not once ever seen or heard anyone target, slander or accuse the Saami population and their keeping of reindeer. This is targeting us with access to alternatives, which are available in all first world countries.

So what are the alternatives to leather? If I ask you @drtanner, it seems that plastic is the only one… But I know you know there is more. Even if you don’t subscribe to the idea of kinder alternatives to leather. There is constant innovation in this field. Remember, it’s currently 2019 and progress is faster than ever.

I might just add, we know there is no such thing as truly crueltyfree, we do. It’s the conscious thought of buying something that is 100% certain of suffering and death versus something that could be produced with minimal ecological impact in mind, such as Fair Trade. Some can’t afford to buy new. Many reading this however will at some point be able to afford a Fair Trade or similar item. For the rest of us we have second hand thrift stores like I always opt for.

@teaboot why not second hand leather then? It’s not contributed to another dead animal. It’s still just that one that had to die. Inheriting and the subsequent fact that it is second hand IS an understandable sentiment! And frankly, if this was the common praxis, to only inherit and maintain: We wouldn’t have the 290 million animal deaths a year due to new production. It is your choice, I can’t tell you how to choose, but I can tell you why I don’t choose second hand leather.

Leather is an animal product. By definition, vegans do not use any animal products – wearing leather, second hand or not, is not technically vegan. Wearing leather perpetuates the idea that it’s desirable or acceptable to use animals for clothing, no matter where or how you got it.

But let’s get back to leather as it’s the topic. Leather isn’t cheap at all and it comes with a greater price still.

Eco friendly, durable, long lasting and comfortable quality non-leather non-plastic are readily available from:

Pineapple (Pinatex)

Mushroom leather (MyCoworks)

Cork oak bark (when carefully harvested the tree’s life expectancy is upped by some 300 extra years. It’s also water resistant)

Grape / Wine (using the left overs from the wine industry to make quality leather-like fabrics that hold quality standards equal to leather)

Kombucha leather (crazy right? The coolest part about it is that it’s a similar recipe to produce the leather-like fabric)

PVC is right out the door. I think we can all agree that PU/PVC is an embarrasing competitor in this game. And here’s another big plus (for me anyway), they don’t have the smell of dead animal skin.

I will help anyone reading this to find their Go-To non-leather non-plastic Dream jacket.

Lest we forget, animal aggriculture is the #1 leading cause of climate change. This is a verifiable fact by the United Nations own studies. Veganism is is still the better option if you want to align your heart with to action.

If anyone want to keep arguing the point here. Can we try and keep it civil..? Or just PM me and I can clarify anything I might have made you misinterpret or if I just missed somethintg.

The thing is, @teaboot, for those of us who do oppose leather and other animal fabrics, the fact that it is viewed as a “good resource” is exactly the problem. Animals should not be treated as commodities or as resources any more than humans should, to view them in this way is to take away their individuality and see them as nothing more than objects, collections of materials, skin, meat, bones, blood, even children- for us to profit from and exploit.

Environmentally speaking, leather production is actually quite a bit worse than faux leather production. It uses more chemicals, causes more emissions and has a longer term environmental impact than even plastic does, as you can see from this analysis from the Higg Material Sustainabity index, which calculates the total environmental harm of all stages of production, also factoring in longevity of the materials produced:

Cow leather is the second least sustainable material measured, only behind alpaca wool. This the result of emissions from raising the cow to slaughter weight, the impact of the crops used to feed them, the chemicals (highly toxic) required for tanning and production, the massive amount of water required as well as the fuel transport costs to take the animal to slaughter, to processing and then their skin to the final destination. The idea that leather lasts inherently longer is also not quite true either, sure you can get items that will last a generation, but if we’re honest with ourselves, most leather is fast fashion, we only keep leather longer than plastic because it tends to be more expensive, not because the material itself is any more hard wearing.

Besides, what you’ve created here is a clear example one of a false dichotomy. You’re discussing this as if leather or plastic are the only two options, but that’s very much not the case. You could also choose neither. Or you could buy second hand faux leather, offsetting the environmental cost of prediction entirely. What about recycled plastics? Cork? Pinatex? Organic cotton? Faux leather made from pineapples? Bamboo? Or better yet, hemp, which is easily as hard wearing and long lasting as leather, if not moreso? If you object to plastic that’s totally fine, I support that 100%, but proving that plastic is bad is not an argument in favour of leather, which as we have seen, is actually even worse.

vet-and-wild here.

1. If someone tries to sell a puppy to you that’s younger than 8 weeks, run. Puppies need to stay with their mothers until 8 weeks and no reputable breeder would separate them early.

2. Letting your new puppy meet your new dog and your kids is not sufficient socialization. I would love if all puppies went to a puppy kindergarten class. It’s so beneficial not only for socialization, but also behavior troubleshooting.

3. Crate training is your friend. Housetraining will be so much easier if you take the time to introduce your puppy to the crate gradually and positively.

4. Dominance theory is bullshit and using aversive tools like prong collars, choke chains, shock collars, etc can have serious side effects. We now have multiple scientific studies showing that not only is positive reinforcement more effective, but there are significant behavior concerns and relationship problems that can occur with using aversives.

5. Please please please take the time to desensitize your pup to medical handling and grooming. ESPECIALLY NAIL TRIMMING. Practice making it a positive experience at 8 weeks old instead of when that German shepherd puppy is 80lbs and terrified of life. Same with touching their ears and paws, lifting their lips, gently pinching skin (simulating injections), lifting up their tail. Honestly when we’re not in a pandemic it would be awesome if people could just plan a day to bring their pup in and have them pet and introduced to the staff/facility so their first vet experience is positive and does not involve getting shots.

6. Muzzle train your dog. Even the sweetest dog can snap when they’re sick/injured/scared. I wish every dog was muzzle trained. It would be so much easier to deal with nervous biters if their owners could positively introduce the muzzle and put it on before they get into the clinic. There are some dogs that we legit can’t even get a muzzle on because they know how to swing their head just right. That’s not only dangerous for everyone but so stressful for the dog.

7. Please teach your puppy to walk on a leash. Even the tiny teacup dogs. It’s ridiculous when we have a 12 week old puppy that still hasn’t had any introduction to the leash and is just flopping around or shutting down because they’ve never been walked for some weird reason (usually “oh we have a big yard!”)

8. Vaccinate. Your. Puppies.

9. Puppies are expensive. If you say “ugh I paid $2000 for him so I can’t afford to do all his vaccines” just know that you are giving your veterinarian a headache. Please remember that the purchase is only the beginning. Puppies are super expensive. The first year of a dog’s life is full of expenses that are both planned and unplanned.