you're a strange animal

i can’t stop fucking laughing at this fucking fish. boops boops. it’s literal, real scientic name is boops boops.

boops boops in a bucket

Tasmanian Devil’s large head and neck allow it to generate one of the strongest bites per unit body mass of any land predator and are strong enough to gnaw through metal traps. They will eat anything including bones, fur and teeth. 

Today, Tasmanian devils are endangered by a cancer called Devil Facial Tumor Disease. This rapidly spreading condition is a rare contagious cancer that causes large lumps to form around the animal’s mouth and head, making it hard for it to eat. The animal eventually starves to death. 

Cool Facts: 

It takes less than a minute (only about 15 seconds actually) to go to their site and click on the purple box titled, ‘Click Here to Give - it’s FREE!’. Every click gives about .6 bowls of food to sheltered dogs. You can also click daily!

Keep in mind that this does not cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate food to abandoned/neglected animals in exchange for advertising. [via.]

But from other angles…

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Gulf Oil Spill “Not Over”: Dolphins, Turtles Dying in Record Numbers

Report warns that 14 species are still struggling from the 2010 disaster.

Four years after the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, several species of wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico are still struggling to recover, according to a new report. In particular, bottlenose dolphins and sea turtles are dying in record numbers, and the evidence is stronger than ever that their demise is connected to the spill, according to Doug Inkley, senior scientist for the National Wildlife Federation, which issued the report.

—More than 900 bottlenose dolphins have been found dead or stranded in the oil spill area since April 2010. If you stretched the corpses lengthwise, that’s 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) of dead dolphins, Inkley said. Scientists know that is more than in previous years because they’ve been recording deaths and strandings in the Gulf for a decade.

—There are five species of sea turtle that live in the Gulf, and all of them are listed as threatened or endangered by the Endangered Species Act. About 500 dead sea turtles have been found in the spill region every year since 2011—”a dramatic increase over normal rates,” according to the NWF. What’s unknown is how many turtles died at sea and were never recovered by scientists.

—An oil chemical from the spill has been shown to cause irregular heartbeats in the embryos of bluefin and yellowfin tuna. That’s a critical stage of development for the fish, so there’s a lot of concern that the damage could cause heart attacks or deaths, Inkley said. 

—Loons, birds that winter on the Louisiana coast, are carrying increasing concentrations of toxic oil compounds in their blood.

—Sperm whales that swam near the BP well have higher levels of DNA-damaging metals in their bodies than in the past. The metals in their bodies, such as chromium and nickel, are the same ones that were present in the well.

The Animal of the Month for the the month of April is the Numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus)! Read below for GIVEAWAY details!

The Numbat is an endangered species of carnivorous marsupial that few know about outside of Australia. Therefore, it becomes that much more important to spread and share awareness. It’s numbers were reduced to just a few hundred in the 1980s, due to habitat clearing, change in fire regime laws, and reduction in population size from being preyed upon by the invasive red fox. It has recently begun a slight recovery, but with a population estimated below 1000 today, it still is in dire need of help.

There is a tremendous organization based in Australia that is working hard to conserve the numbat and its habitat. Their name is Project Numbat. Therefore, to aid them in their fight, giraffeinatree has chosen to sponsor them and their cause to fundraise for the organization. Learn more about the Numbat, Project Numbat, and the Animal of the Month project at http://giraffeinatree.tumblr.com/

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Share this post to spread the word of animal most have never even heard of. What a terrible thing for a species to go extinct without ever being recognized.

Donate via paypal however much you can. At the end of the day, consider what else you would do with the money you donate; buy a coffee or two? Purchase some music or a video game? Then ask yourself “Can I live without [insert item] in order to donate to a charitable cause?” If you find the answer to that question is yes, then please donate. It helps SO much and I do a little happy dance every time I get an e-mail notification saying someone did so.

Don’t do nothing. That’s all I ask.

GIVEAWAY!

For this month I’ve decided to do a little giveaway (nothing huge) to perhaps inspire people a tad more. First off, there’s a Numbat stuffed animal from Perth, Australia at stake here!

Additionally, I will be giving away the Narnia Two theme code.

Rules for entry:

Hate when people do this, but you must be following giraffeinatree. You can also like giraffeinatree on Facebook; it would be nice but not at all necessary.

Reblog this post.

ONE in every FIFTY people will win the Narnia Two theme code, so the more notes this has, the more people that will win.

ONE person out of all the reblogs will receive the grand prize, the silly-looking Numbat stuffed animal!

Should it be that you are not interested in the theme code or stuffed animal, and you still want to share and donate, feel free. You are not obligated to receive either!

If you don’t win, don’t worry because there will be more to come next month. Thank you all!

I think this is necessary to post. I see a lot of people “saving” bunnies.