בשבילי נברא העולם

Image description: photo of a brown sign with white text that reads: "You can't save everything cute, eat everything that tastes good, and kill everything you're afraid of and expect a working ecosystem to come out of it." -- Flip Nicklin, wildlife photographer

It's about humanity in general and our relationship with the rest of the planet. Without exception, we are all being called out with this quote to analyse our interactions with nature and consider our biases, because we all have them. It's a part of human nature to have biases that shape how we see and interact with reality. Those biases can be a real problem if we don't acknowledge their influence and let them take control, especially the really harmful ones that are tied to what I collectively call "the isms" (such as antisemitism, racism, classism, etc) and can hurt others.

I took this picture in a natural history musuem in California. They had the quote on a sign next to a taxidermied California grizzly bear. The California grizzly bear is a symbol of the state of California. It's on the state flag.

The last sighting of a California grizzly bear in the state of California was in 1924. This subspecies of North American brown bear was driven to extinction in a state where they were a symbol by the greed and fear of the very people who revered them enough to use them as a symbol.

Meanwhile, American Black Bears flourished in California, possibly because they didn't have to compete with North American brown bears, and now the state has one of the largest populations in the US. One of the arguments for reintroducing grizzlies into California is that it might help curb that population. Black bears are a menace in parts of California now, getting into dumpsters and eating food not mention for consumption by bears. The theory is that the ecosystems of California evolved with two bear species, so it's out of whack with just one.

"Cops are not your friends"