This image portrays several dried llama fetuses sold at the Witches’ Market, a popular tourist destination in La Paz, Bolivia. Legend states that these artefacts are sacred to the Incan goddess, Pachamama. Common practice dictates that before moving into a new house, dried llama fetuses must be buried under the new house’s foundations to invite good fortune for the duration of the family’s residence in the house.
very cool
Deep in the Costa Rican jungle, a fisherman named Chito discovered a crocodile that had been shot in the eye by a cattle farmer and left for dead. Chito was able to drag the massive reptile into his boat and brought him to his home, where he stayed by his side for months, nursing him back to health.
He named the croc Pocho. “I stayed by Pocho’s side while he was ill, sleeping next to him at night. I just wanted him to feel that somebody loved him, that not all humans are bad.” said Chito, ““It meant a lot of sacrifice. I had to be there every day. I love all animals – especially ones that have suffered.”
The day finally came when Pocho was strong enough to go back into the wild. Chito took him to a lake near his house and released him, but the animal simply got back out of the water and followed him home.
“Then I found out that when I called his name he would come over to me.” says Chito. The fisherman has been hesitant to tell his story, even though 20 years have passed since he first rescued Pocho.
Pocho is roughly 5.18 meters (17 feet) long. He and Chito play, wrestle and hug on a daily basis. That bond, Chito said, took years to forge.
“After a decade I started to work with him.”, says Chito casually, “At first it was slow, slow. I played with him a bit, slowly doing more.”
Chito has told his story now only to raise awareness of the cruelty that can be done to animals, and the difference that affection and treating each other rightly can make.
“He’s my friend, I don’t want to treat him like a slave or exploit him.” said Chito, “I am happy because I rescued him and he is happy with me because he has everything he needs.”PERFECT HUMAN BEING AWARD.
When humans and animals become best friends it makes my heart hurt because there’s too much cute and I can’t handle it.
crocodiles are never portrayed as the social animals they are, but this is waaay more than that, do they even play with other crocs or is it something he learned from the human, if that’s possible then holy crap. sadly i find this super hard to believe
edit: pocho passed away last october, age 50 T_____T so has chito but i cant find anything about it
“This shit is just fucking creepy. Called “the headless chicken solution”, it’s a technologically elaborate set-up in which brainless chickens would grow like tomato plants in vertical containers like the one above until they’re ready for slaughter. Or whatever you would call it.
Philosopher Paul Thompson from Purdue University has suggested “The Blind Chicken Solution.” He argues that chickens blinded by “accident” have been developed into a strain of laboratory chickens that don’t mind being crowded together as much as normal chickens do. As a result, he argues, we should consider using blind chickens in food production as a solution to the problem of overcrowding in the poultry industry. He argues that it would be more humane to have blind chickens than ones that can see.
But Ford goes a step further and proposes a “Headless Chicken Solution.” This would involve removing the cerebral cortex of the chicken to inhibit its sensory perceptions so that it could be produced in more densely packed conditions without the associated distress. The brain stem for the chicken would be kept intact so that the homeostatic functions continue to operate, allowing it to grow.
Ford proposes this solution for two reasons: To meet the rising demand for meat, particularly poultry, and to improve the welfare of the chickens by desensitizing them to the unpleasant reality of their existence.
After this “desensitization,” the chickens could then be stacked into huge urban farms with around 1,000 chickens hooked up to large vertical frames — a little like the network of pods the humans are connected to in The Matrix. The feet of the chickens would also be removed in order to pack more in. There could be dozens of these frames in the vertical farming system, which Ford refers to as the Centre for Unconscious Farming. Food, water and air would be delivered via a network of tubes and excrement would be removed in the same way. This technique could achieve a density of around 11.7 chickens per cubic meter instead of the current 3.2 chickens achieved in broiler houses.
A challenge for Ford’s system would be the lack of muscular stimulation. However, Ford proposes using electric shocks similar to that used in other lab meat experiments.
“The realities of the existing systems of production are just as shocking.” Ford argues that his solution is no more shocking than existing food-production techniques. “The realities of the existing systems of production are just as shocking,” he told Wired.co.uk, “but they are hidden behind the sentimental guise of traditional farming scenes that we as consumers hold in our minds and see on our food packaging.”
He added: “There are numerous differences between the current dominant production systems and the one I am proposing, but the fundamental difference is the removal of suffering. Whether what I am proposing is an appropriate means to achieve the removal of suffering is open to interpretation. In reality this should be decided at the level of the individual consumer, at the counter, handing over their money and ‘voting’ for their system of preference.”
Ford believes that the Headless Chicken Solution has the same intentions as the lab-grown meats we have seen developed recently. “The intentions are the same — the synthesis of animal protein without the suffering,” he says. However, he believes that the inability to synthesize blood vessels will prove to be a major challenge for those seeking to create 3-D chunks of lab meat.
The likeness to The Matrix has not gone unnoticed by Ford. “The similarities are patent, although in The Matrix the dominant species were kind enough to provide the subspecies with a alternate reality, which was far better than the their ‘real’ post-apocalyptic world,” he told us. “This was a lovely gesture by ‘The Machines,’ but the chickens in this system will not be privy to such a luxurious appendage to an already elaborate system, especially in this age of austerity.”Via”
Yikes.
What are you doing coyote?
You can’t ride the subway.
How did you pay the fare?
You don’t even have a wallet.
DON’T LISTEN TO THEM COYOTE
YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT
YOU RIDE THAT TRAIN
AND NOT PAY
AND GIVE NO FUCKS
^
This story begins serendipitously enough. A few years ago, an employee in the poultry industry described to Dr Clinton some peculiar chickens on nearby farms. These rare chickens were bilateral gynandromorphs; half male and half female. Like my eclectus, these birds were neatly divided down the middle between their male and female sides, almost as if two individuals of opposite sexes had been stitched together.
These “half-siders,” as poultry farmers and aviculturists often refer to bilateral gynandromorphs, are rare, but have been seen in a number of avian families, ranging from finches to pigeons to parrots.always reblog bilateral gynandromorph birds
i think birds are the most “complex” living things this shows up in??
So fucking cool agh
