(aka Venom thinks it should be Halloween every day, aka aka I just really wanted to draw some silly Halloween Venom art but am a bit late for the actual day)
Here’s a fun misinformation campaign going on about the Denver Zoo’s announced polar bear moves, courtesy of a misunderstanding of polar bear behavior PETA perpetuated last spring.
In mid-October, the Denver Zoo announced that their two resident polar bears, Cranbeary and Lee, would be moving to other AZA-accredited institutions. This reasons for this move are two-fold: to facilitate the Species Survival Plan conservation breeding program for polar bears, and so that Denver can begin work on remodeling their bear habitats. The polar bear population within American zoos is very small – only 44 animals – and has a lot of older individuals, so it’s really important for the sustainability of that program that bears of reproductive age are with partners with whom they’re producing cubs. Cranbeary and Lee have both been at Denver for six years, but have never had cubs – so they’ve been paired up with bears at other facilities with whom they’re a good genetic match. After their departure, the polar bear exhibit will be home to the zoo’s grizzly bears while funds are raised for the construction of a new, modern polar bear habitat.
As soon as this move was announced, a petition showed up on Care2 (a non-profit petition platform that helps animal rights campaigns with their media strategies, and makes money by selling the contact information of petition signers to various groups – including PETA) saying that splitting up the bears was immoral… because they were in love. What’s more, that petition demanded that the bears be removed from the zoo population and sent to a sanctuary to live out their lives in each other’s company. But there’s a problem with that: polar bears are solitary, and Cranbeary and Lee are not “bonded.” Polar bears are naturally only social with other adult members of their species during the breeding season – maybe a month out of each year. The cute photos that populate the Care2 petition, as well as news releases about the move, were all taken during that short window. Just as the bears wouldn’t want to be near each other the rest of the time if they were in the wild, the zoo manages them as solitary animals and gives them space from each other the rest of the year. Denver zoo’s director of communications also noted publicly that the bears aren’t even getting along for the full breeding season: “Cranbeary has been losing interest in Lee even before that period ends, Kubie [said], noting that she ‘starts getting pretty agitated with Lee.’”
So where did this idea of “bonded” polar bears in zoos come from? It was certainly popularized in April of last year, when a polar bear at SeaWorld Orlando died shortly after the zoo’s other female polar bear was transferred to another facility for breeding purposes. PETA’s vice president made public comment that the solitary female polar bear remaining at SeaWorld had lost all hope, given up, and died “of a broken heart.” This pseudo-scientific interpretation was then repeated internationally by news sources, and only a few bothered to include the AZA’s statement on the incident – none of them actually interviewed wild polar bear researchers to ascertain if there was any veracity to the claim. Some of it might be due to history, too – for a long time it was common practice in American zoos to house adult polar bears together year round – until research started indicating that they were avoiding each other, and would prefer to be more solitary except during breeding seasons.
Because of the Care2 petition and all of the other animal liberation organizations voices that have boosted their message, there are now hundreds of thousands of people who believe that naturally solitary bears maintain emotional “friendships” with each other similar to those of humans. They’ve been convinced that sending these two polar bears to a sanctuary to “keep them together forever” is better for their welfare than keeping them within an accredited zoo program. There’s actually no information in the short petition about the behavioral, medical, and physiological needs of polar bears in human care, and how a sanctuary would be able to fulfill them better than an AZA-accredited zoo. (Instead, it repeats claims about stereotypical behavior and ignores the body of published, peer-reviewed research by the zoo world that informs polar bear habitat design and management programs.) they’d b
here’s no sanctuary specified in the petition, probably because it’s hard to tell if there’s a sanctuary in the United States would be able to provide an appropriate habitat or care for for polar bears. Given that Care2 is openly and frequently anti-zoo, it’s much more likely that this petition was created with the intention of further increasing anti-zoo sentiments among the public (when the zoo chooses not to remove genetically valuable animal from a conservation breeding program and send them to facilities whose quality of care it cannot guarantee) rather than actually improve the welfare of Cranbeary and Lee.
TL;DR Animal rights groups and the petition sites that support them are spreading incorrect information about bears to further their anti-zoo agenda and to try to remove animals from zoo conservation breeding programs.
Apparently Catch Me If You Can was going to include this con but they had to cancel the scene because when they tried to film it people kept walking up and trying to give Leo their money.
So a professor of mine used to work at a bank back in the day. She says one day a guy in professional attire and a clipboard shows up in a big moving truck. He says he’s from the home office and they’re changing all the chairs. He’s needs them to just load all their old chairs into his truck and later he’d be back with the replacements.
And that’s how they gave away their office furniture to a conman whose master plan was “Wear a tie and carry a clipboard.”
Looking professional is just a pass to do whatever the hell you want.
Put a suit on and you can get almost anywhere.
there’s more to it, look nice and ACT LIKE YOU BELONG. If you don’t look like you belong there, people will stop you.
this smacks of a chef i heard of that was tired to death that every single person ordered their eggs ‘over easy’, so asked the waitress to say ‘were out of over easy, we have plenty of scrambled’ and nobody questioned it
How low must your self image be to plan to rob a bank and all you take is some second hand chairs?
I 100% believe this was a former employee with a grudge.
Kid you not, this is how a sister store of mine got their entire dog treat bar stolen.
A couple of guys said they were with maintenance and they were there to replace the old bar with a new one and the employees were like “Seems legit” and they wheeled them out. The staff even helped them do it.
This is called a “Bavarian Fire Drill” and the trick to pulling it off is to have absolute confidence that it’s going to work. If you seem even the slightest bit nervous or hesitant, everyone will see right through it.
Case in point:
In 1906, a German con man named Wilhelm Voigt dressed up in a German Army captain’s uniform and entered the town of Köpenick claiming to be an “inspector” (inspector of what, he never specified). He managed to wrangle ten German soldiers and a sergeant into assisting him, ordered the local police to halt all telephone calls to Berlin for an hour, arrested the mayor and treasurer for nonexistent charges of crooked bookkeeping, and confiscated the town’s entire treasury complete with a receipt which he signed with his former jail director’s name. He only got caught (two weeks later) because his former cellmate blabbed, and was later pardoned by Kaiser Wilhelm II who found the whole thing hilarious.
That Kaiser is a definite bro.
This is why slytherins like to be fancy and professional looking
When you’re a trickster, it pays to be … low key.
I was hired to help test a security system once. I was sent in to a semi-large company and had to go through a list of certain objectives. My favorite one was “take something out of the building that is too big to hide on your body.“ I paired it with “get into a secured facility within the building.”
I walked in in my general business getup. Shirt, tie, jacket, nice pants, not quite “suit” because it was all just a little bit shabby and not exactly matching but not clashing. Nice briefcase. Clipboard.
Getting into the secured part was easy. Learned the name of the supervisor, told the security guard that “Cindy said they’d let me in without a problem on my first day. Something about the badges not being made fast enough.” Sure, no problem, go ahead.
Walked in, unhooked a PC tower, walked to the bathroom where I’d hidden a dolly earlier, went into a stall and changed into the outfit I’d had in the briefcase. It was what I’d consider workman’s clothes but a worker in an office, not like a construction worker.
Blue jeans, t-shirt, worker’s vest (low key), hat, good boots but 2nd hand.
Threw the tower on the mover’s dolly with a couple other things, stacked very slightly precariously but not likely to fall, walked over to the stairs leading down, and started going down to the way out, which I knew had a security guard on it.
As soon as I saw him see me I stumbled and yelled out. He came running over and helped stabilize everything. Helped me down the stairs. Held the door open for me and told me to “have a nice day” as I left. Never asked for my badge or even where I was going with the stuff.
Act like you know what you’re doing. Look like you belong. Be confident.
That’s 75% of it right there.
That is some Moist Von Lipwig bullshit right there and I am fucking delighted.
– urgently marched into A&E and said ‘we’re having knee pain!!’ to the confused receptionist. i had to explain that it was only my knee and that he was just worried
– when asked to tag me in a meme of ‘what water are you?’, said ‘you are the ocean: home to all friends’
– loved ‘filthy gorgeous’ and, rather than learning the words, learned ‘all three parts in the song where they ring a triangle’
– after we had an argument about him not ‘getting’ my ADHD, i caught him halfway through a three hour playlist of lectures on ADHD, with a pen in hand, taking notes
– he suffered a TBI last summer and he did not like the orienting questions they ask (’what year is it? what day is it?’ etc). when asked ‘do you know where you are?’, he cracked one eye open and angrily said ‘in bed!’
– he played knack 2 and hated it. when i asked why he was still playing it, he said ‘so i never have to play it again’. he got every achievement and as soon as he got the last one he stood up, ejected the disc and returned it to the store
– lately he’s given up on making lunch so he just drinks huel which is a meal replacement shake, except huel is kind of boring so he sometimes puts nesquick strawberry powder in there
– my favourite drink is pepsi max. when asked about his dreams for the future, they often involve ‘being rich enough to find a way to pump pepsi max directly into our house’
– one time in our first year of dating i hadn’t seen him in weeks, whereas we normally saw each other all day every day, so i was gonna go stay with him for a couple days. he had a temporary job (i’m talking 2 weeks total) at the time and i was bummed that i was gonna be alone at his for a bit, but w/e. he was texting me like ‘work is going okay, in the line for the canteen right now’ while i got on the bus. i found the key where he said it was, i found a note on the table like ‘hi love! the wifi code is [password], I’ll be back at 5!’, and then I went into the lounge and he was there. he was lying on a fold-out bed with Marvin Gaye playing. the TV was on a powerpoint slide that said ‘Welcome, Jess. I quit my job.’ he was entirely naked except for a cushion with the letter ‘D’ over his crotch. im 95% sure there were candles
– we play the game Rimworld, where you micromanage a colony of people on an alien planet. he uses it entirely to simulate a peaceful colony, mostly of women, who have a large number of animals they care for and train. one time he got this random event where all the women in the colony got a psychic mood boost and he was like ‘honestly that’s my life goal’
– when he was in hospital and his cognitive functions were slowly coming back, he looked up from twitter with horror and said ‘jess… is the american president a racist?’
– we were playing Articulate, which is a game where you have to describe a word without saying the word itself. His partner said ‘when you’re beginning sex, you are…’. he, without a second of hesitation, yelled ‘FOREPLAY’. the answer was actually ‘initiating’, but my ego grew like fourteen times
– one time he asked me what guacamole was, and i told him, and he said ‘if it’s made up of things that already have names why does it have a different name?’ i have not let him live this down yet
– i used to have an eating disorder, and whilst i’m good 99.9% of the time now i occasionally do have wobbles. one time i’d eaten some mini-donuts and i told him ‘i kind of want to check the calories on those…’, so he immediately pulled the label off and ate it
– i lost him for like twenty minutes at a uni event, and when i found him he presented me with a pepsi max badge and said ‘i rode this mechanical bull to try and win you a year’s supply but i fell off pretty quickly. sorry.’
– we won the ‘best couple’ award in our year at uni, but neither of us were there to collect it because i was ill and he left halfway through to come home and take care of me
– one time he wasn’t paying attention while making lunch and he cracked an egg directly into the bin. the look of confusion on his face was priceless.
– on the rare occasions when i wake up before him, when i kiss him/ touch him he makes these little like… activation sounds? you know like when you touch a cat? it’s like those
This is the cutest thing I have read with my own eyes
I’m watching the new episode of Um Actually where nerds play trivia contest on the internet, and Matt Mercer is a guest and won the first point by interrupting the question halfway through and making sure everyone knew that sorcerers use charisma for their spellcasting power
Matt being handed a page full of mistakes about dnd and asked to identify them all
theclumsiestninja 