Butterfly Blues
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choving.bsky.social
Butterfly Blues
@choving.bsky.social
Wildlife ecologist, adaptation scientist, complex adaptive systems modeler, Cassandra-type prophet (apparently), avid gardener and hiker. Personal account; views are my own.
Pinned
Starter packs compilations are like personal home book shelves. An expression of one's interests, personality, what I read, what I find important. I hope these help you find great content. More in the comments. 1/: go.bsky.app/FNYZ61y
The posts and actions this week of the administration have me thinking about the future. What are the best ways to ensure accountability, justice, and discourage future bad behavior.
A reminder for those who are not aware: "remigration" is the process of deporting all non-white people from a country. It includes citizens and is, by definition, ethnic cleansing.

And to be clear: this is not fake. I just screenshot it myself.
November 30, 2025 at 2:18 AM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
"Afraid of appearing partisan, the Obama administration looked the other way when it came to prosecuting war criminals and torturers. The lack of confrontation is coming back to haunt us."

True in 2018, even more true in 2025 after a second Dem admin took office, slow-rolled prosecution, lost
November 29, 2025 at 11:29 PM
Introduce yourself with 5 animals you've seen in the wild:

Great Lakes Piping Plover
Karner Blue Butterfly
Eastern Massasuaga Rattlesnake
Copperbelly Water Snake
Canada lynx
Introduce yourself with 5 animals you've seen in the wild:

Caribou
Ravens
Seals
Kea
Turkeys
Introduce yourself with 5 animals you've seen in the wild:

Moose
Humpback whales
Giraffes
African Elephants
West African or Nile monitor lizard
November 29, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
“Choosing to write is also choosing to make meaning. Studies suggest that having a sense of agency is both a prerequisite for, and an outcome of, writing.”

ChatGPT isn’t mentioned once in this article but it’s impossible not to read it as a powerful critique.
November 28, 2025 at 10:11 PM
I am a big fan of the ugly and obscure biodiversity, but this guy's selfie charisma is fantastic.
The Celebes crested macaque stands out - quite literally. Note the prominent hair crest - thin, but definitely punk.

This great friend is #endangered and needs #conservation of their habitat in Indonesia.

Look it up in #gaiaeco

#biodiversity
#nature
#maps
#primates
November 28, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
Uh oh. This could go poorly.
November 28, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Derpy!
Okay, the crowd going nuts like someone just scored a touchdown at the Super Bowl all *through* the KDH performance is a hell of a thing to see hear/see:
November 28, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
This is my last post in the 'metaphors for AI' trilogy. I never thought there was so much to say about it all. But this is it for now! Comments welcome. #AI #metaphor makingsciencepublic.com/2025/11/28/o...
Observing shifts in metaphors for AI: What changed and why it matters
In my previous two posts I have made the case for an AI metaphor observatory and surveyed the recent academic landscape of studies dealing with metaphors for AI in the sense of GenAI and LLMs. In t…
makingsciencepublic.com
November 28, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
“When the men did not believe Miles’ tribal ID, she pointed to a phone number for the Umatilla Tribal enrollment office on the back of the card.

“Call it,” she said.

When they didn’t, she took out her phone to call the office herself, but the agents tried unsuccessfully to take her phone...”
‘Northern Exposure’ actor gave ICE agents in Redmond her tribal ID. They called it ‘fake,’ she says
Indigenous actor Elaine Miles of "Northern Exposure" was detained by ICE at a Redmond bus stop. When she showed them her Tribal ID, they told her it was fake.
www.seattletimes.com
November 27, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Just because...
November 9, 2025 at 3:17 PM
November 9, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Another unsung and largely unappreciated government service: wildlife management.

Interesting that the situation is so out of hand in northern Japan that they needed to mobilize the military.
Japan’s military is on the ground facing a new challenge: bears | CNN
When Japanese soldiers arrived in the northern prefecture of Akita on Thursday, they prepared to face a new kind of threat – one with fuzzy ears and up to 220 pounds of mass.
www.cnn.com
November 8, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
I had dinner with a colleague from @inaturalist.bsky.social yesterday and Jeanne shared that their users are discovering an average of one brand-new-previously-unknown-to-science species EACH MONTH!
Citizen Scientists Are Accelerating Ecology Research, Study Suggests
www.nytimes.com
November 7, 2025 at 11:23 PM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
There's not a better all around EV for the money, and unlike most of the competitors, charges way faster, is more efficient than most, and made in the U.S. with massively more U.S./CAN parts content!! And it's freaking amazing.
November 5, 2025 at 12:59 AM
I took advantage of this lease deal back in June. I love it. Absolutely the best. It is quiet, smooth, crazy fast acceleration, fantastic speakers, and I have charged it almost entirely with a standard outlet in my garage, although I did take three road trips with no problem.
November 5, 2025 at 1:32 AM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
For any unfamiliar with the quality of journalism at Teen Vogue, it's well known for hard-hitting stories on "politically sensitive" topics including climate.

Then there's CBS: the only major network to increase climate coverage in the last few years. They just axed nearly their whole climate team.
I was laid off from Teen Vogue today along with multiple other staffers, and today is my last day.

certainly more to come from me when the dust has settled more, but to my knowledge, after today, there will be no politics staffers at Teen Vogue.
November 3, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
🌏 Biodiversity loss has deep-rooted causes—from power imbalances to short-term priorities. These shape indirect & direct drivers like land/sea use change, exploitation & climate change.

Graphic from the IPBES #TransformativeChange Assessment ⤵️
November 3, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching
November 3, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
Final version now available #AmJBot @botsocamerica.bsky.social

Sequoia & Sequoiadendron: Two paleoendemic megatrees with different adaptive responses to high-severity fires
bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Plants are not adapted to fire, but to fire regimes
🧪🌍🔥🌳🌿🪴 #ecoevo #wildfire
Sequoia sempervirens (redwood; world's tallest tree) is well adapted to high-intensity crown fires (eg 2020), but Sequoiadendron giganteum (giant sequoia; world's most massive tree) is adapted to surface fires only!
bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

🧪🌍🔥🌿🌳🔥🪴 @botsocamerica.bsky.social
November 1, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
Here are my three truths about climate:
1. We fail if we don’t end free-to-pollute fossil fuel model. Period. Game over.
2. A crash looms, prefigured by collapse in home insurance/mortgage markets.
3. There are true villains in the story, and we have to tell it that way.
www.gatesnotes.com
November 2, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Agreed. To connection, I would add autonomy (wildness). I might word it: relationships, wildness, amount, and diversity.
Conservation isn’t just about numbers—it’s about connection. Wildlife corridors keep tigers, lions, cheetahs & leopards roaming, breeding & surviving. Isolation turns parks into islands of extinction.
www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...
November 2, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
A study by I. R. Onley, P. Cassey, & M. A. McGeoch shows that biodiversity data sharing platforms are key to managing biological invasions. Closing the "knowing-doing" gap can create better conservation outcomes. 🌍

Read the full article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10531-025-03058-1
November 1, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
No idea what a "laceband" is, but I find it both comforting and discouraging how much human nature has remained constant since the 1660s.
Got me ready in the morning and put on my first new laceband; and so neat it is, that I am resolved my great expense shall be lacebands, and it will set off any thing else the more.
October 19, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Butterfly Blues
Non-violence is the way. ☮️ Well done.
NYC is so "out of control and crime ridden" that NYPD had to arrest (checks note) exactly zero people today.

100,000+ protestors. ZERO arrests.

ZERO.

This isn't only a major slap in Trump's face. It proves YET AGAIN that the only violence ICE fascists are facing, is violence ICE fascists incite.
October 19, 2025 at 9:25 AM