Do You Live In Illinois? Please Read

Do you live in Illinois? Please read <3

The Kirtland's Snake (Clonophis kirtlandii) is a Midwestern snake that lives in wetlands and grasslands. It is threatened, endangered, or extirpated (locally extinct) throughout its range. The species was rejected from "endangered species" status but will be reconsidered in the next two years.

Photo credit x

The Kirtland's Snake has been found in a preserve in Will County, Illinois (just south of Chicago), but a permit filed by the County indicates they plan to pave a trail straight through its critical wetland habitat.

Figure 2 from here showing untouched habitat they will be paving through. This is from the Incidental Take permit.

The "Incidental Take" refers to the individuals that will die as a result of this plan. The "Incidental take" in this case is estimated to be 3 snakes because they found 3 in the planned construction zone, but this does not consider 1. the small gene pool/population size 2. the loss of prey from damage to the wetlands (from wetland pollution and soil compression) and 3. overall habitat decreasing and 4. direct injury from human persons ie being run over by bikes or stepped on.

Photo from IDNR fact sheet, source

If you are a nature lover please consider emailing DNR.ITACoordinator@Illinois.gov , the Department of Natural Resources Incidental Take Authorization coordinator, and ask them to reconsider and strengthen protections for threatened species like this!

a current problem in my life is I can’t read my phone in bed at night anymore. My cat Pierogi YELLS at me until I let him cuddle in the circle of my arms by my pillow. It’s a little overbearing but very sweet.

What this means is I read my phone before bed… in the bathroom. This usually works because I take night showers and Pie hates being in the room when the shower is on.

…tonight I took too long before starting the shower. Pie broke into the bathroom and YELLED and YELLED until I gave up and turned the shower on.

It is now post-shower and I am hiding in the bathroom in the hopes of finishing my tumblr catch-up before a cat comes to yell at me again.

unrelated, i just realized the guy i (very mildly, on 1/3rd of one page) mocked in my book just ordered a copy and i shipped it to him this morning

lol whoops

a type of baltimore guys you see on certain special days is one in all ravens gear and one in all orioles gear and they’re doing their little game day things together like day drinking and yelling. i think they are in love

specialization

One last talent show to save the rec center

Ok everybody here's the deal.

My science education nonprofit, Skype a Scientist (you might know her, creator of the squid facts hotline and matcher of classrooms + scientists) has secured absolutely no grants to support general operations for 2025. But! We're selling advent calendars to fund our program! They absolutely rule. They can save our nonprofit asses. If we sell 5000, which I realize, is so many, we can fund our program for 2025. Then I can offer a bunch of programming for free. Running a nonprofit is a weird job.

Every day, counting down to frankly whatever you want (it's usually Christmas, but man, maybe you want to count down to Halloween, that's fine by me) scratch off the sparkly sparkly iridescence and reveal a fact about frogs! We have 24 top-notch frog facts here.

You should get one for every kid in your life, then get one for all the adults who still let themselves access joy in critters.

Get 'em here: https://squidfacts.bigcartel.com/