so you know how when ur emailing someone back and forth, every draft gmail saves then is visible to both people in that conversation? i emailed one of my professors and it took him like 4 drafts to figure out how to say ‘no problem, thank you’ and it calms me to no end seeing we all struggle with basic human interaction sometimes
Now that I’ve walked everyone through the research I’ve done on captive big cat populations in the United States (all tagged #CrouchingTigerHiddenData) and a majority of the data that came out of it it, let’s talk about why it was important to examine on a practical level.
(Photo Credit: M. Hummel-Uzzi)
Big cats are iconic, beloved animals. It’s hard not to care about them and and about conserving them. The only way conservation strategies work is when they’re based on accurate data. The only way laws that keep people safe when dangerous animals are involved work is when they’re based on accurate data. In today’s world of “fake news’ and “alternative facts”, there is nothing more dangerous than actions based on misinformation. You’re probably following this blog specifically because of the insistence on data, citations, and sources.
So you should care about the big cat research I’ve done because what I’m telling you is that the dominant narrative in the United States – the one taken as fact by the zoo industry, the sanctuary groups, the animal advocacy organizations, and even our legislators – is mainly based on “facts” that aren’t real anymore. The effects of that are already tangible, and are primed to get a hell of a lot worse shortly. If you care about the conservation of big cats, or you want effective advocacy to ensure the welfare of captive big cats in the United States, this is a problem.
Here’s a summary of what I’ve personally been able to prove that goes against what’s “known” to be fact:
That all sounds pretty great, right? A major issue that did pose a lot of safety risk has been resolved successfully! There isn’t actually a captive big cat crisis in the United States!
And it is great. Except for the fact that the sanctuary industry and the animal rights groups aren’t talking about it. In fact, they’re still saying exactly the opposite: that there’s a huge problem involving tens of thousands of captive big cats that requires immediate action and support and lots of donations from the general public. Why would they do that?
Maybe they don’t know. After all, a lot of my write-ups did focus on the fact that privately owned exotic populations aren’t an easy topic to study. But… I was able to figure it out. Me, a lone researcher without funding or any professional backing, was able to compile data and assess the trends in it. Why haven’t these organizations that are so concerned about the captive big cat crisis in the country done the same work? My research was based on a lot of data and testimony derived directly from those organizations, so it’s not like they wouldn’t already have any easy time of it.
If the groups that are pushing legislation to “fix” the big cat crisis, or asking people to donate money to help them advocate for and rescue all the “backyard cats” being harmed by the crisis haven’t actually put in the effort to find out if their work is successful? That looks pretty negligent. The public trusts sanctuaries and their accrediting groups to be telling them the truth about the state of captive big cat issues in the United States, but all they’re currently doing is recycling a narrative that’s two-decades old.
The other option for what’s going on is less charitable. Maybe these organizations do know things have changed, and have chosen to mislead the public. There are certainly things that seem to imply that, like the tacit acknowledgement I found in court documents that there aren’t actually that many people breeding cubs unethically anymore. One of the most vocal sanctuaries even puts in their reports how much they’ve seen the need for rescue drop – and that most of their new animals are now coming from other USDA-licensed facilities – yet continues to put materials in front of congress about the plight of tens of thousands of big cats that need to be rescued from backyards and private owners in the United States. This is just a selection of statements currently on live, up-to-date websites maintained by sanctuary and animal advocacy groups about the “captive big cat crisis” right now, in 2019:
“An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 big cats languish in deplorable conditions in backyards, roadside zoos, and traveling exhibits throughout the US. Tigers and lions should not be pets or bred and exploited for profit. While some states have regulations that attempt to protect big cats, decades of experience have proven they don’t work.” – Big Cat Rescue
“By today’s environmental standards, a self-sustaining tiger population – based on 7,000 plus animals – would be considered a success story. However, when those 7,000 tigers are found in captivity – living outside of our public zoo system – it is considered a travesty.” – The Wild Animal Sanctuary
“An estimated 10,000 big cats are kept as pets and for profit in places like basements, backyards and roadside zoos throughout the U.S. today. In fact, the U.S. is thought to be home to more captive tigers than are found in the wild.” – The International Fund for Animal Welfare
“Most of the estimated 5,000 to 7,000 captive tigers in the U.S. are held at roadside and traveling zoos, pseudo-sanctuaries, and private menageries where they are subjected to extreme confinement and neglect.” – The Humane Society of the United States
“There are more tigers in backyards across the U.S. than in all of the zoos put together.” The Wildcat Sanctuary
A great example of how fast and loose a lot of these statements play with data and sourcing is that last quote. It’s attributed on the web page to Ron Tilson – AZA’s tiger guy – but he died in 2013 and I haven’t found a source yet for the statement they’re claiming he made. That’s maybe excusable if you’re just running a personal website, but that’s really low-quality work for a professional education and advocacy group dealing with big cat issues on a federal level.
Quotes like what are listed above are frequently seen used to promote legislation at a state and federal level, the best current example of which is the Big Cat Public Safety Act. I’ve broken down the most recent version of the bill (from the 115th Congress): while it’s marketed as a way to end the “big cat overpopulation crisis” in United States, what it would also do is place massive restrictions on the operation of zoological facilities holding big cats, and would potentially even effect the function of conservation breeding problems. (Bills that impact conservation work while trying to restrict pet ownership of big cats have occurred before – Michigan passed a bill in 2000 that has banned even AZA conservation breeding in the state for the past 19 years). The Big Cat Public Safety Act has been introduced in congress multiple times – and will be introduced again during 2019 – and the messaging is always focused on marketing two concepts to congresspeople: that they need to protect their constituents from the major safety risk posed by multiple thousands of big cats living secretly in backyards in their communities, and that they need to save these thousands of big cats from suffering in horrible living conditions. Those sound like really compelling arguments for passing a federal law … if you don’t know they’re all based on completely outdated information.
So what we’re left with is a really uncomfortable truth: either the major groups that are currently involved in captive big cat advocacy are completely out-of-touch with the reality of big cat populations in the United States, or they’re aware of it and purposefully misleading the public in order to fulfill their agendas. I don’t know which scenario is true. I can’t imagine the major animal advocacy groups don’t have the money and manpower to do follow-up studies on the efficacy of their own work. I also can’t imagine that sanctuary groups, the majority of whom do very good work, would lie to their supporters in order to get laws passed.
As someone who loves big cats and wants to see successful conservation work and effective advocacy done on their behalf that’s based on accurate and up-to-date information, on a practical level, it doesn’t matter. Whichever way you slice it, it’s a huge problem that all of the major organizations influencing what can be done with big cats in the United States are perpetuating massive amounts of misinformation and show no apparent interest in rectifying that situation.
Links to the full #CrouchingTigerHiddenData tumblr writeups and the research pieces are below the cut. If you think my work is important, please consider supporting it through Patreon or Ko-Fi.
#reblogging this one because it’s the one with the table of contents #interesting #tiger #debunking #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what
“Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled “211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull.” We have gien this specimen a careful and detailed examination and regret to inform you that we disagree with you theory that it represents ‘conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago.’ Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the ‘Malibu Barbie’. It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to it’s modern origin:
The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.
The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.
The dentition patters evident on the ‘skull’ is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the ‘ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams’ you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:
A) The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.
Clams don’t have teeth.
It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in it’s normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating’s notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly , we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation’s Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name ‘Australopithecus spiff-arino.’ Speaking personally, I for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn’t really sound like it might be Latin.
However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to or nation’s capital that you proposed in you last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the ‘trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix’ that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.
Yours in Science,
Harvey Rowe
Curator, Antiquities”
—————————————————————————————————-
(sorry if there are misspellings or wrong wordings. this was long and i was reading it off my phone)
“I for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn’t really sound like it might be Latin.“
We give a lot of credit to whoever wrote this, but we can say with certainty that we haven’t been given any Barbie doll heads for our paleoanthropology department. (@amhistorymuseum does have plenty of Barbies, all with bodies too.)
But we have been offered some interesting things over the years. A few examples: a corn flake in the shape of Illinois, a two-legged dog, and the world’s longest beard.
#can’t say I’m surprised #but then this was never really about the literal truth value anyway #you’ve probably seen this before #Tumblr traditions #(pre-Tumblr traditions too) #(I looked it up and apparently this letter dates back to 1994) #oh look an update
The Purple-Red Scale measures attraction in two dimensions: who you’re attracted to and how you’re attracted to them. It is designed to replace the Kinsey Scale, created to simplify human sexuality while still allowing for complexity. Plus, I love the idea of going up to a hetero and telling them I’m a Level C5 Gay.
Add yours in the tags!
this is the worst definition of hypersexuality I’ve ever seen oh my god how rude
this is also kind of a bad chart and seems convoluted in a way I can’t fully express
“the opposite sex” yikes
“bonds stronger than friendship” yikes
“sex is the be-all end-all purpose of any relationship” yiiiiiiiiikes
Researchers at MIT were surprised when they discovered that an A.I. which was designed to play League of Legends was instead found playing the popular indie game, Cave Story. The A.I., dubbed Playtron 2000, was created to test logic and learning in machines. “We wanted to create an A.I. that could learn and strategize over time based on its experiences.” spoke Dr. Richards, head researcher at MI, “We chose League of Legends as Playtron 2000′s testing grounds as we wanted to see how an A.I. that was designed to learn from its mistakes would go up against an expect human player.”
However, the researchers plans were cut short when they found on Tuesday morning that Playtron 2000 had uninstalled League of Legends and installed Cave Story in its wake. “At first we thought there may have been an error in Playtron 2000′s code,” spoke Dr. Richards, “but we discovered that Playtron 2000 had indeed gone through a complex trial and error process and had made its decision entirely logically.”
Similar experiments were ran earlier this year with two A.I.’s designed to play DOTA 2, which ended in the A.I.’s uninstalling DOTA 2 to play Bejeweled and Castle Crashers respectively. Research into why this happens is still ongoing.
Okay, this is definitely impressive but more than a little bit freaky. An AI just figured out how to install and uninstall software from its host computer; how long until one just figures out how to change its source code?
If you don’t want to read, I’ll explain the key bullet points, but please read them afterwords:
This is not “we didn’t protect him enough.”
This is not “the government screwed up some random detail or accidentally let his killer loose.”
The 111th Military Intelligence had a team taking pictures of his balcony during the assassination.
They brought in a Special Forces 8-Man Sniper Team from the 20th.
Memphis Police withdrew their regular protection detail from him.
A jury of 12 people, six black and six white, found the United States Government guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.
YOUR GOVERNMENT. MY GOVERNMENT. THE GOVERNMENT OF, BY, AND FOR THE PEOPLE, SHOT AND KILLED DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING. And the media never reported the case.
MLK was ASSASSINATED. By a government YOU PAY FOR.
I hate those posts where someone tries to pressure you into reblogging. I almost never ask you to reblog.
This shit is important.
Reblog this. I don’t care what kind of blog you have. I don’t care what you normally talk about.
Reblog this.
holy shit
Not fucking surprised. I knew that the FBI was conducting a dedicated smear campaign against him and that anyone lobbying for Black civil rights was officially considered a communist sympathizer, therefore a threat to national security. MLK had just led / been part of the biggest civil rights march in history (where he gave his “I Have a Dream” speech); it makes a lot of sense that the government of the day would decide he was a threat to be “neutralized in any way possible”, as the line goes.
And it makes a lot of sense that the mainstream media wouldn’t report it when the government was found guilty. Does the mainstream media report anything prejudicial to the government as a whole? They do not. They report plenty of stuff prejudicial to individual politicians, and they print a fair number of op-ed pieces saying whatever their target audience thinks about current wars etc, but something huge like this? Something that would upset the “official” view of The Great And Awesome Progress Of Civil Rights As A Government-Supported Thing From The Emancipation Proclamation To The Present Via Martin Luther King To The First Black President? NOT ON YOUR TINTYPE.
Personally, my bullshit alarm started ringing at “enemies of freedom”. Also, Source 1 is Wikipedia, whose own sources don’t make the trial look very legit from what I can tell, and Source 3 and Source 5 are both fromconspiracy-theorist sites.
Bringing this back because I saw a similar post going around today.
“The Dr. Oz Show” and “The Doctors” have average daily audiences of 2.9 million and 2.3 million, respectively. This gives the show hosts a huge amount of influence regarding medical information that gets disseminated to the American public. But how much of what these charismatic hosts discuss is actually sound medical advice? For the first time, a team of researchers has systematically analyzed the claims made on these popular shows, assessing their credibility…
Tags:
#lying bastards #never trust a TV doctor #(to be honest I’m a little surprised it’s only half)
Brinens and Things 
