Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

Today's extremely spicy take is that endangered species protection is a very expensive national vanity project

If there've been very few of you around for a very long time and the environment isn't collapsing around you, if anything you've provided a lotta evidence that you ain't no keystone species

Nothing much eats the vernal pool fairy shrimp & it doesn't eat much of anything, either. It just sorta hangs out in the deceptively deep gross puddles that you accidentally ruin your shoes in. We've set aside 13,000 acres specifically for this shrimp. https://www.fws.gov/cno/es/images/Graphics/VPFS_5-yr%20review%20CNO%20FINAL%2027Sept07.pdf …

Taking no sides, but rather being eyes on the ground... I've walked past one of these conservation areas for 10 years as it occupies the space between our buildings. Doesn't seem like they do much, maybe remove accumulated litter every 6 months or so...

The ditch that supposedly houses the Fairy Shrimp fills up in the winter for a few weeks of the year, and perhaps I find some comfort in thinking about the rare, thriving ecosystem hidden under the murky waters surface.