Recently watched (not Cdramas)
Jun. 5th, 2025 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sakana17It was pretty good. (Spoilers)
It's based on a novel series and felt like it, not necessarily in a bad way. It had a bit more graphic violence & gore than I wanted to see, and a major part of the mystery they're investigating is highly disturbing, especially if you have claustrophobia.Matthew Goode's character falls into the "brilliant asshole" type of detective, which I'm bored with, but Goode played it well and there were signs that he cares a little beneath his assholish exterior. I liked the rest of the team: Rose, Hardy, but especially Akram. I loved Akram!
Good to see Mark Bonnar again. :D
Mystery-wise? Meh. I think I'm too jaded. I had the whodunnit figured out early and could guess at why they did it, despite some major details kept until the final reveals. I'm always bothered by elaborate revenge schemes that involve sizable infrastructure and investment, and though the show leaned heavily into the disturbing atmosphere of it, I could never shake my feeling of "oh puhlease." At least there was some explanation for how they happened to have such things lying around, but I kept wondering about their electricity bills... But the thing that bugged me the most was that it took 4 years for Merritt to figure it out. Really? When she had literally nothing else to do?
Mehness about the mystery aside... I'd watch another season of it should there be one. Mainly for Akram. But also because I'm curious about the unsolved shooting that is probably going to lead to a major corruption scandal because these things usually do. And it was fun to see Edinburgh.
For something completely different in tone, I started watching the Japanese series Inheritance Detective | 相続探偵 (2025), also on Netflix, because it stars Akaso Eiji, who played Adachi in Cherry Magic. I've only watched one episode so far but I enjoyed it enough to keep watching. It has the adapted-from-a-manga style and feel, but I'm kind of used to that by now.
After a groupwatch of it, I'm rewatching the Korean BL Love Tractor | 트랙터는 사랑을 싣고 (2023). It's short (8 episodes of ~25 minutes each) and sweet, with humor and the right amount of seriousness. Great for escapist distraction.
New promo pics are out for upcoming The Truth 3 Bai Yu costumes. (Don't ask me. But compare it to Liu Yuning's look for the same case.) (IDEK) I feel like this season the show figured out half of the fun for the audience is seeing them dressed up in outlandish costumes and decided to run with it. (I don't think anything will top the pirate look, though.)
3 Purrcys, chemical adventures
Jun. 5th, 2025 11:58 pmmecurtinAnd look at those toe beans!
-----------
After an exciting session of tail!shenanigans in the empty shelf, Purrcy sat down as a rather plump loaf and stared at me with both light-green eyebeams.
----
Sometimes #Purrcy gets overstimulated and wants his playtime to involve Fierce Fighting With Mom. I'm trying to train him to go for alternatives that do NOT involve human bloodshed -- like displacement scratching, that works!
#cats #CatsOfBluesky
There was a mess-up with one of my prescriptions, and I went off one of my "minor" brain meds cold turkey this week. By today it was NOT minor, but I finally got the right pills and within 30 minutes I felt like myself again. And then had to have a nap, because mania does NOT lead to adequate sleep.
Fortunately, my family could tell what was going on and mostly refused to engage, and didn't hold it against me. But I've had enough therapy recently talking about my mother & our relationship that I can now really see why a friend who's a shrink told me years ago, "You know your mother's bipolar, right?"
I mean, I took her word for it, diagnosing people was her *job*. But I really *felt* it today, when I realized that I'd been having a (mild-medium) manic episode and I was reacting to things *just the way my mother did*.
So. I'll make sure to remember those feelings--which include a fair bit of paranoia as well as driving intensity--and know what to call them, and look first for the chemical imbalance behind them, knowing that they lie.
"Trust your feelings" yeah no, I like *data*.
Daily check-in
Jun. 5th, 2025 07:54 pmmecurtin posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fandom_checkinHow are you doing?
I am OK
12 (57.1%)
I am not OK, but don't need help right now
9 (42.9%)
I could use some help
0 (0.0%)
How many other humans live with you?
I am living single
6 (28.6%)
One other person
8 (38.1%)
More than one other person
7 (33.3%)
Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
Babylon 5: In the Beginning (the rest of it)
Jun. 5th, 2025 12:18 pmsholio( Spoilers for a 25-year-old TV movie )
The Only Light Left Burning, by Erik J. Brown: DNF
Jun. 5th, 2025 01:32 pmrachelmanija
This sequel to one of my favorite books of last year, a young adult post-apocalypse novel with a lovely slow-burn gay romance, fell victim to a trope I basically never like: the sequel to a romance that starts out by breaking up the main couple or pitting them against each other. It may be realistic but I hate it. If the main thing I liked about the first book was the main couple's dynamic - and if I'm reading the sequel, that's definitely the case - then I'm never going to like a sequel where their dynamic is missing or turns negative. I'm not saying they can't have conflict, but they shouldn't have so much conflict that there's nothing left of the relationship I loved in the first place.
This book starts out with Jamison and Andrew semi-broken up and not speaking to each other or walking on eggshells around each other, because Andrew wants to stay in the nice post-apocalyptic community they found and Jamison wants to return to their cabin and live alone there with Andrew. Every character around them remarks on this and how they need to just talk to each other. Eventually they talk to each other, but it resolves nothing and they go on being weird about each other and mourning the loss of their old relationship. ME TOO.
Then half the community's children die in a hurricane, and it's STILL all about them awkwardly not talking to each other and being depressed. I checked Goodreads, saw that they don't make up till the end, and gave up.
The first book is still great! It didn't need a sequel, though I would have enjoyed their further adventures if it had continued the relationship I loved in the first book. I did not sign up for random dead kids and interminable random sulking.
STRAAT in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Jun. 5th, 2025 04:00 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
atlasobscura_feed
While Amsterdam is known for its museums of fine art, particularly the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum, the art on display at STRAAT is far less conventional. Conceived of in 2015 and opened in 2020, STRAAT features the artistic works of a broad range of internationally-renown street artists.
STRAAT is located within a former Netherlands Dock and Shipbuilding Company building that previously stood abandoned for decades, attracting taggers, before the facility was converted into a museum. Most of the “curated” works by the street artists are displayed on very large “canvases” within the museum’s cavernous central hall, which has a height of three stories and a floor area of over 8,000 square meters. Additionally, the interior space contains a few statues and other objects (including a delivery van hanging from the ceiling). The building also still retains some of the machinery and other structures from its industrial past.
The museum’s exterior features a couple of larger images, including a towering depiction of Anne Frank above the museum entrance. The building and surrounding area still attract many taggers and other street artists, who are welcome to paint on the outside of the museum. It may even be possible to see people at work when visiting STRAAT.
St. Charles’ Church in Freetown, Sierra Leone
Jun. 5th, 2025 03:00 pmatlasobscura_feed
After the United Kingdom passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807, Freetown in the new colony of Sierra Leone became the hub of British anti-slavery activity in West Africa. The West Africa Squadron of the Royal Navy would patrol the coast looking for illegal slave-trading ships and capture them, bringing them to Freetown to undergo the legal proceedings that would see the ship impounded and the captured Africans released. However, the Africans were not returned to their homelands. Instead, they were resettled within the colony as the colony’s leaders hoped to make the endeavor profitable via agricultural export.
Towards this end, Governor Charles MacCarthy established the “village system,” in which the “liberated Africans” were settled in villages in the modern-day Western Area of Sierra Leone. One of these villages was Regent, originally known as Hogbrook. An important feature of the village system as envisioned by Governor MacCarthy was that each town would be “managed” by a missionary from the Church Missionary Society. Preaching from a parish church, the missionaries aimed to convert the liberated Africans to Christianity.
The Reverent William Augustine Bernard Johnson, known as W.A.B. Johnson, arrived in Regent in 1816. He preached from St. Charles’ Church, named in honor of Governor MacCarthy and completed that same year, thus predating St. George’s Cathedral in Freetown (completed 1817). Reverend Johnson was immensely popular—the large crowds he attracted necessitated expansions to the new church. Johnson's magnetism helped make Regent one of the most successful of the village system towns (in the eyes of the colonial government) due to its agricultural output. Regent produced more surplus coconuts and cassava than did any other village.
After the death of Reverend Johnson in 1823, attendance at St. Charles’ Church dropped, but the church has been maintained throughout the centuries. Certainly the oldest stone church in Sierra Leone, St. Charles' Church is typically also billed as one of the oldest stone churches in West Africa if not Africa entirely. As a church with an active congregation, it has been maintained and is still in use today by the people of Regent.
East Van Vodville Cinema in Vancouver, British Columbia
Jun. 5th, 2025 02:00 pmatlasobscura_feed
The East Van Vodville might be easy to miss if you’re not looking for it: a small, unassuming window is embedded into the boarded-up facade of an otherwise plain building. Visitors can peer through the little windows, as though they have snuck into the theater, where they will be greeted by a methodically crafted 1:55 scale model of Vancouver's now-demolished First Pantages Theatre.
The little theater comes to life when visitors press the start button and project short films onto its little screen. The films are constantly changing and can range from experimental works by local filmmakers to quirky collections of forgotten clips from old Hollywood. A tiny, flickering marquee outside the window keeps passersby in the know about what’s showing
There’s an ongoing call for visitors and locals to add their own favorite characters to the growing crowd seated in this 1:55 scale masterpiece. Right now the theatre’s 200-seat capacity is slowly filling. Visitors will spot tiny figurines of beloved film characters, from classic movie stars to Muppets, with Statler and Waldorf perched in their usual spot at the front-right balcony.
Gombe National Park in Kasekera, Tanzania
Jun. 5th, 2025 01:00 pmatlasobscura_feed
In 1960, Jane Goodall was sent to Gombe National Park (then called Gombe Stream Game Reserve) to research an unstudied wild group of chimpanzees. Despite Goodall's world-famous work, Gombe only receives about 2,000 visitors per year and has no more than 15 to 25 visitors at any given time due to its remote location. There are no roads to the park, and the only way to visit is to take a two-hour boat ride to the Gombe Stream Research Center.
Gombe National Park is located in Northwestern Tanzania on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Across the lake, mountain ranges of both Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo are visible on clear weather days. The park features high mountains of rainforest rising up from the lakeshore.
Gombe is a functioning research center that continues to study chimpanzees, baboons, and other wildlife residing within the park. As a 60-plus year ongoing study, Gombe has collected long-term research information about not only the chimpanzees and other wildlife but also climate change patterns, habitat loss outside of the park's borders, and infectious diseases that can spread from humans to chimps.
Two communities of chimpanzees live within the park, the Kasekela chimps and Mitumba chimps. The research approach to the chimpanzees involves as little human interference as possible, so researchers watch them from a distance and only intervene for serious medical issues.
The Gombe Stream Research Center is also home to a herbarium of local plant samples, a research lab and postmortem lab, and a bone room containing the skeletal remains of many of Gombe's most well known chimpanzees.
The Oswego Furnace and Salamanders in Lake Oswego, Oregon
Jun. 5th, 2025 12:00 pmatlasobscura_feed
At the site of the first iron furnace on the west coast, the Oswego Furnace, lie some relics known as “salamanders.”
These plugs of pig iron once threatened to clog up the works of the iron foundry and had to be removed with great effort. Named after a mythical amphibian that rose from fire, the salamanders now squat amongst the manicured grasses in a quaint historical park along the Willamette River.
The park is also home to the preserved original iron furnace from 1866, and connects with a series of trails that border the river and waterways.
Kiel’s Old Waste Incineration Plant in Kiel, Germany
Jun. 5th, 2025 11:00 amatlasobscura_feed
In a suburban area on the edge of Kiel, northern Germany, lies a hidden, disused waste incinerator that was abandoned in the late 1980s. This site quietly draws the curious and creative—urban explorers and graffiti artists frequent the location where factory ruins and encroaching vegetation intertwine.
When the incinerator was still operational decades ago, neighbors reported strange odors. Public outrage erupted after toxic chemicals were found in fish from a nearby lake, which prompted debates in the regional parliament. Although the water has since been restored, concerns linger about potential soil contamination directly beneath the plant.
Unlike many other abandoned industrial sites, this one is oddly situated near residential neighborhoods. And yet, it remains in a state of legal uncertainty. A defunct company is recorded as the owner, which places the burden of safety on local officials.
Adorned with street art, the rundown building still features remnants of its past, such as an incineration pipe, a conveyor belt, and a dismantled control panel. The floor is littered with empty spray cans, a testament to the ongoing graffiti culture.
National Military Museum of Egypt in Cairo, Egypt
Jun. 5th, 2025 10:00 amatlasobscura_feed
The hordes of visitors thronging the Citadel of Salah al-Din come for the medieval fortifications, historic mosques, and panoramic views over Cairo. Few tourists visitors think to enter the National Military Museum tucked away in a rose-pink building at the edge of the site. But those who do are rewarded by a head-spinning mélange of baroque architecture, military oddities, and totalitarian paintings.
The former royal palace that houses the National Military Museum was added to the Citadel in the early 19th century, when the ruler of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, renovated the medieval fortress to serve as the seat of his modern government. Hailing from Kavala (then part of the Ottoman Empire and now part of Greece), Ali brought the finest craftsmen from Istanbul to build his palaces in the extravagant style known as Ottoman Baroque.
In the later 19th century, the Egyptian government moved downtown and the Citadel was closed and mostly abandoned. In the 1950s, a group of military officers took over Egypt in a coup. As one of their many revolutionary reforms, they opened the Citadel to the public and installed a laudatory museum of the Egyptian military in the empty palace.
Over the decades, the Egyptian government has filled the museum with an eccentric array of artifacts, including ancient Egyptian sculptures, medieval weapons, and colorful uniforms.
In the 1990s, the government decided to update the museum with a series of dramatic dioramas and paintings of great battles and heroes of Egyptian history. Astute observers will notice that the Egyptians depicted in these scenes are painted in a Socialist Realist style and have unexpectedly East Asian features. This is because they were painted by North Korean artists who were working for the totalitarian government of Kim Jong Il. The art was loaned to Egypt for the occasion. Because of North Korea’s diplomatic isolation and control over the arts, this museum is of the only places in the world where such art can be freely seen.
Because Patience and Kindness are Overrated
Jun. 5th, 2025 01:00 pmcakewrecks_feedI didn't think it'd been that long since my wedding reception, but apparently I'm already behind the times. Used to be, folks just clinked their glasses any time they wanted the happy couple to kiss.
Now I see bakers are taking it a step further:
And then some.
Don't see it? Here, let me zoom in:
Now, cue the music, DJ! It's time for the groom to DANCE.
Thanks to Heather C. for finally finding a wedding wreck to rival "faith, hope, thrust."
*****
P.S. You probably know The Holderness Family for their song parodies and silliness (the Thriller one did me in, omigosh), and now they wrote a book!
Everybody Fights, So Why Not Get Better At It?
It's getting all rave reviews, definitely worth checking out!
*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:
Which Places With Bad Raps Are Actually Worth Visiting?
Jun. 5th, 2025 09:07 amatlasobscura_feedListen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.
Dylan Thuras: Hi, Lulu. Hello!
Lulu Miller: Hey, Dylan! How’s it going?
Dylan: It’s good. I am very excited to have you joining the show for this week.
Lulu: I’m so very excited to be here.
Dylan: Yeah, I’m a fan. Lulu does amazing work. For people who don’t know who you are or what you do, maybe you can just introduce yourself.
Lulu: Sure. I am one of the co-hosts of Radiolab, and I am the host of Radiolab’s family-friendly spinoff all about nature, called Terrestrials.
Dylan: Yes. And this is a wonderful show that’s both super stimulating for the adults and very fun and playful for the kids. And you’ve got a new season out that’s essentially, it’s all about animals that need PR makeover. Animals who’ve gotten a bad reputation.
Lulu: Exactly. Yes. We’ve just dropped a new season and we’re going goblin mode this season. We’re exploring the monsters around us. So, things like invasive frogs and rats and coyotes that eat our pets and learn that there’s so much more behind that bad reputation, whether it’s perhaps interspecies friendship or literal techniques that can save human lives to even just humor or deeper understanding. So, yeah, that’s what we are on about. And when we were talking about this, we thought, OK, yes, animals, bad reputations. But there’s also a lot of places out there that have a bad reputation. And so we thought, OK, this is a really fun potential collaboration.
Dylan: So this week on the show is bad rap week.
Lulu: Bad rap. But it’s not going to be you and I like making bad raps like Dylan from Madness Obscura. We’re not going to do that.
Dylan: This is a full freestyle. Lulu and I for the next 45 minutes just back and forth. No, we’re going to learn about people, places, animals with bad reputations and the surprising truths behind them. Lulu is going to be with me all week on the show.
Lulu: So excited.
Dylan: We are starting today with a collection of listener stories about places that have a bad reputation, but that people will defend to the death. Do you have a place like this?
Lulu: Totally. It’s a new love. It is the Chicago River, which I don’t know, do you know anything about it? Do you have any images that spring to mind?
Dylan: The Chicago River does have a very bad reputation. Bubbly river.
Lulu: Bubbly, stinky. ‘They dye it green on St. Paddy’s Day, but do they need to?’ kind of vibe of a river that’s already kind of green. It is a sort of reviled river. And yet there has been a lot of quiet cleanup going on over the years, all kinds of organizations. And it’s actually this incredible place for all kinds of things: For spotting wildlife. There are beavers, there are coyotes, foxes. There was an eagle just the other day. And there’s cool ways to see all this stuff. There’s this new park called the Wild Mile where you can kayak and parts of it you can boardwalk along.
There’s ferries that you can take from the middle of downtown to all kinds of cool different—like to Ping Tong Memorial Park in Chinatown. You can rent electric boats and drive them yourself in the summer. So it’s just this place that is like it is alive with animals.
It’s alive with recreation. I hated it when I first moved here and it was the symbol to me of moving away from nature. And now that I’ve looked closer and come to see how many people have affection for it and how many creatures do, I love it now.
Dylan: That’s a good one.
Lulu: So listeners, where are they going to take us?
Dylan : We are going to go all over the place. Let’s go on a little journey of all the places that have very bad reputations that people still love.
Lulu: Can’t wait. Let’s go.
This is an edited transcript of the Atlas Obscura Podcast: a celebration of the world’s strange, incredible, and wondrous places. Find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.
Molly: Hi, this is Molly. I’m calling in about a place I love that in my opinion does a great job of defying its reputation. I’m a huge dissenter of Revere Beach. It’s America’s oldest public beach and it’s the closest one to Boston, the city I’m lucky to call home. It has a reputation for being, due to growth, dangerous, polluted, classic public city beach criticisms that I think you would hear, you know, in any city.
I love Revere Beach because it’s accessible right off the blue line. It’s just a 15-minute transit trip from downtown. And I think the city has done a great job keeping it clean these days. Every day in the summer, you see a ton of families swimming in the water, people picnicking, people taking walks. And there are cute events like this sandcastle competition where international sandcastle sculptors come and make these gorgeous sculptures.
I always can’t resist the many great taco places just a stone’s throw away from the beach. And I love going there when I want to be by the water, even in the snowy Boston winter when it’s super quiet and peaceful. I love the pod and had to give my shout out of Revere Beach. Thank you.
--
Jill: Hi, Dylan. My name is Jill and I live in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, and I love laundromats. I love to travel light, which means laundry mid-trip. I have been lucky enough to work on boats helping deliver along the Gulf and East Coast as well as having sailed the Amalfi Coast and boated the Canal du Midi in France.
I’ve met some of the most wonderful folks in marina and coastal town laundries. After all, we all have at least one thing in common: dirty clothes. Even if I’m the only one there, it’s a great time to read or just savor some alone time after being aboard a finite floating space with several of your literally closest friends.
Once, while docked to the side of the Canal du Midi, a friend and I went into a small French town in search of a place to wash our clothes. We asked a lovely local lady about a laverie. There were none in the town. So she invited us to come to her home later and bring our clothes.
How sweet. We brought her a bottle of wine and chocolates for her little boy and passed a lovely hour or so practicing one another’s languages. We left with clean clothes and a new friend. I’ve also been to laundries from Idaho to Florida and many, many points in between.
I’ve always been met with a smile. But of course, people are mirrors, whether in a laundry, a grocery or just on the street. They reflect what you send out. Laundromats are very zen places. Dirt on dirt off, as it were. And though most people cringe when you say laundromat, I actually look forward to them when I travel. I hope you have a wonderful day. Take care now. Bye-bye.
--
Vera: Hello, my name is Vera and I live in Sao Paulo. I absolutely love the small museums that tend to be unpopular among travelers or that people frequently don’t even know they exist because they are off the beaten path. I’m sad to say that even my own husband and kids don’t understand why I love them so deeply.
There is a municipal museum in Cananeia, a small town on the southern coast of the state of Sao Paulo, considered to be the first town in Brazil. Some may not see any logic in their collection, but there is a clear line connecting every little piece in there.
The town itself: the colonial architecture of the stone building that houses the collection is already mind-blowing. Very well preserved thick walls, huge wooden doors, irregular steps. Those steps are so worn you can actually imagine the number of people who have climbed them throughout the centuries.
They do have a significant amount of items taking its size into consideration. A giant shark of questionable taxidermy methods, paintings by local artists, antique machinery from sugar cane farms, shackles that bear witness to slavery, string instruments of many different decades, fishing baskets, and the biggest treasure of the collection: the sword that belonged to Martim Afonso de Sousa, a Portuguese colonist, leader of the exploratory expedition that established the first colony in Brazil in 1531.
This museum opens in the afternoons from Tuesday to Sunday and the tickets cost so little I feel sad I can’t contribute with a bigger donation, but I’ll never grow tired of visiting it.
--
Deanna: Hi, my name is Deanna. You wanted to hear from listeners about places that have a bad reputation but have exceeded expectations once you visit it. Well, let me tell you about Sacramento, California. In this case, I live in Sacramento area. I’m not just visiting.
Amongst the rest of California, Sacramento has a bad reputation. Most of California looks down on Sacramento as a small, sophisticated farming community. It may have developed as an agricultural area after the gold rush, but it’s a gem.
Over the course of my life, I’ve lived in six different cities in the United States. I’ve lived in France and Germany. I’ve also spent an extended amount of time in Thailand. When leaving Germany, I chose Sacramento based on the diversity. It’s one of the most diverse areas in the nation and the proximity to all there is to love about California.
You can be in the mountains, the redwoods, wine tasting, or at the ocean in a matter of a few hours. It’s a growing area with lots of outdoor festivals and some tasty restaurants. Sure, the restaurants aren’t the same as the Bay Area. They offer more, but at the high prices of the homes there and the traffic, I’m not sure it’s better.
What we really find special about Sacramento is the community. We’ve established amazing friendships here, and Sacramento definitely deserves higher regard.
Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.
Saving the Sea Cows of Vanuatu
Jun. 5th, 2025 09:00 amatlasobscura_feedEncountering a dugong in the ocean is something you won’t soon forget. These large aquatic cousins of the manatee have fluked tails, thought to be the origin of mermaid lore, and downturned mouths that give the illusion of a perpetual sly smile.
Dugongs are herbivore mammals with a taste for seagrass, their main food source. They are most often observed munching in underwater seagrass meadows, devouring not just the leaves but the entire root. It’s easy to see how these gentle creatures earned their bovine associations. They’re also known as “sea cows” in English, and as kaofish (cow fish) across Vanuatu. However, the dugong is more closely related to the elephant than any other land mammal—but they’re perhaps not as easy to spot.
In Vanuatu, the odds of seeing a dugong are sadly becoming a rarer occurrence. However, one local conservation group is determined to change this.
The Vanuatu Environmental Science Society (VESS) might be small in size, but it’s massive in determination. Its team is lobbying for a nationwide dugong count to better understand the animals’ numbers, something that last occurred in 1987.
“They can move significantly. And they’re quite cryptic. It’s hard to find a dugong,” Dr. Christina Shaw tells me. The CEO of VESS, Shaw is a veterinary surgeon on Efate, Vanuatu’s most-populated island and home to its capital, Port Vila. We’re meeting at Nambatu Vet, Shaw’s state-of-the-art veterinary clinic. Opened in 2024 to care for domestic pets on the island, a portion of the clinic’s profits go toward VESS’s conservation work.
Vanuatu is an archipelago of 83 islands that sits within the East Melanesian Islands’ “Hotspot of Biodiversity,” a status designated by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. Despite the country’s abundant range of endemic flora and fauna, no international conservation NGOs have a permanent presence in Vanuatu. That’s where Shaw and a team of volunteers stepped in by securing funding to found VESS in 2014. Today, the organization leads conservation and environmental research projects for local wildlife, including dugongs.
Dugongs are listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, but in Vanuatu, their population numbers are unknown. “We think there are probably a few hundred dugongs,” says Shaw. “That’s one of the problems. We don’t know how many there are, and we don’t know whether their numbers are increasing or decreasing.”
IUCN has done specific population counts of dugongs in nearby regions, including New Caledonia, where dugongs were found to be endangered despite their global listing as vulnerable. This troubling statistic left Vanuatu’s researchers wondering if their population numbers were similar.
Dugongs have a vital importance to their ecosystem. As they consume seagrass, the animals churn up nutrients in the seabed that get released into the water, providing food for other marine life. And as they move, their excrement spreads seagrass seeds, allowing for germination. Sea cows are also essential to Vanuatu’s tourism, and culturally important to the Ni-Vanuatu, the diverse Melanisian ethnic groups who make up Vanuatu’s Indigenous population.
Richard Kenneth, the manager of Moso Dream Tours, explains that this is especially true for Ni-Vanuatu people living along the coast. “Traditionally, we would harvest them for meat on special occasions like yam harvest, death, or wedding ceremonies. Nowadays, it is banned by the Fisheries Department and no one is allowed to kill them, the same as [sea] turtles,” Kenneth says. On the small isle of Moso off the Efate coast, where Kenneth operates his tours, guests regularly see dugongs thanks to a large seagrass meadow running along the shoreline.
“Dugongs are the friendliest ‘fish’ in the water,” says Kenneth. Both locals and tourists are excited when they glimpse one while diving, snorkeling, or kayaking on calm waterways. “These large, charismatic megafauna have always kind of inspired people,” adds Shaw. However, as much as we love seeing a dugong glide through the water, there’s still so much we don’t know about them. For example, where do they spend their time when they’re not eating seagrass?
“The amount that dugongs move is extremely variable and very individualistic,” says Helene Marsh, an emeritus professor in environmental science at Australia’s James Cook University who researches dugong conservation biology. “Some animals can move several hundred kilometers in a few days. And others are very boring and just hang out in the same place.” This is a complicating factor to any future dugong population count. It’s hard to determine how many animals are permanently based in Vanuatu and how many are just passing through. While dugongs have been previously tracked, the data isn’t robust enough to draw meaningful conclusions about their location and movements. “A problem with the track data is that most animals have only been tracked for a few months,” says Marsh. “That’s a relatively short portion of a [dugong’s] lifespan,” which can be up to 70 years.
Between 2015 and 2017, VESS surveyed locals throughout Vanuatu via questionnaires and found that dugongs had been seen “pretty much everywhere,” according to Shaw. However, for more quantitative data, VESS is advocating for a nationwide survey. Shaw explains that “the gold standard is aerial surveys with fixed-wing aircraft. But we’ve also been working with James Cook University, Murdoch University, and dugong experts from New Caledonia and Australia that are developing drone surveys for us.” While new drone technology may be beneficial for surveying, both the large financial expense and the geography of the islands present challenges.
“Because we’re such a long country that’s geographically dispersed and we’ve only got a few dugongs, it can be quite hard to have the manpower to cover that amount,” says Shaw.
Threats to the species continue to grow, supporting the case for more urgent research on Vanuatu’s dugongs. “They get caught in gill nets,” says Shaw. “And gill net [use] has increased considerably. Obviously, dugongs need to breathe, and when they come across something in the water, their natural instinct is to roll if they get caught. Most of the incidents of dugong deaths are probably being caught in fishing nets.”
Climate change is also putting the dugong’s food source at risk. “Marine heat waves can cause seagrass die-back over a large area,” says Marsh. And since dugongs reproduce slowly, “they’re not going to double their population quickly, even under ideal conditions. If the conditions are less than ideal and they’re not getting enough to eat, the population is likely to decline.” Shaw notes that Vanuatu has recently seen some of its seagrass beds disappear entirely, thanks to increased storm intensity over the last few decades, causing runoff from the land and changes to water quality.
While a nationwide survey remains the best way to fully understand dugong numbers in Vanuatu, visitors can help protect them by being proactive. VESS has created guidelines for interacting with dugongs, produced in multiple languages. These set out clear rules on how much distance to keep between yourself and a dugong, and proper wake speeds when boating over seagrass meadows to avoid harming the sea cows. Before booking any ocean tourism activities like kayaking or boating, Shaw recommends checking with the operator to ensure they follow these guidelines.
On a broader level, increased monitoring and protection of both dugongs and their seagrass meadow feeding grounds are key to helping Vanuatu’s small population, ensuring these beloved mammals can thrive in our oceans for many years to come.
Ricardo Breceda’s Art Gallery in Aguanga, California
Jun. 5th, 2025 09:00 amatlasobscura_feed
At Ricardo Breceda's Art Gallery, visitors can walk among dinosaurs, aliens, cowboys, superman, and many more detailed metal sculptures created by the renowned artist. The sculptures dot the large open landscape with detail, beauty, and variety.
Breceda is best known for his 130 metal sculptures at Galeta Meadows in Borrego Springs in the Anza-Borrego Desert, including his most well known piece, a large serpent that spans across about the length of a football field and crosses a street. His first piece of art was a metal Tyrannosaurus Rex he made for his daughter, which she requested for Christmas after watching Jurassic Park III. Later, philanthropist Dennis Avery discovered Breceda's work and commissioned him to create the sculptures for Galeta Meadows depicting prehistoric life from the Anza-Borrego Desert.
Breceda, who grew up in Durango, Mexico, was formerly a cowboy boot salesman. He is friendly and fun to talk to, and his art is influenced by the rugged landscapes and cowboy culture of his youth.
All sculptures are for sale. Breceda also creates commissions if given a photo or drawing.