Just got a great email from SuperForester Cass!
"Hiya Jack, Niki, and the rest of the Team!
Here's a SF post just waiting to happen—
A friend of mine recently directed me to an essential blog, Ugly Endangered Things, where ungainly species under threat of extinction get top billing, for a change, instead of their cute, fuzzy fellows.
So often when it comes to saving endangered species, beauty dictates where we focus our attention—it's all cute Siberian Tiger this, adorable Giant Panda that. When really, who's to say which dwindling critter is more vital to our ecosystem or more worthy of our preservation efforts? It seems that in the game of conservation, the campaign for survival all comes down to the swimsuit competition, so to speak.
However one look at these "ugly endangered things" drives home the truth that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. Now in my view, diversity, adaptation, and blue speckled bills just so happen to be totally gorgeous—more gorgeous that a gazillion conventionally cute critters hogging up every preservation postage stamp, coffee cup, and tote bag in sight. I prefer the cause of Purple Burrowing Frog, the Wartyback Mussel, the Shoebill, the Ohio lamprey, and all the rest of these cute-to-me creatures any day.
And on the off chance that it's really the cuteness of the T-shirt, not the critter, that counts, I expect those awesome UET shirts have made all the difference for the Australian Lungfish and the Li'l Tuatara.
Yay SuperForest!
LOVE
Cass
Great intel, Cass-Master!
Endangered Ugly Things is sweet.
I'd never before heard of the Purple Burrowing frog
Yeesh.
And wait a minute... Look at the L'il Tuatara!
It's ADORABLE. Like a mini lizard. It's the pug of lizards. Correction, it's the puggle of lizards.
SuperForester Cass runs an amazing shop in San Francisco called Gravel & Gold, and writes an incredible blog to boot.
Love!
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