Bored Panda wanted to understand the things that people should not do when interacting with wild wildlife. Dr. MacDonald, from York University, said that the best way to deal with wild animals is "to NOT FEED THEM." If you don't follow this rule, it leads to problems that "will inevitably result in their early demise."
So remember, Pandas, no feeding the wildlife... no matter how cute the animals look. Promise?
"I think benign co-existence should be the goal," the animal behavior specialist told Bored Panda that humans and wildlife should follow a "live and let live" philosophy.
We were also interested in how animals of different species get along in the wild, and if there's a constant struggle for resources and territory. Dr. MacDonald told Bored Panda that it all depends on the species.
"Predators and their prey are locked in a constant battle. Other species, that occupy the same territory and search for the same food types (like skunks and opossums, for example), generally tolerate each other unless food is scarce, in which case they will compete," the animal behavior expert said.
"It is within a particular species that most competition occurs—for space, food, water, mates, territory. So for example, raccoons compete with other raccoons for all those things, and that’s where you see the most conflicts. They rarely escalate to fights-to-the-death, though, and are mostly about establishing dominance through who can make the most noise and look the most intimidating."
Created nearly a decade ago, all the way back in February 2013, the ‘Fascinating’ Twitter project has amassed over 216.5k followers in that time. The content shared resonated with a lot of people because it mixes photos that instantly grab their attention with bite-sized facts.
Their posts are a good starting point for someone hoping to look into a topic, whether it’s about animal behavior, plants, ancient archeology, or anthropology. We feel that as long as you’re interested in the world and learning something new, life continues to be a lot of fun.
However, just because something’s posted online, has a pretty picture attached to it, and has gone viral, doesn’t automatically make it the truth. Part of living in the 2020s and navigating the digital landscape means that media and internet literacy should be given more attention. In short, this means checking the reliability of the source and verifying facts before pressing the like and share buttons on whatever social media platform you use the most often.
Many cool facts really do end up being true. However, social media also means that misinformation can (be) spread quickly, too. Whether intentionally or completely by accident.
Recently, Bored Panda had a chat about verifying the reliability of information with scientist Steven Wooding, a member of the Institute of Physics in the UK and part of the Omni Calculator team.
“If a claim comes from a single source (whether it is an authority figure or not), you have to be quite skeptical,” he told us.
“Even if there are loads [of independent sources], they may have gotten locked into a 'groupthink' situation, and the claim is actually false. We should never have blind faith in authority figures. There is always a chance they could be wrong,” he explained that far from everything that we see, read, and hear is true.
Experimental bias and cherry-picking results are some of the most common ways that authority figures might mislead others.
"Often you just need to look at who funded the research. It's not surprising that (in the past at least) research funded by a maker of cigarettes said that their product was safe," the scientist told us.
While skepticism is important, too much of it can be detrimental to scientific efforts and progress. There has to be a reasonable balance between outright skepticism and blind faith in authority figures.
"If the public were very skeptical, science would be hindered, and progress slowed. In areas such as healthcare and technology, science is delivering for people and making a difference in their everyday lives," the scientist told Bored Panda.
"In the past few decades, [faith in the scientific community] has probably increased. Climate change is now more widely accepted than ever before now that its effects are clear to see. And science has got the world through the recent pandemic with innovative vaccines, anti-viral drugs, and data science,” he said.
