Anyone got info on the Jan 31 incident that is the origin of this? I couldn’t find anything, just an earlier shouting match between the cops and Lions.

Typically, open carry is legal in all of Pennsylvania except Philadelphia, where you need a carry license to open carry. Usually the Philly-only gun laws get overturned rather quickly, but this seems to have remained in place for 20 years with few legal challenges.

Dunno why the ATF was brought into the original comments, as this seems to be a city and/or state issue. Feds don’t look to be involved here.

Yeah, I’m hoping this is something that just got tossed to some volunteers or something. The National Wildlife Federation is huge and should have some of the best people available if anyone had questioned the photo.

Oh, that is cool that it is at least being attempted. The only kind of downside is it looks like it requires you to use Google’s AI to avoid AI! 😆

I’m realistic enough that I would never assume all AI would self identify, but if it were in the mainstream ones, that would solve a large share of the issue by people not concerned with the problem and others with non-malicious intent. People like the news media or anything regarding the law should have a much higher bar than a watermark.

Thank you for showing me it’s at least being attempted though! I’ve been left in the dust by tech for a long time now, so it’s hard to keep up with all that’s going on.

I’ve tried some of those AI image detector sites with pics I knew were AI and some got a better “real image” probability score than some images that I took myself!

I just replied in another comment that I wish there could be a hidden marker in AI content. Something that wouldn’t affect anything for those that wish to enjoy it, but something another device can see and show us a notation or to filter it completely.

It wouldn’t cost anything. It wouldn’t hurt people that want AI content. But anyone wanting to know or to exclude it could do so. Seems like a simple win for all sides to me.

The example I gave was printers having that hidden anti-counterfitting code that it prints on everything.

I don’t know if a machine can be considered to create something beautiful. I was taught art is something that can give the viewer some form of emotional response.

While it seems it can do that to some level, some people keep knowingly viewing its output and get some enjoyment out of it, it feels deceptive or inauthentic, even if the one displaying the output is open about it being generated by a machine. It comes from nowhere. It is souless, created by something with no sense of beauty, no understanding of love or anger, or any other emotion. There’s no thought put into it, just a cobbling together of things that fit inputted parameters.

I hear printers make some kind of secret set of dots to ID the printer if someone were to counterfeit money or whatever. I’d be cool with something like that for generated images or music. Something we could check and filter out if we wanted to while not ruining anything for people that do want it. I think I really just hate having it used to try to lie to me. If you think your work is truly good, what do you have to lose by hiding who, or what, made it?

I feel I am pretty bad at spotting this stuff, and while I couldn’t put into technical terms how it looks off (other than the foot anatomy I mentioned), it just doesn’t feel right to me still. I would have hoped a group put in charge of a photo contest would have the experience to judge it better. Even placed next to any of the other photos they shared from the contest, this one stands out as unnatural to me.

I try to stay positive, but damn does it feel like the bar has been lowered to the ground for just about everything these days…

Why is it only the long-legged birds can find employment? 😄

“Cease and desist with this unauthorized usage of my client’s likeness immediately.”

Black-necked Stilt, aka. The Lawyer Bird

In addition to the winners at the link above, there are 60 more Honorable Mentions which does include some real owls!

As someone who wants to educate people on wildlife, it’s important to have sources I can rely on. If people want to create and share manufactured images for fun, that is one thing, but in cases like this where falsehood infiltrates an otherwise trusted source, it really hurts anyone looking for factual photos and information.

I’m pretty bad at picking out photograph details, but the light and shadows look strange in this image, and the owl looks to have a couple extra toes. I’d have expected a bit better from a nature photography mag.

With me relying on Facebook due to that being the main avenue for wildlife rescues to share photos and stories with the most amount of people, a ton of crap gets put in my feed, and some of it is getting very convincing at times. Even some of the video clips make me look twice. As photo processing software makes even real images start to look sometimes too perfect and AI image generation improves, things are going to get trickier.

There are a lot of true moments in nature of things that feel unbelievable, and diluting that with fraud is a real shame.

Voted in my primary this week.

I rarely see any third party in the ballot, and most seem to be some form of Republican but worse.

I don’t know if I could vote for an anti-capitalist in the near future in the system we have now. We aren’t really set up to give a third party capitalist a fair shot, let alone an anti-capitalist. It is near impossible to even form a union and has so far been impossible to gain universal healthcare, so electing an anti-capitalist is going to be harder than that.

If it were a primary and I was fine with the leading Democratic candidate, then I’d be fine showing support for a more radical party if I shared their beliefs.

Do you understand if you’re nicer people will put more effort in and if not they’ll probably just not bother helping you understand something?

You’re acting like I need to argue with you about this, I don’t.

If you want to be wrong, I’m 100% ok just never trying to help you understand something

I had something much longer written after I saw this post, but I don’t think that approach will work with you. I delete so many comments before posting because I see you in a thread and decide it isn’t worth it. I agree with you on a ton of stuff, but you make me want to avoid so many interactions here. I must not understand what type of help you think you are giving people, but you are one of the few people I actively avoid because you come off so confrontational no matter what other people say. I don’t block you because I don’t think you are stupid or that your takes are necessarily bad, but hell, do you ever say them in the worst way possible so often.

This is solely meant to be constructive, I want so badly to like seeing your comments, but you make it such a challenge. After what feels like months of feeling this way, I just had to say it. If you approached your comments in a different way, you could be someone that I could really learn from due to the amount you share and the importance of a lot of it, but you make someone even as calm as I am just clench up and expect confrontation, so I go out of my way to avoid you. Take that how you will, but again, just an honest opinion and something intended to be helpful.

The toms get much bigger than owls. The young ones and small hens are sometimes doable for a Great Horn. The owl. Should weigh in around 3.5 pounds and small adult turkey hens are around 5 pounds. The owl will often just take the head.

Owls are also sometimes just that crazy.

Mmm, if they left the food out to attract some other critters they could indirectly eat healthily thanks to it. They’d be mad at you for making them wait though instead of just feeding them owl food. Eating American Chinese food would not make them happy. Have you ever tried using chopsticks with your toes?! 😜

If he hasn’t yet, I’m sure RFKJr has him covered.

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The job is its own reward! Every animal bite is like a kiss from our dear Mother Nature!

He looked at me funny after I told him not to.

Thankfully I’ve only been in the building once so far when a skunk decided to blast us. The skunk baby was usually sweet and easygoing, but he sprayed 3 or 4 times in the clinic in a week.

It turned out the one pair of gloves (the orange ones) would freak it out and it would blast whomever was going to grab it. At least it was so small it barely had any booty juice, but skunk smell indoors is no joke. 🤢

Correct!

Great Horned Owls will also eat porcupines.

No smallish creature is safe. Foxes, turkeys, bats, fish, scorpions, snakes, other owls. You name it and it’s around owl size or smaller, an owls will eat it.

Skunk spray isn’t great for their eyes though. Here is an owl in with skunk sprayed eyes.

It can cause irritation or ulceration, and then animals will rub at their eyes, potentially causing further physical damage.

A short time ago, I wouldn’t have expected to want to cuddle a groundhog, but here I am…

We shall win them over! We’ve come a long way getting lots of people to accept oppossums and raccoons. A cute little groundhog is just an underground capybara, and the people love them nowadays too!