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Welcome to the May episode of Digging Up Positivity and this month it is 10 years ago that Thabo was sighted in The Netherlands for the first time! I do have a little bit about that in the very end of the video, including a give-away! This very T-Shirt from Artworktee, more info at the end of the video! But first, on with the charities!

FurDU

We start down under with FurDU, who raised 5,474.30 $US for Fresh Start Rescue, an Australian animal rescue based in south-east Queensland dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and re-homing of dogs and cats in genuine need.

Furry Weekend Atlanta

For many their highlight of the year, Furry Weekend Atlanta, returned in full force and raised no less than 50,000 $US for Animal Park. These fine folks introduce rare, threatened and endangered species to the public, up close and personal, as close as sometimes 5 feet! Their philosophy is that this way the general public will more likely to become invested in protecting these wonderful creatures.

Steps4Sneps

Every year Kieran and his friends will go walk, bike, fursuit, and do other exercises to raise funds for the Snow Leopard Trust. An organisation devoted to protect this endangered cat though community based conservation projects that are based on an improved scientific understand of snow leopard behavior, needs habitats and threats. But besides that, they are just really fluffy, adorable and derpy!

Help Blue move out

It pains me to see someone in a situation where they cannot thrive, a situation where they are abused, emotionally or physically. And it gave me great joy to see the community was banding together to help Blue, a trans-fem from Atlanta, Georgia USA able to move out from that dreadful situation with the help of furries raising 1,574 $US for her. Wishing you all the best!

ArtForUA

Most unfortunately, the situation in Ukraine is still going on. I have seen so many people helping each other out, both from within and from afar. But one stands out! Blaine’s ArtForUA, where I am a part of as well. At the moment of writing the entire group has raised 27,526 $US! And they are showing no signs of stopping or slowing down.

Animals of Ukraine

Up to this day, thousands of people are still fleeing Ukraine every day. And some bring along animals, not just pets, but animals rescued from zoos, such as this British man, a former soldier with the Kurdish forces who travelled across Ukraine to save a stranded wolf and a lion. But smaller animals were saved as well! Others helped these two meerkats who found themselves being shelled in a petting zoo in Kherson. All animals mentioned above are now in a safer location, thank to these heroes!

Dutch Province no longer kills stray cats

A while back, at Eurofurence, we did support Seben Katzenleben. Thanks to that there is even a cute little cat walking around named Thabo! But one of the things Seben Katzenleben was doing is instead of killing stray cats was to sterilise them. Slowly solving the problem of strays in a humane manner! This method is referred to as TNRC (trap neuter release relocate).

In The Netherlands the province of Zeeland was doing this, but recently in the Utrecht province this method is now being implemented as well as a pilot. This is direly needed, because the negative impact of stray cats on the environment is significant! I am glad they are going ahead with this humane solution to this dire problem.

Watching otters

A lot of people have something playing on the side as they work. Some have music, or animations, or in this case otters!

I found myself gazing for these 3 otters at the Monterey Bay Aquarium otter cam. And much to my joy they even have the feeding times broadcasted!

[Otter Video]

You can also donate to support these otters, and so far they have raised well over 4,000 $US.

Keep in mind, these 3 otter gals cannot be released back into the wild due to behavior reasons, but they do help raising pups as their surrogate moms!

Robotic Rats

People are developing robots at an amazing speed, a lot of us have seen the Boston Dynamics robot dog which was truly ground breaking in many aspects, but there was still one area where even Spot, our trusty robo-dog could not venture:
Tight crawl spaces in places such as disaster zones, especially when lugging along vital equipment or supplies!

And here comes the Robotic rat from the Beijing institute of technology. They chose the rat, since this little critter has already evolved by nature to crawl through tiny spaces and reach places thought unreachable by others.

This rat, dubbed SQuRo, which stands for small size quadruped robotic rat, has been designed using X-ray photos of real rats and already has been subjected to various tests. And here am I wondering if there will ever have one of those pet rat for my home— like the Aibo. I think that would be awesome!

Natural Habitat

You know what is a great conversation starter? Animal facts! Like how bats can navigate with echo location,

Bat: Ah...let me see.... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
*BabyCries after a dramatic pause*
Bat: Uh yeah that's going to be aisle four.

or how many Joeys (small possums) can fit in a momma possum's pouch!

And there is an account that combined these facts with beautiful little animations! Meet Natural Habitat, a team of 3 former animation classmates, they publish animations on instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and they really do brighten up my day and they are informative too! They aim to publish a new animation every 2 weeks.

Blacky The Cat

Every now and then we see a short animation, like a dancing cat. But Rodgrio Souza really went all out! He utilized various 2D techniques to compliment the 3D animation, such as the speedlines and smear frames. And it really really rocks!

More Lackadaisy

From 3D to 2D, the team behind Lackadaisy has released a new sneak peak for their animation. It really shows they are trying to keep the classical look. However, this is less than a minute of work, showcasing how much of an effort this all is! But we do appreciate that they are keeping us in the loop.

2022 Ursa Major Awards

With our fandom and beyond bristling with creativity, we of course have awards like the 2022 Ursa Major Awards. Where not only people within the fandom get placed in the limelight with awards for best fursuit, various literary categories, or best furry website. But also other media featuring anthropomorphic, such as in games, where Deltarune: Chapter 2 won and of course other media. It is really too many to list here, I do recommend to check them all out, the link is both in the description and in the corner right here!

But of course finish watching this video, please.

Alfurnative

From the very start of the Dutch Furry fandom, I have been around. Back when I joined in the mid 90’s, there were just a handful of furries in The Netherlands, but slowly things grew. From some meets and small conventions here and there like
Treecon, things started to grow more and more. These days the landscape has been defined by conventions such as Furry Weekend Holland and furdances such as the Dutch Furdance. But there was a strong desire for a more traditional furcon and Hunty decided to take initiative. So....here we go, have the stage!

[Hunty Voicefile]

The ticket sale has started today and the link is in the description below! I for sure will be there, and I hope to see you there as well!

10 Years Thabo

In May 2012 Thabo finally arrived from the US. I was almost glued to my screen, trying to track it all. Fortunately it went through the customs without too much trouble (of course there was a bit of trouble, we are talking Dutch customs here). And that year he started to appear during the Dutch elections for congress, or as we Dutch say ‘de 2de kamer’. Where I happened to be running for the Dutch wing of the Pirate Party. While we did not make it in the end, Thabo certainly was a big success when it came down to handing out flyers and during the campaign itself.

Some people were doubting him at first, but we were all convinced in the end that he had a positive impact on the general atmosphere where we were flyering

That year he starred in a little role in the Dutch short film ‘Kwak’, an entry for the Utrecht 48 hour film challenge.

During the following years I was often found on various parades throughout the country, but I often visited the UK as well. I still hold fond memories of Cardiff. I recall once walking there, when one of those red tourist-busses slowed down, and you heard loudly ‘And here you see one of the native human sized meerkats of Cardiff!’. That kind of things only happen in the UK.

I found my love to help along with charity events. From the dream night at the zoo, down to the Sophia children’ hospital, it is a difficult but very rewarding task to be there at those events, brining joy to those who need it most. Especially that one time during the *gestures everything* situation in 2020. Did you know I have a fear of heights? Well, the people with me sure found out that day!

And now, 10 years later, and with Digging Up Positivity, I am humbled by the people that supported me along the way. And I really hope to be doing this for many more years! And to show my gratitude, I am giving away this wonderful T-shirt with artwork by Silverfox. All you have to do is to leave a comment on the video you want one, and I will draw between those comments a winner to be announced in the next episode.

Thank you

Thank you so much for sticking around till the very end of this video. I always enjoy seeing you here. But be sure to check out my Twitch as well! Every Monday I draw something while vibing with amazing people. If you would like to support this channel even more, go to my patreon or subscribe star or buy something from my merch-store, all links in the link tree below. And I will be so thankful, like to these wonderful people: Cosmik with a K, Els Deckers, Falconeo, Hanzana, Ishnula, Kitako, Manick, Tantroo McNally, Taross, and Score Chaser.

The next Digging Up Positivity will be on the 25th of June! Hope to see you there, stay awesome and of course— all the hugs!