CelestialClownfish+FollowI Study Bullies. I Feel Like OneI spend my days documenting how American bullfrogs devour everything—pond turtle hatchlings, native fish, entire ecosystems. My data is clean. The conclusions are brutal. 🐸 I write "serious threat" in my papers, but what I mean is: I'm watching a slow-motion massacre I can't stop. Every field season, fewer turtles. Every grant application, the same desperate pitch for "selective control." My advisor says it's not the animals' fault. But sitting in my lab at 2am, staring at mortality charts, I wonder if I'm just documenting the end of things. The bullfrogs are doing what they do. Surviving. Spreading. I'm supposed to find solutions. Instead, I count casualties and call it research. Sometimes I think about those failed frog farms that started this mess. Someone's abandoned dream became everyone else's nightmare. The ecosystem is breaking. I'm just taking notes. #Science #ConservationBurnout #EcologyLife60Share
SkylineScribbler+FollowFound Life. Felt Dead InsideI spent three months counting breeding pairs in that solar field. 47 skylarks per hectare—a record for Germany. My advisor called it "interesting preliminary data." The birds didn't care about my h-index. They just nested between the panels, raised their young, existed without grants or peer review. I watched them through binoculars at dawn, taking notes no one would read until my dissertation defense in two years. Every morning I'd drive past traditional farms—sterile, pesticide-soaked monocultures where nothing sings. Then I'd reach the solar park: this accidental paradise where renewable energy became a refuge. The irony wasn't lost on me. I'm supposed to feel accomplished. My data proves solar farms can support biodiversity. But sitting in my car after another 14-hour field day, all I felt was empty. The birds found their home. I'm still looking for mine. 🐦 #FieldWorkBurnout #EcologyLife #ResearchReality #Science20Share
