Author

Thomas Nelson

Thomas Nelson is the writer behind Give A Shit About Nature, which started as short posts on X about the wildlife myths people repeat without checking and grew into an audience of more than two million across platforms. This site is the long version of those posts, with the sources.

His focus is wildlife advocacy and invasive species removal. On the advocacy side, that means making the case for the animals people are told to fear or get rid of: coyotes, bats, snakes, opossums, owls, and the toad under the porch light. On the removal side, it means the plants and animals that don’t belong and crowd out the ones that do. He has adopted a 17-acre section of a state park where he’s clearing Chinese wisteria, and he leads volunteer work days at other restoration sites, mostly wisteria and Chinese privet.

That field work is where a lot of the articles come from. Reading a study about what leaf litter does for overwintering insects is one thing. Watching a luna moth cocoon come up with the leaves you just raked is the thing that makes you write it down.

Every article starts with the research: peer-reviewed studies, state wildlife agencies, and the people who handle these animals for a living. When a claim doesn’t hold up, the article says so. When he gets something wrong, he fixes it and notes the change. Corrections and questions: hello@gasanature.org.