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Doumaverse

The Art of Collin Douma

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Irrefutable Evidence by Collin Douma

2023

Irrefutable Evidence

Acrylic, Wood, Glass, Feathers

1996 -

People don’t underestimate owls. They just misunderstand them. They’re not wiser than other birds. They’re just quieter—and good at staying alive. They look harmless, which is exactly the point. But they fly without a sound. They hear what you don’t. They see in the dark.

That’s not wisdom. That’s surveillance.

They don’t talk. They don’t ask questions. They don’t even blink much. They fly without a sound, land like ghosts, and stare like they know things you don’t. Which they do.

While everyone else is flapping and chirping and showing off, the owl just waits. Listens. Watches. Records.

If you’ve ever said something you regret in the woods, chances are, an owl heard it. Good luck getting it back. Owls don’t forgive, and they don’t forget.

United Fauna Ship “Pappy” Papillon is a swamp gator turned aircraft carrier.He serves as both river base and sea base, depending on the weather and his mood. His back is a full-length flight deck.

Pappy hosts flying insects, aquatic bugs, and the occasional bird—so long as it keeps its beak to itself.

He’s too old to retire, too armored to sink, and too stubborn to die.
Which, in this war, makes him perfect.

If a giant silverback found himself in a New York City, he wouldn’t climb a building. He’d look for the exit.

No chest-thumping, no damsels in hand. Just a tired animal trying to go home. Again.

Too bad home’s an ocean away, and nobody rents stadium sized dinghy to gorillas. Not even sympathetic ones.

Cherry Harbor is a Red-Eyed Tree Frog with mediocre swimming skills and a war to win. To compensate, she’s borrowed a bit of Ford’s WWII “Seep” technology—part car, part boat, part bad idea—which she’s adapted for jungle operations.

Her mission? Stop the Agrarians from annexing the rainforest and pumping its rivers dry to feed humanity’s addiction to coffee, sugar, and not thinking things through. She’s small. She’s bright green. And she’s out of patience.

The United Fauna Ship “Barney” Barnacle is a blue whale wrapped in the rusted shell of a WWII U-boat. He didn’t ask for it. The ocean gave it to him. Armor, ballast, bad memories.

To Barney, every whaler is just another Ahab—angry, overcompensating, and way too confident. Their harpoons bounce off his double hull. He responds by punching holes in the soft spots they forgot they had.

It’s not revenge. It’s engineering.
And he’s very good at it.

“If we had Rhino soldiers, human tech, and octopus officers, animals would’ve taken over ages ago,”
said Grey Owl, Supreme Allied Commander of United Fauna.
Then he blinked slowly and added,
“But we were busy minding our own business.”

Inside this charming little bug is a stone-cold killer. Bella the dragonfly holds a 95% kill rate—higher than lions, sharks, or anything else humans like to put in documentaries, just before wiping them out.

She used to fly. Then someone took her wings.
So now she flies a scaled-down Bell 47 and calls it Justice.

She’s on Dragon Patrol, hunting the wing-pluckers.
You know the type. Curious fingers, no consequences.

Bella doesn’t roar. She doesn’t pose. She just finds them. And reminds them what flight used to feel like—right before the fall.

The deadliest predator of the Armadillo? A sedan with bad brakes and a podcast on too loud.

This one got hit. Didn’t die. Learned.

He swapped his busted shell for tank armor and took a new name: Road Kill. Now he patrols the shoulder like a ghost in camo.

No horn. No mercy. Just cold revenge, rolling low and slow.

Three Norwegian whaling vessels—the Kato, the Reinebuen, and the Fiskenbank—have killed nearly two-thirds of the world’s hunted whales in recent years.

“Hefnd” is the old Norse word for revenge.

No further explanation needed.

Owls make perfect spies.

They fly without a sound.
They see in the dark.
They hear what no one’s saying.

They don’t blink.
They don’t talk.
They don’t miss.

They just watch.
And remember.
And wait.

Which is worse than talking, really.

Turns out, evolution just needed a good mechanic and some spare aviation parts.

Captain “Top Side” is a dolphin in a seaplane.
He patrols the skies in a Grumman HU-16 Albatross, keeping tabs on tuna boats making a royal mess of things.

Thanks to his perfectly sealed Self-Contained Aqua Breathing Apparatus—SCABA for short—he flies just fine.

The Tasmanian Spotted Owl now flies a fully armed F-18 Hornet. So maybe think twice before cutting down any more eucalyptus trees.

He’s capable of supersonic flight but prefers slow passes over the Ovata Forest—just to remind people he’s watching.

It’s not revenge. It’s policy

If Kurt Vonnegut wrote Watership Down;

"The world’s out to get you, kid. Always has been.
A thousand enemies, give or take. They’ll kill you if they catch you. That’s the rule.

But first, they’ve got to catch you. So dig fast, listen hard, run like hell, and lie when it helps. Be clever. Be lucky.

And whatever you do—keep multiplying.
Breed like your life depends on it. Because it does.

That’s how your kind survives. Not forever. Just long enough to call it living.

So it goes.

This rabbit has places to be—mostly anywhere the Black Rabbit of Inlé isn’t.
Humans call him the Grim Reaper. Rabbits don’t need the dramatics.

Funny thing: they’re famous for breeding like, well, rabbits.
But 22 of the 63 species are now among the most endangered animals on Earth.

Turns out, you can be great at multiplying—
and humans will still subtract you.

For 250 million years, grasshoppers have made it work.
Asteroids, ice ages, whatever—didn’t matter.

But now? Now they’re in trouble.

This one’s got a steam engine gear, just to haul water to forests that used to take care of themselves.

It’s not heroic. It’s necessary.
Which is how most tragedies begin.

This is Chug. He’s a grasshopper with steam-engine gear and a long way to go.

Every drop of water matters now.

In 2022, humans burned through wilderness the size of Massachusetts and Rhode Island—combined.

The heat rises. The forests dry out.
Billions of animals and insects scramble for water, for shade, for somewhere to start over.

Chug doesn’t complain. He just keeps chugging.
Because that’s what survivors do—until they don’t.

The Mountain Bongo is out of options. Divert or retreat—those are the choices now.

Fewer than 100 remain in the wild. Turns out, it’s hard to outrun a man with a rifle and a bucket list.

So they outsmart when they can. They outlast if they’re lucky.

But mostly, they hide.
Because the tourists came for souvenirs,
and left extinction in the gift shop.

In the south, Black Rhinos are critically endangered.
In the north, only two White Rhinos remain. Not two herds. Two rhinos.

Enter Charlie Foxtrot. He doesn’t care about the odds. He’s part tank, part myth, and entirely out of patience.

Call him a fat unicorn if you want. He’s heard worse from poachers.

Charlie doesn’t run. He digs in. Because somebody has to stand their ground—even when there’s almost nothing left to stand on.

Collin Douma - Woodstock NY

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