African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there
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Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there
#2This is tangental....
I've read/heard a bunch about "rewilding" as a concept over the last year, introducing mostly megafaunal populations to their historic ranges, sometimes very historic. Hippos, lions and hyenas in scotland for a particularly quirky example. There are some very tentative efforts currently to reintroduce bison, lynxes and some other species to western europe.
Anyway... 350,000 wild african elephants. Declines notwithstanding, it's amazing that such a population still exists. Consider how much impact a herd of elephants have on human interests.. agriculture or whatnot. Imagine how hard it would be to get buy-in for a dozen elephants in spain. The african savannah's megafaunal systems still exist! They really are an amazing thing to still have. It's the system we came from.. most of our most ancient art is about them. The first famous french painting features extinct and extirpated megafauna, lions for example.
Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there
#3The African poaching crisis is just another bad outcome of foreign influence in Africa, this time from Chinese sponsored poaching.
And on the matter of why most foreign influence in Africa turn out bad, I think this is due to the immense difference between the average African attitude and nature to life and living in general, to other races, this immense difference which came to be because unlike other races, Africans evolved their social and cultural practises in near total isolation.
I wonder if Africans loved removing rhino horns or elephants tusk, like the Chinese do, if they will have survived to this day?
Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there
#4The effect of elephants (or generally wildlife) being aware of where they are in danger is starkly visible in South Africas Krüger National Park: It's right on the border to Mozambique. On the South African side, wildlife is abundant and fairly well visible, but once you cross over the border, there's no visible wildlife. Some elephant droppings on the road, that's all.
Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there
#5This is tangental.... I've read/heard a bunch about "rewilding" as a concept over the last year, introducing mostly megafaunal populations to their historic ranges, sometimes very historic. Hippos, lions and hyenas in scotland for a particularly quirky example. There are some very tentative efforts currently to reintroduce bison, lynxes and some other species to western europe. Anyway... 350,000 wild african elephant…
It's crazy that we're talking about genetically re-engineering mammoths to help revitalize cold climates when we have such trouble preserving these elephant populations.
Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there
#6I wonder if having for-profit organisations/startups who's core mission it is to protect these fantastic animals would be more successful vs non-profits or government projects. Not necessary to make a buck, but in many cases, for-profit organisations get more done because of the constant pressure they feel to perform.
Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there
#7I wonder if having for-profit organisations/startups who's core mission it is to protect these fantastic animals would be more successful vs non-profits or government projects. Not necessary to make a buck, but in many cases, for-profit organisations get more done because of the constant pressure they feel to perform.
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Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there
#8This is tangental.... I've read/heard a bunch about "rewilding" as a concept over the last year, introducing mostly megafaunal populations to their historic ranges, sometimes very historic. Hippos, lions and hyenas in scotland for a particularly quirky example. There are some very tentative efforts currently to reintroduce bison, lynxes and some other species to western europe. Anyway... 350,000 wild african elephant…
Every mention of rewilding Scotland I've come across has been talking of reintroducing extinct native species such as Lynx and Wolf. That's along with smaller animals and reducing deer numbers.
Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there
#9This is tangental.... I've read/heard a bunch about "rewilding" as a concept over the last year, introducing mostly megafaunal populations to their historic ranges, sometimes very historic. Hippos, lions and hyenas in scotland for a particularly quirky example. There are some very tentative efforts currently to reintroduce bison, lynxes and some other species to western europe. Anyway... 350,000 wild african elephant…
Every mention of rewilding Scotland I've come across has been talking of reintroducing extinct native species such as Lynx and Wolf. That's along with smaller animals and reducing deer numbers.
Yep... Every serious discussion. All sorts of eccentricity on the less serious end. Technically though, there are a lot of animals most wouldn't see as native to Britain which went extinct at some point in the last 60ky.
Lynx and more raptors are the two on the immediate agenda. Wokf and moose (elk) may be at some point relatively soon. Wolves would likely be big game changers for red deer population dynamics, and livestock farming.
Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there
#10I wonder if having for-profit organisations/startups who's core mission it is to protect these fantastic animals would be more successful vs non-profits or government projects. Not necessary to make a buck, but in many cases, for-profit organisations get more done because of the constant pressure they feel to perform.
There's no particular evidence that "for profit" organisations do better at handling "common goods". And the very definition of your 'for-profit' organisation is that this is what is providing 'pressure to perform'. If they didn't have that pressure they'd just be the same as non-profit. You'd have to explain how a "profit motive" could impact these common goods - which would mean they wouldn't be in public ownership.