California’s mountain lion faces ‘extinction vortex’ • Hacker News Board

Re: California’s mountain lion faces ‘extinction vortex’

#21

Post by idlewords » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #12

> In addition, large-scale residential and commercial development could be prohibited or limited in mountain lion habitats within a region covering roughly a third of the state. It seems like something has to give. In particular, we can't have reasonable housing prices, a healthy mountain lion habitat and increased immigration and population (especially in California). Those three things are directly at odds with eac…

We could try stacking living spaces on top of each other in the places most people want to live.

Re: California’s mountain lion faces ‘extinction vortex’

#22

Post by amelius » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #18

bloak wrote: post #15

Can any Californian say something about the relative frequency of the various names for this species? I'd never heard the term "mountain lion" until recently (I think I first encountered it in a story by Annie Proulx) though I've known the word "puma" since the 1970s. Apparently they're also known as "cougar" or "catamount". I probably came across the term "cougar" some time this century, and the term "catamount" a f…

I blame Apple's naming scheme for OS X for the sudden diversity of big cat names.

Is Apple donating to support the (real) mountain lion?

Re: California’s mountain lion faces ‘extinction vortex’

#23

Post by wycy » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

uniformlyrandom wrote: post #14

setr wrote: post #6

What the hell is an extinction vortex? The article refuses to define it, despite scare-quoting the term itself.. >“Individual lions face horrible deaths from car collisions or rat poison, while their populations become increasingly isolated and inbred in ever-shrinking islands of habitat hemmed by freeways and sprawl.” Is this it? It doesn't really fit the name that well..

Second paragraph defines it: > Mountain lions as a species are not threatened in California, but a petition submitted Tuesday to the state Fish and Game Commission argues that six isolated and genetically distinct cougar clans from Santa Cruz to the U.S.-Mexico border comprise a subpopulation that is threatened by extinction. I understand it lacks the 'We define extinction vortex as...' preamble, but you can easily i…

But how is "threatened by extinction" an "extinction vortex"?

Re: California’s mountain lion faces ‘extinction vortex’

#24

Post by supergauntlet » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

Fjolsvith wrote: post #3

aurora72 wrote: post #2

My favorite OSX version and my favorite animal. It's an incredibly agile animal. The animals are taking their toll from the insatible greediness of wild capitalism.

In California, of all places!

California is full of the worst kinds of "crony capitalism" (that is, regulatory capture, a feature and not a bug of capitalism unfortunately), what do you mean?

Re: California’s mountain lion faces ‘extinction vortex’

#25

Post by kolbe » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

Sierra Nevada local here. There are very few events in my life that have been more emotional than the time I saw a mountain lion dead on the side of I80. I don't agree with the article's scare tactics, but I'm all for taking some action. I've always felt that tunneling (or even just covering) the freeways would be an obvious win for the Sierras. It would not only allow for wildlife to safely exist, but also would save the cost of snow removal and protect the freeways from the extreme thaw-freeze cycles and trucks with chains that force the freeway to be resurfaced every few years.

Re: California’s mountain lion faces ‘extinction vortex’

#26

Post by kolbe » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 2:35 PM UTC

bloak wrote: post #15

Can any Californian say something about the relative frequency of the various names for this species? I'd never heard the term "mountain lion" until recently (I think I first encountered it in a story by Annie Proulx) though I've known the word "puma" since the 1970s. Apparently they're also known as "cougar" or "catamount". I probably came across the term "cougar" some time this century, and the term "catamount" a f…

Sierra Nevadas pretty much exclusively use mountain lion.

Re: California’s mountain lion faces ‘extinction vortex’

#27

Post by SolaceQuantum » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 2:40 PM UTC

wycy wrote: post #23

uniformlyrandom wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second paragraph defines it: > Mountain lions as a species are not threatened in California, but a petition submitted Tuesday to the state Fish and Game Commission argues that six isolated and genetically distinct cougar clans from Santa Cruz to the U.S.-Mexico border comprise a subpopulation that is threatened by extinction. I understand it lacks the 'We define extinction vortex as...' preamble, but you can easily i…

But how is "threatened by extinction" an "extinction vortex"?

When a population is isolated or bottlenecked, there reaches an event horizon where inbreeding causes too manty defects for the population to survive even if one were to curb outside predation/killing. The article points several times to the increasing isolation of the populations and the threats that giving them protected status would require development to take isolation of population in care when developing.

Re: California’s mountain lion faces ‘extinction vortex’

#28

Post by aeturnum » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

Click bait language aside, this is an interesting question. How much should we seek to preserve a particular species in a particular place? Is it alright to wipe out a species in one area _because_ they exist somewhere else? It seems totally possible we want to do this, though it isn't the way we usually think about it.

Re: California’s mountain lion faces ‘extinction vortex’

#29

Post by MrDunham » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

setr wrote: post #6

What the hell is an extinction vortex? The article refuses to define it, despite scare-quoting the term itself.. >“Individual lions face horrible deaths from car collisions or rat poison, while their populations become increasingly isolated and inbred in ever-shrinking islands of habitat hemmed by freeways and sprawl.” Is this it? It doesn't really fit the name that well..

Related headline: Journalist uses 'dubious tactics' in headline to 'clickfarm' population.

I'm truly tired of this media tactic to create/hijack curiosity (IE "wtf is a 'polar vortex'") and/or scare quotes to generate page views.

Re: California’s mountain lion faces ‘extinction vortex’

#30

Post by paulcole » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

jacurtis wrote: post #13

paulcole wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mountain lions can pose a real threat to small children, so literally, pick up your kids with you if you see a mountain close by. While not awful advice, it's also vastly overblowing the true (nonexistent) danger mountain lions pose. Mountain lions are one of the smallest threats imaginable to anyone, small children included. 99.99% of people will never ever ever even be fortunate enough to see a mountain lion in t…

Mountain Lions are like Sharks of the land. What I mean by that is that their danger is wildly overblown in movies and news. Statistically speaking, attacks from both animals are insanely rare. For example, there have only been 25 deaths from Mountain Lions in North America since we began recording these in the 1800s. By comparison, fatal shark attacks are over 6 times more likely to occur with about 1 shark attack i…

Not a bad comparison, but you're overlooking one big difference: There are many more sharks than there are mountain lions.

If you're swimming at any beach in Florida (for example) you are likely to be within 20' of a shark at all times. At some points in the year you will be near dozens if not hundreds of sharks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyHUr-2_Ets

I have flown in a Cessna low over very popular beaches and there are so many sharks visible that it gets boring to count them.