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Wildlife is reclaiming Yosemite National Park

latimes.com

81–90 of 237 posts

Re: Wildlife is reclaiming Yosemite National Park

#81
post #9

I sometimes wonder if the earth is trying to remove us, its own infection of sorts. If memory serves this was also the plot of some terrible M Night Shyamalan movie.

Well of course not. The Gaia hypothesis is dead. Makes for good fiction though.

I never believed it for a millisecond, but is it dead? What killed it?

Re: Wildlife is reclaiming Yosemite National Park

#82
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>"I also think we need to reduce how many people visit certain places" - Yes, please start with yourself

Sorry but "practice what you preach" isn't a valid response to talking about systemic issues.

Neither is "systemic issues" a get out of jail free card for taking personal responsibility.

Re: Wildlife is reclaiming Yosemite National Park

#84
post #74
post #5

As noted in the article, the headline is misleading. The population obviously hasn't quadrupled since Yosemite closed to visitors on March 20th. It is remarkable though to see how quickly wildlife is willing to re-enter areas that have historically been overrun with humans!

If you say that the population of a city has doubled, it mostly means that people moved there, not that they were born there. The headline is fine. All: Obviously the bears weren't born in the last month. Please assume basic intelligence in your fellow readers. Edit: Ok you guys, I surrender. There is no fighting the dreaded title fever. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... .

The population of a city is based on humans, which take 15 to 20 years before they have young. Wildlife typically takes "some crazy short period of time" like a year, and so when we say the population has double, tripled, etc. most people will (reasonably) understand that to mean that's because of reproduction, not because of migration.

So if the cause is migration, the headline kind of needs that, as we're talking about wildlife and not human settlements.

Re: Wildlife is reclaiming Yosemite National Park

#85
A month without humans, bears are moving through survey zones more frequently. The problem highlighted here is our methods for setting up survey zones is terrible and is severely UNDERCOUNTING the population.

Even more troubling is systems of surveillance like these provide the inputs for the climate change models we've depended on and which have predicted we'll all be extinct in 50 years.

I swear by the end of Covid19 we're all going to look back at the models and determine what climate skeptics have been saying for decades: Models are easily manipulated by bad inputs - and generally trash

Re: Wildlife is reclaiming Yosemite National Park

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>"I also think we need to reduce how many people visit certain places" - Yes, please start with yourself

No. That would not help. This is the case when it is better to start from the neighbor and not yourself.

Do the bears really care which person bothers them? I've lost my nose for irony at this point.

Re: Wildlife is reclaiming Yosemite National Park

#88
post #72
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If that means fewer flights available and higher prices in the future, that's a net positive for the planet as people will have to be more selective about travel." I've lurked near daily on HN for over five years - and this is the unfortunate comment I finally feel the need to make an account to reply to. I presume you're living in the U.S. based on your comment. I too live in the U.S., with severely debilitating he…

Right, but: >I receive no government assistance financially, because our medical system is shit on recognition of many musculoskeletal illnesses. My insurance is also shit in general, because medical care availability is shit in the U.S. This is your problem, and the ultimate solution to that problem is not "cheap flights" - that is no more than a workaround, with huge collateral damage. This is broadly analogous to…

I can't understand the line of thought some of you are having.

I can barely live and function in my daily life, as well as trying to not become homeless and die.

How do you expect me to successfully lobby anybody, especially when they can say "well X amount of doctors don't even believe this specific rare disease even exists? Obviously, he's just lying to in an attempt to financially cheat the system"

Get out of your bubble haha. While cheap airfare may be a plague upon the world, things like the U.S. government is as well, and for quite some time has been (see overthrowing other countries in S.A. and trying to deny it) - but cheap airfare is really the only option I've been given for an attempt at a normal life. The U.S. government... for the most part hasn't. The small handout of Medicaid I get tries to haggle me, probably in a hope that without the care I'll die sooner and no longer be a drain, every step of the way...

I'm sure we all know solutions to a lot of problems. However, we should know, that those solutions are simply unattainable. Which I guess, would in the end... make them not a solution?

Re: Wildlife is reclaiming Yosemite National Park

#89

I hope this inspires our generation. I hope we remember that the way things were recently aren’t they way have to be, or the way things naturally are. We need more pollution controls, clean power, and less driving. I also think we need to reduce how many people visit certain places as the harsh reality is that impact is clearly related to visits. It will mean a shared sacrifice but a healthier planet. Hopefully limit…

I'm all for pollution controls, clean power, etc, but I don't see how this is related to the article. There's no observable difference in the 'amount' or 'quality' of nature (except that it's meandering into temporarily vacant 'human spaces'), and limiting visits to these natural places will almost certainly drive down empathy and political support for nature preservation.

Re: Wildlife is reclaiming Yosemite National Park

#90

I hope this inspires our generation. I hope we remember that the way things were recently aren’t they way have to be, or the way things naturally are. We need more pollution controls, clean power, and less driving. I also think we need to reduce how many people visit certain places as the harsh reality is that impact is clearly related to visits. It will mean a shared sacrifice but a healthier planet. Hopefully limit…

>>"I also think we need to reduce how many people visit certain places" - Yes, please start with yourself

Never been to Yosemite, you? I would like to go one day, but I'd be happy to wait in a gov't queue to help limit human intrusion in wildlife preserves.
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