Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants

Post by tridentlead » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

smallnamespace wrote: post #19

chrisco255 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The environment has not changed much at all in the past two decades. You spuriously quote a few random cases of sudden death and claim it has been on the uptick but lack the holistic data of the past few hundred years to determine whether that's a true statement or not. The beached whale could be caused by shifts in Earth's geomagnetic field, which whales use to navigate: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/weakening-earths-ma…

Holistic data across the entire animal kingdom is difficult to come by, but everywhere we look we're finding hints that there are serious issues. On just insects: > A reanalysis published in 2017 suggested that, in 1989–2016, there had been a "seasonal decline of 76%, and mid-summer decline of 82%, in flying insect biomass over the 27 years of study". The decline was "apparent regardless of habitat type" and could no…

Post by dmix » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 7:00 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #29

ars wrote: post #27

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That post suffers from recentisim. Mass animal die off are not actually new. Unless you find data from at least 100 years ago to compare, you can not draw conclusions. > Compared to the time the grandfather post took to research, process, and write Yes, but the only data in the post is what is found online. So while that can be used to draw attention to an issue, you can not use it to describe a trend, or say that th…

Maybe you'll trust this 2015 article by National Geographic instead, backed by studies spanning the past 70+ years: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/1/150113-mass-d... .

Post by melling » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 7:04 PM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #40

melling wrote: post #14

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We look for villains but the real problem is simply humans in general. We do so much damage to the world. Plastic, greenhouse gases, overfishing, etc. to support our way of life. Lots of other examples...We kill millions of birds with our pets, buildings, and green energy We need to find a way to reduce our impact on the planet.

I downvoted you because they don't know what is killing these elephants. The problems you mention may have nothing to do with it.

Post by refurb » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #39

refurb wrote: post #34

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Wait, you’re blaming humans when animals get diseases? I mean sure, we could have an impact, but animals are no different than humans, they get ravaged by epidemics. Think about human life before current medical care. A million different things trying to kill you. No different for an animal.

No, I didn’t blame humans for when animals get diseases. Humans kill an elephant every 15 minutes. That’s about 100 a day. At any rate, maybe you should look into our impact on the environment. Most people have no idea, so we continue to do the damage.

Post by arcticbull » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 7:21 PM UTC

Forricide wrote: post #42

melling wrote: post #33

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I’m talking about the aggregate number. Buildings, cats, ... Our total footprint. I’m not sure of the exact wind turbine impact. It’s a rapidly growing form of energy. But that really is my point, people brush aside all the small impacts and we damage the environment in many small ways that really add up As for birds, the Audubon has some information. “ Wind turbines kill an estimated 140,000 to 328,000 birds each ye…

The American Bird Conservancy estimates that "In the United States alone, outdoor cats kill approximately 2.4 billion birds every year." [0] Although it's true that everything we do as a species / society has an impact on the environment, I think it's still important to look at things like this with perspective. Unfortunately, even green/renewable energy sources have a negative impact on the environment; wind isn't t…