Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe • Hacker News Board

Re: Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe

#11

Post by User23 » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #8

netcan wrote: post #5

European (especially British) "rewilding" "politics" is still in pretty early stages of maturity. Some of the language in this article is kind of demonstrative of this. "* This method of conservation aims to let large areas of land return to wilderness – in other words, a state of zero human intervention.*" This is quite clearly hopelessly idealistic. Robust ecosystems that sustain macrofauna are achievable (and nece…

Most people live in cities, which makes them think of wolves as a cute, awesome, protect-at-all-cost animal with no downsides. The farmers are in the minority, which means the problem has to become pretty bad to get the majority of the public on their side.

Wolves will eat your children if they feel bold enough, it's not just about livestock. There's a reason they feature so prominently in folklore.

Re: Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe

#12

Post by User23 » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #5

European (especially British) "rewilding" "politics" is still in pretty early stages of maturity. Some of the language in this article is kind of demonstrative of this. "* This method of conservation aims to let large areas of land return to wilderness – in other words, a state of zero human intervention.*" This is quite clearly hopelessly idealistic. Robust ecosystems that sustain macrofauna are achievable (and nece…

> We should look east and west for ideas. Eastern Europe, and obviously Russia have a continuous culture of coexisting with large and potentially dangerous animals.

Eastern Europe and especially Russia are rather a lot less densely populated than Western Europe and that factor dominates all others when it comes to coexistence between humans and wild animals.

Re: Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe

#13

Post by globular-toast » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

I misread the title and you probably did too.

Re: Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe

#14

Post by everdrive » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 5:02 PM UTC

Zenst wrote: post #9

"The emissions from travel it took to report this story were 18kg CO2, travelling by train and car. The digital emissions from this story are an estimated 1.2g to 3.6g CO2 per page view." Kinda nice they include that, makes you think.

>The digital emissions from this story are an estimated 1.2g to 3.6g CO2 per page view.

I want to know how many of those emissions are from superfluous javascript, ads, and tracking.

Re: Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe

#15

Post by jstanley » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 5:02 PM UTC

spodek wrote: post #4

If interested in the Earth before humans exploded onto the scene, I recommend The Once and Future Earth by JB MacKinnon. http://www.jbmackinnon.com/books.html I had no idea what we'd lost -- about 90%. North America had more large animals than Africa. Sailing ships in the middle of the Atlantic would grind to a halt from the density of fish. Whales as far as the eye could see all day. Beautifully written.

> Sailing ships in the middle of the Atlantic would grind to a halt from the density of fish.

This seems absurd. How could fish survive in such conditions?

Re: Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe

#16

Post by asdff » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #14

Zenst wrote: post #9

"The emissions from travel it took to report this story were 18kg CO2, travelling by train and car. The digital emissions from this story are an estimated 1.2g to 3.6g CO2 per page view." Kinda nice they include that, makes you think.

>The digital emissions from this story are an estimated 1.2g to 3.6g CO2 per page view. I want to know how many of those emissions are from superfluous javascript, ads, and tracking.

should be easy to calculate if you measure the full site size vs plaintext content.

Re: Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe

#17

Post by oflannabhra » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

TheRealPomax wrote: post #3

Given the title, I thought this was about reintroducing Aurochs through some amazing feat of modern science... It is not, it's about wolves and wisents (european bison). Still worthwhile, but not as cool as the title pretends it'll be.

Pretty interesting story about Aurochs: apparently two brothers in Germany both ran programs to "back breed" the Auroch in the 1920s. One brother, Lutz Heck, eventually became a Nazi and his program became an official Nazi program. After an attempt to reintroduce some animals into German forests, he and Hermann Goering eventually went on a hunting expedition together for them. Heinz Heck, the other brother was imprisoned at Dachau. The result of his program is the current breed of cattle known as "Heck cattle"[0]. He was also responsible for the reintroduction of European Bison into the wild.

There are several other programs [1] that are attempting to reintroduce Aurochs, through a variety of methods.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heck_cattle

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs#Breeding_of_aurochs-li...

Re: Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe

#18

Post by pilsetnieks » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #14

Zenst wrote: post #9

"The emissions from travel it took to report this story were 18kg CO2, travelling by train and car. The digital emissions from this story are an estimated 1.2g to 3.6g CO2 per page view." Kinda nice they include that, makes you think.

>The digital emissions from this story are an estimated 1.2g to 3.6g CO2 per page view. I want to know how many of those emissions are from superfluous javascript, ads, and tracking.

Some time back there was an article posted here about those calculations, and the majority of those emissions accounted not for the serving part but for running the reader's device while they read it.

I hate the javascript deluge as much as the next guy but probably the most energy is spent in keeping the screen on.

Re: Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe

#19

Post by burlesona » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 5:09 PM UTC

spodek wrote: post #4

If interested in the Earth before humans exploded onto the scene, I recommend The Once and Future Earth by JB MacKinnon. http://www.jbmackinnon.com/books.html I had no idea what we'd lost -- about 90%. North America had more large animals than Africa. Sailing ships in the middle of the Atlantic would grind to a halt from the density of fish. Whales as far as the eye could see all day. Beautifully written.

Sorry, ships would grind to a halt? I find it very difficult to imagine the physics that would make that possible as opposed to the fish simply shifting apart, and I googled for a while and was not able to find any corroboration. Do you have some links on that?

Re: Bison and wolf populations are reviving in parts of Europe

#20

Post by hannob » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

User23 wrote: post #11

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people live in cities, which makes them think of wolves as a cute, awesome, protect-at-all-cost animal with no downsides. The farmers are in the minority, which means the problem has to become pretty bad to get the majority of the public on their side.

Wolves will eat your children if they feel bold enough, it's not just about livestock. There's a reason they feature so prominently in folklore.

I heard one number in the discussion in Germany (where in some areas the wolves discussion runs wild) which I found interesting: The number of people killed by wolves in Germany in recent years is zero, the number of people killed by dogs is around 3-4 per year.