111–120 of 136 posts
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Humans are as natural as any animal on this planet. Beavers build dams, flooding vast areas and it’s natural. When humans do it, it’s not. Makes zero sense.
Beavers don't build ships and move to other continents and then build dams there, wrecking the local ecology.
That viruses didn’t spread and wipe out populations of animals?
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This is relatively straightforward. First, introduced species tend to, by definition, not breed with the 'original habitat' population, simply because they're separated by sufficient distances. Second, these types of gene terminator approaches tend to work relatively quickly - several generations, I think, but I've only read about these in insect populations where generations are months not years. Anyway, the fallbac…
Why are the mosquitoes reintroduced? Wouldn't there always be the risk of parasite reinfecting the stock?
With malaria, I believe there's a tiny handful, 3 or 4 perhaps, of species of mosquito that carry it, and removing those species from environments where other species of mosquito exist is thought to be low-risk in terms of unintended consequences.
The fallback breeding stock is just another thing we can do to provide assurance that we're not about to accidentally trigger the end of the world.
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From the article: "A female lionfish lays an average of twenty-seven thousand eggs every two and a half days." This reproduction looks to be so prolific that cheating isn't required. The ultimate solution to all of these problems is going to be a gene drive. Especially for the lionfish, edits that leave only male offspring will wipe out the problem in the Atlantic. The United States may condemn and punish such action…
How would you make sure the gene edits don't also wipe out the problem in their original habitat too?
I don't think that this will be a governmental entity, not directly.
The question is: do all these sport "hunters" make any difference at all in the lionfish population? My guess is No. We could pay a bounty for killing mosquitos, but it wouldn't be nearly as effective as draining all the standing water, or introducing birth control of some sort. If I'm right that they're having no effect, then either a CRISPR solution, or introducing a natural predator is the answer (assuming that th…
The article says that there needs to be large scale commercial lionfish hunting to actually solve the problem.
The article mentions eating lionfish, but it doesn't do this idea justice. They are seriously good eating. This unwelcome, invasive species is among the best fish I ever had simply grilled. You have to be careful to cut off the venomous spines, preferably before they get on the boat, which makes the handling costs high. But they are delicious. We managed to threaten even the vast North Atlantic cod population because…
They are de-poisoned and mostly safe after boiling. You can still impale one finger into a spine or make a cut in your hand if manage the stuff without care, but the poison is inactivated by heat.
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Humans are as natural as any animal on this planet. Beavers build dams, flooding vast areas and it’s natural. When humans do it, it’s not. Makes zero sense.
Though I understand, and in a way agree with your point—that human changes to the environment are as natural as that of beavers—, I think one important difference is the scale of those changes. Ours are not as natural in the sense that we no longer rely on our inborn capacities to produce those changes. Yes, in a way we are like beavers in our engineering. But we are insanely overpowered beavers. The scope of our cha…
Modern human civilization is the apex predator that still often feels and acts like it is prey on the African veldt. So you get insanely overpowered beavering while some of us still compare us on the same level as beavers.
This makes me immediately think about the Cobra effect anecdote (or fable?). Basically, the Indian gov't tried to control the snake population by offering a bounty, and people started breeding snakes and killing them for bounty money. Better writeup here: https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/systems-thinking-and-the-cobra-e...
Yeah, people are gonna start breeding lionfish and sneaking them into their competitions /s
But deliberate capture in nature and releasing in another ocean can be still a problem. And new groups lobbying against its total eradication would surely be created.
Killing invasive species for sport is in the origin of most invasions of alien species of fish in Europe. Probably the same in America also.
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If you think about this in consequentialist terms poachers are far worse in every respect. I'm a pacifist, a vegetarian, and an ecologist. I am glad the hogs are getting culled, that's a valuable outcome. I don't care if the people who cull the hogs enjoy it. I wouldn't, I'm glad someone does, they're doing something with a good outcome, even if you think their motivations are unsavory.
Culling is not the issue. The passion is. You don't need to be any of the things you mentioned to understand the problem with killing for entertainment.
Tend a garden.
You too will soon realize it's all a part of doing what comes naturally. Nature, as it turns out, laughs in the face of anything unwilling to speak the language of death.
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I hear where you're coming from, but there's definitely some sort of weird carve-out in human psychology that allows people to simultaneously be compassionate towards animals while also being OK with killing them. Most hunters I know (who don't do it out of necessity or anything) are very morally upright people, and many of them are good friends to animals (conservationists, rehabbers, etc.).
Yeah hunting is not in the same moral landscape as some of the Texas wild hog "hunts". A lot of people are drawn to it because it involves shooting semi automatics at fleeing pigs from a helicopter, without even gathering the meat. Killing an animal for meat/hide/oil or as part of a cull is in a different universe from gleefully shooting at them as a form of entertainment.
>Yeah hunting is not in the same moral landscape as some of the Texas wild hog "hunts".
A hunt is a hunt.
>A lot of people are drawn to it because it involves shooting semi automatics at fleeing pigs from a helicopter, without even gathering the meat.
I don't know anyone loaded enough to dedicate a vehicle that can require up to 10 hours maintenance per flight hour to hog hunting on the regular, but I suppose with all the Cali money heading Texas' way that might be a thing. Fewer still who can even pull off a shot reliably/safely from that platform. That semi-automatics are used isn't even controversial. When you're dealing with a pest that isn't guaranteed to go down in one shot, you don't hanstring yourself with unnecessary handicaps. I also assure you, the maintenance and loading just for the firearm for the expedition is no small investment of time or resources.
Most land owners I know have a rifle and a truck, and even then, it's ususlly a dedicated field truck, because you do not want to get stuck out in bumf Texas. We still have areas you can effectively get lost in.
Stop romanticizing hunting (which is exactly what you're doing when kavetching about how people hunt). It's a fact of life, and an important part of ecological stewardship. If you don't handle hogs on your property when they become a problem, they just stick around and become someone else's.
If you'd like to share the address of your property, I'm fairly sure it would be no trouble at all to wrangle up a few specimens and ship em out to you so you can get hands on experience. Might want to warn your local gov and neighbors though. It can rapudly get out of hand...
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I hear where you're coming from, but there's definitely some sort of weird carve-out in human psychology that allows people to simultaneously be compassionate towards animals while also being OK with killing them. Most hunters I know (who don't do it out of necessity or anything) are very morally upright people, and many of them are good friends to animals (conservationists, rehabbers, etc.).
Yeah hunting is not in the same moral landscape as some of the Texas wild hog "hunts". A lot of people are drawn to it because it involves shooting semi automatics at fleeing pigs from a helicopter, without even gathering the meat. Killing an animal for meat/hide/oil or as part of a cull is in a different universe from gleefully shooting at them as a form of entertainment.
You're right, but in the wrong direction. TX hog hunts are strictly necessary for the protection of agriculture.
> A lot of people are drawn to it because it involves shooting semi automatics at fleeing pigs from a helicopter
A) almost no one does it this way - too expensive. B) this does sound incredibly fun.
> without even gathering the meat.
This is not true. In many cases the meat is inedible (e.g. if they've eaten some kinds of fertilizer the fat turns blueish), but when it is edible, local farmhands will typically cook it. I've been to several mexican style barbecues with this meat.
> gleefully shooting at them as a form of entertainment
It's because they're incredibly destructive to agriculture (plants and animals). Where are you getting this from?