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Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

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Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#51

Post by dvdhsu »

justjimmy wrote: post #43
jimrandomh wrote: post #40

This seems to me like a case of empathy gone awry. All that work and effort to bring back a species of insects? There is no balance to preserve; they've been gone for almost a century. Those resources could be spent preserving human life.

What if those insects somehow hold a scientific discovery that can be a boon to the human race? Like silk by spiders? Or because of their large size, we could farm and grow them as alternative food source? Possibilities!

There was an excellent article in the New Yorker about eating bugs some time back.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/15/110815fa_fact_...

Unfortunately, it requires a subscription to read now.

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#52

Post by nollidge »

jimrandomh wrote: post #40

This seems to me like a case of empathy gone awry. All that work and effort to bring back a species of insects? There is no balance to preserve; they've been gone for almost a century. Those resources could be spent preserving human life.

And the time you spent reading a book or watching TV or programming could also instead be spent preserving human life.

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#54

Post by unseen »

DanBC wrote: post #38
ramblerman wrote: post #32

"Step one, therefore, would be to mount an intensive (and expensive) rat annihilation program. Residents would, no doubt, be happy to go rat-free, ..." I despise rats. Yet I find it disconcerting that the author just brushes this off as a triviality. We are perfectly happy saving one species by wiping out another.

Wiping out another - on that particular island, where they were non-native. Invasive species cause havoc and removing them (whether by killing or by trapping[1]) is hard but useful work. [1] See hedgehogs on some obscure Scots islands.

Duh, its evolution. You make it sound like a war theatre.

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#55

Post by anamax »

leke wrote: post #37

The neighbouring Howe Island, is pure island porn. Ideal, steady annual climate, no venomous or stinging life forms. There aren't even sharks in the daytime waters.

> There aren't even sharks in the daytime waters.

That's actually a downside.

Sharks are cool and they're almost never dangerous, at least to divers.

Yes, things are different for surface folk who insist on looking like a seal from below.

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#57

Post by jimrandomh »

exch wrote: post #44
jimrandomh wrote: post #40

This seems to me like a case of empathy gone awry. All that work and effort to bring back a species of insects? There is no balance to preserve; they've been gone for almost a century. Those resources could be spent preserving human life.

Playing the devil's advocate here but I believe humans do not need preserving. With 7 billion individuals and counting, it seems we're doing just fine. Regardless of how poor the living conditions are for many of us. For this particular species of insect however, having the last 24 remaining individuals of the entire species (presumably) be dependent on a single small shrubbery makes me think the effort put into this…

Humans are dying at a rate of 1.8 per second, and every human death is a tragedy of greater magnitude than the extinction of an insect species.

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#58

Post by mhartl »

lionhearted wrote: post #25
srl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the few instances where I disagree with that attitude. The risks involved in relocating ill-studied life forms are, obviously, enormous, and it does need careful and dispassionate consideration. I'd much rather risk a mildly interesting species go bye-bye than risk introducing a major ecological stressor. On the other hand, I might just be taking this stance because I'm so unfamiliar with biological st…

Human error almost caused the species to go extinct -- I think it's fair, right, and proper to move to restore them to their prior condition if possible, and the situation was critical on the pyramid. It seems like a pretty docile species based on the articles facts, and they could keep them cordoned in a lab until they found what to do with them. If the researchers and biologists felt it was the right play (which th…

I had the same thought reading the article. There are risks either way; bureaucratic deliberation has costs as well as benefits. In this case, the relevant experts, in balancing those costs against the benefits, would definitely not have dithered for two years before acting.

We've definitely lost something here. As Peter Thiel noted: [1]

  There are ways that the government is working far less well than it used to.
  Just outside my office is the Golden Gate Bridge. It was built under FDR's
  Administration in the 1930s in about three and a half years. They're currently
  building an access highway on one of the tunnels that feeds into the bridge,
  and it will take at least six years to complete.
I wonder what it might take to get that back.

[1] http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1187

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#59

Post by sitkack »

jimrandomh wrote: post #57
exch wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing the devil's advocate here but I believe humans do not need preserving. With 7 billion individuals and counting, it seems we're doing just fine. Regardless of how poor the living conditions are for many of us. For this particular species of insect however, having the last 24 remaining individuals of the entire species (presumably) be dependent on a single small shrubbery makes me think the effort put into this…

Humans are dying at a rate of 1.8 per second, and every human death is a tragedy of greater magnitude than the extinction of an insect species.

Some of those dying humans would like nothing more than to research and save insects. What we do in our life defines us. We all die.

On the scale of human activities to cease, preservation of an insect species isn't something I would stop. There are much more fruitful candidates.

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#60

Post by wisty »

justjimmy wrote: post #43
jimrandomh wrote: post #40

This seems to me like a case of empathy gone awry. All that work and effort to bring back a species of insects? There is no balance to preserve; they've been gone for almost a century. Those resources could be spent preserving human life.

What if those insects somehow hold a scientific discovery that can be a boon to the human race? Like silk by spiders? Or because of their large size, we could farm and grow them as alternative food source? Possibilities!

Yep, as I saw him coming out of his shell, one of the first things I though was "I wonder if it's good eatin'".

Actually, it's probably not bad, and bugs can be very efficient to farm.

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