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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

#131

Post by ArbitraryLimits »

agrover wrote: post #126
kpanghmc wrote: post #96

From the Wikipedia article on Dryococelus australis [1] "The ultimate goal is to produce a large population for re-introduction to Lord Howe Island if the project to eradicate the invasive rats is successful." I wonder what the 347 residents of Lord Howe Island think about this? It's an amazing story and all, but I sure wouldn't want a bunch of these insects introduced into my neighborhood. [1] http://en.wikipedia.or…

At what point do we consider those 347 residents as an invasive species?

It hardly seems fair to consider them an invasive species without considering all humans one as well.

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

#133

Post by Schwolop »

xbryanx wrote: post #112

Pics of Ball's Pyramid from Bryden Allen, one of the first people to summit this wicked place: http://www.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/Bryden.html

Bryden is my uncle, and although I knew he'd climbed a lot of cool stuff in his time (Centrepoint Tower in Sydney, for example), I'd never realised he'd done Ball's Pyramid.

Now I'll actually have an interesting conversation with him for once!

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

#134

Post by nikatwork »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #113
3am wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black rats are extremely common worldwide and are at no risk of extinction so nobody is 'wiping out' black rats. They're only talking about on Howe Island. The goal is not to avoid killing animals, it's to preserve biodiversity. Same reason people try to wipe out Kudzu, zebra mussels, snakeheads, rats, and other invasive species that displace endemic populations.

At one point there were more passenger pigeons on Earth than there were humans. Pigeons are widely considered by many folks to be little more than rats with wings, so it's unsurprising that few people cared as passenger pigeon populations were "wiped out", until ultimately the species became extinct. I don't imagine that black rats will become extinct, but we should not pretend as though the prospect of "wiping out"…

If the animal is an introduced species that has decimated native populations, I would think the morality quite straightforward.

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

#135

Post by kemo »

bonobo wrote: post #104
juliano_q wrote: post #78

This story gave me a weird feeling and reminded me of the Dodo ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo ). This animal was extincted by man only 83 years of it was discovered. I am glad we have will/technology enough today to try to repair this kind of mistakes.

Stories like this always make me remember of the tasmanian wolf ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine ). I always wanted to see one of those alive.

Your comment just made me spend 4 hours investigating the Thylacine, its DNA restoration process and other extinct species. Thinking about dedicating my life to genetics atm.

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

#136

Post by nikatwork »

nigelsampson wrote: post #105
nazar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are always big predators at top of the biological food-energy chain. They are few in numbers. Anyways, I believe populations of cats and rats will fluctuate. Increase in cats will cause decrease in rats and then subsequent decrease in cats. Like phase difference between sine and cosine wave graphs. I believe introducing some small wild cat population would be a right thing to do, tho I would like to hear opinio…

Trouble with cats is they often destroy bird populations as well, not sure how much of a problem this is in Australia, but in New Zealand feral cats are up there with pests that need to wiped off any island that is to be rehabilitated. The Stephens Island Wren is an excellent example of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephens_Island_Wren

Feral cats are a massive problem in rural Australia. They decimate small native mammals. The idea of introducing them to control rats and save native animals is insane - the cats would wipe out everything smaller than them.

Introducing a foreign species into an ecosystem has failed spectacularly so many times I cannot believe people still propose it.

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

#137

Post by morsch »

tpatke wrote: post #6

That's an amazing story. This insect was pretty lucky to live on the coolest rock climbing crag I have ever seen...which requires a special permit to climb [1]. I think I would have quite happily joined that "research" team. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balls_Pyramid

The photo on Wikipedia is pretty low res, as are most other images I could find. This one is the best one I could find: http://www.fotopedia.com/items/caha118trhdlg-M-cFKeb7a90 These two are also good: http://www.gore-ljudje.net/informacije/60348/

Looks literally out of this world.

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

#138

Post by garazy »

derrida wrote: post #64

Any HN'ers in Sydney with a spare Yacht want to go check out Ball's pyramid? I'll cook. :-)

You could fly to Lord Howe Island with Qantas from Sydney. I looked at doing it but it is very expensive and so is accommodation when you get there. Although now I might reconsider just seeing Ball's Pyramid would be reason to go.

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

#139

Post by morsch »

DanBC wrote: post #90
thisduck wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is it unhackerlike to be politically charged?

Political discussions are usually polarised, and thus they start with pointless bickering and end with ranting flame-fests. People tend to enter the discussion knowing what they think, with little to no chance for changing their minds. There are very many places where such discussions are welcome.

And most of those places suck. You have to wonder, can you design a discussion community framework in a way that enables more constructive discussions on these topics? Maybe something different than a straight threaded (or non-threaded) discussion forum? In the same manner that Stack Overflow tries to do it for programming and more general Q&A; not that I'm saying it'd work the same way as SO.
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