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When One Protected Species Kills Another

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Re: When One Protected Species Kills Another

#11

Post by vageli »

daenz wrote: post #9
rdiddly wrote: post #6

So here's a radical idea that's fun to think about. Usually we think of nature as "conditions before humans came along." And we figure that if humans disrupted it, then humans should try to undo the disruption. But that's just fixing one intervention by means of another intervention, and the fix likely has just as many, if a different set, of poorly-understood and unintended consequences. So lately I've started to de…

"Nature" could also include humans. I haven't seen anything to suggest that the natural outcome of billions of years of evolution isn't some highly intelligent, dominant organism that ends up shaping its environment to an extreme degree.

> "Nature" could also include humans. I haven't seen anything to suggest that the natural outcome of billions of years of evolution isn't some highly intelligent, dominant organism that ends up shaping its environment to an extreme degree.

I wonder if the narrative that humans are not of nature makes it easier for us to harm the environment, since we do not feel part of it (as evidenced by our use of the word nature as some _other_).

Re: When One Protected Species Kills Another

#12

Post by crooked-v »

obpacheco wrote: post #8

I was listening to an interview of Shane Dorian, a well-known big wave surfer from Hawaii. He was remarking on how, when he was growing, when there was a shark attack the locals would go on a shark hunt, killing numerous sharks. Around the nineties sentiments around these hunts changed, and that combined with the depleting of fisheries, shark attacks in Hawaii have risen dramatically. I think it's time we brought bac…

Hawaii's population has also increased from 1.1 million people in 1990 to 1.4 million people today. There's no great peculiarity around the fact that more people means more encounters with sharks.

Also, "dramatically" is quite the claim, when there's a total of only 137 recorded shark attacks in Hawaii ever (including incidents without injuries) dating back to the 1700s.

Re: When One Protected Species Kills Another

#14

Post by kikoreis »

obpacheco wrote: post #8

I was listening to an interview of Shane Dorian, a well-known big wave surfer from Hawaii. He was remarking on how, when he was growing, when there was a shark attack the locals would go on a shark hunt, killing numerous sharks. Around the nineties sentiments around these hunts changed, and that combined with the depleting of fisheries, shark attacks in Hawaii have risen dramatically. I think it's time we brought bac…

What has the level of increase been? Shark attacks are ultra rare, with only 5 deaths worldwide in 2018. See https://www.forbes.com/sites/duncanmadden/2019/03/05/the-201...

Re: When One Protected Species Kills Another

#15

Post by ksdale »

vageli wrote: post #11
daenz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nature" could also include humans. I haven't seen anything to suggest that the natural outcome of billions of years of evolution isn't some highly intelligent, dominant organism that ends up shaping its environment to an extreme degree.

> "Nature" could also include humans. I haven't seen anything to suggest that the natural outcome of billions of years of evolution isn't some highly intelligent, dominant organism that ends up shaping its environment to an extreme degree. I wonder if the narrative that humans are not of nature makes it easier for us to harm the environment, since we do not feel part of it (as evidenced by our use of the word nature…

I think this point has merit and it’s important for us to think of ourselves as part of the environment, but also, there are lots of other animals (like most of them?) that don’t care at all about the environment and the only reason they don’t destroy it in pursuit of their vital resources is that they can’t. There are endless stories of animals eating and breeding until their ecosystems are destroyed and they suffer massive die offs. Of course that tends to happen most often to invasive species, but nature certainly does not keep itself in balance through conscientiousness.

Re: When One Protected Species Kills Another

#16

Post by lurquer »

vageli wrote: post #11
daenz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nature" could also include humans. I haven't seen anything to suggest that the natural outcome of billions of years of evolution isn't some highly intelligent, dominant organism that ends up shaping its environment to an extreme degree.

> "Nature" could also include humans. I haven't seen anything to suggest that the natural outcome of billions of years of evolution isn't some highly intelligent, dominant organism that ends up shaping its environment to an extreme degree. I wonder if the narrative that humans are not of nature makes it easier for us to harm the environment, since we do not feel part of it (as evidenced by our use of the word nature…

>I wonder if the narrative that humans are not of nature makes it easier for us to harm the environment, since we do not feel part of it (as evidenced by our use of the word nature as some _other_).

To the contrary, there is a worldview whereby humans are not part of nature. Instead, they have dominion over it and a responsibility to care for all aspects of it as a custodian. To use a metaphor, nature without humans can never reach its full potential, just as a garden without its gardener will revert to a less ordered -- and less diverse -- state.

Re: When One Protected Species Kills Another

#17

Post by obpacheco »

crooked-v wrote: post #12
obpacheco wrote: post #8

I was listening to an interview of Shane Dorian, a well-known big wave surfer from Hawaii. He was remarking on how, when he was growing, when there was a shark attack the locals would go on a shark hunt, killing numerous sharks. Around the nineties sentiments around these hunts changed, and that combined with the depleting of fisheries, shark attacks in Hawaii have risen dramatically. I think it's time we brought bac…

Hawaii's population has also increased from 1.1 million people in 1990 to 1.4 million people today. There's no great peculiarity around the fact that more people means more encounters with sharks. Also, "dramatically" is quite the claim, when there's a total of only 137 recorded shark attacks in Hawaii ever (including incidents without injuries) dating back to the 1700s.

I was just parrotting the interview I listened to but after looking into it it's not false to say that shark incidents are definitely increasing in frequency from using information from https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/sharks/shark-incidents/incident-grap...

Just eyeballing here there was 6 shark atacks from 1980-1985 to about 50 in the last 5 years. Seams like that backs up his claim that there has been a dramatic increase.

Re: When One Protected Species Kills Another

#18

Post by obpacheco »

kikoreis wrote: post #14
obpacheco wrote: post #8

I was listening to an interview of Shane Dorian, a well-known big wave surfer from Hawaii. He was remarking on how, when he was growing, when there was a shark attack the locals would go on a shark hunt, killing numerous sharks. Around the nineties sentiments around these hunts changed, and that combined with the depleting of fisheries, shark attacks in Hawaii have risen dramatically. I think it's time we brought bac…

What has the level of increase been? Shark attacks are ultra rare, with only 5 deaths worldwide in 2018. See https://www.forbes.com/sites/duncanmadden/2019/03/05/the-201...

Deaths sure are rare but looking at hawaii.gov shows the level of increase if your interested https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/sharks/shark-incidents/incident-grap...

Re: When One Protected Species Kills Another

#19

Post by gridlockd »

ksdale wrote: post #15
vageli wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Nature" could also include humans. I haven't seen anything to suggest that the natural outcome of billions of years of evolution isn't some highly intelligent, dominant organism that ends up shaping its environment to an extreme degree. I wonder if the narrative that humans are not of nature makes it easier for us to harm the environment, since we do not feel part of it (as evidenced by our use of the word nature…

I think this point has merit and it’s important for us to think of ourselves as part of the environment, but also, there are lots of other animals (like most of them?) that don’t care at all about the environment and the only reason they don’t destroy it in pursuit of their vital resources is that they can’t. There are endless stories of animals eating and breeding until their ecosystems are destroyed and they suffer…

> here are endless stories of animals eating and breeding until their ecosystems are destroyed and they suffer massive die offs.

I believe the hypothesis that we're not one of these animal species may well prove false.

> Of course that tends to happen most often to invasive species, but nature certainly does not keep itself in balance through conscientiousness.

Neither do humans. We tend to fuck things up until they become real problems, then mitigate the damage, sometimes with success. That's not really conscientious, that's "winging it". This is the true nature of the human being.

Re: When One Protected Species Kills Another

#20

Post by gridlockd »

99% of species went extinct before humans arrived. Adapt or die is how life works. Can't survive alongside humans? Tough call.

That's not to say conservationism is futile, I fully agree we should save those Pandas, or various sea mammals, or monkeys and apes. Why? Because they're fascinating and adorable. Not out of principle.

But let's be real, even if it wasn't for humans some of these would've been destined to go extinct with just a minor tilt of the ecosystem.

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