Bhutan declares its entire street dog population fully sterilized and vaccinated • Hacker News Board

Re: Bhutan declares its entire street dog population fully sterilized and vaccinated

#171

Post by wouldbecouldbe » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 12:53 PM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #111

wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though in certain Buddhist countries animals get slaughtered for food, taking lives of animals is a big thing in Buddhism. There is fundamentally no difference between animal consciousness and human in the buddhist view. But to take it to a human level: you dont see a difference in (chemical) castration of people with mental disability and killing them?

taking lives of animals is a big thing in Buddhism How do explain (South) Korea and Japan that eat plenty of meat and have a Buddhist majority? Sri Lanka also has lots of Buddhists, and also eats lots of meat. This seems like nonsense to me.

Yeah I put that caveat in there.

The himalayas they also traditionally kill animals for food. They basically consumed 3 things barley, yak products (meat and milk) and tea.

They didn't have much choice; was hard to grow anything else up in the mountains.But they were conscious about it and still careful but other animal lives.

It's not only because they care about the animal, but also very much about they are afraid of the karma they create for themselves.

Now in the refugee areas they prefer to buy their meat from the Islamic community ironically enough.

Re: Bhutan declares its entire street dog population fully sterilized and vaccinated

#172

Post by stef25 » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 1:20 PM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #168

stef25 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been to Asia and seen the state that most of those dogs are in ? You aren't doing them any favors by letting them reproduce. Dogs won't go off in to the wild by themselves, they are social animals and like being around people. Not in the least because they receive left over food and get more out of the trash. But they receive very little health care. Not many people are bothered by them. This is all for the…

It's not your animal, so leave it alone. Would you do the same to hungry africans for example? Same problem isn't it? Lots of people going hungry and exploding population, should they be neutered for their own sake? People and animals are different, I get that but how is it kindess when it is an animal but cruelty when it is people? Instead of mutilating them, feed them.

> Would you do the same to hungry africans for example?

If they are very hungry, absolutely

/s

Re: Bhutan declares its entire street dog population fully sterilized and vaccinated

#173

Post by goodpoint » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 3:42 PM UTC

troupo wrote: post #53

goodpoint wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6940938/ Fertility control alone: 12% to 40% population decrease. More effective over longer time spans (up to 20 years) Culling alone: Effective in rapidly reducing population short-term, population replaced through compensatory breeding or migration from other locations https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/27935/1/Smith_LM_Biology_PhD... Combined CNR and responsible ownership…

You were claiming that this is not effective because people are buying dogs as pets and abandoning them.

Do you understand this thread is about Bhutan? It's a pretty poor country (source below) where not that many people think of buying a dog and then abandoning it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

Re: Bhutan declares its entire street dog population fully sterilized and vaccinated

#174

Post by krowek » Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 9:02 AM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #169

krowek wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every place on Earth has the same weather through the year as those countries you mention. Dogs aren't really animals born to live in the wild, if a dog has to go through really extreme temperatures, has no food or water, isn't that pain and suffering as well?

Yes, life is pain and suffering. You feed and shelter them, you don't mutilate their bodies. If you were hungry and starving, would you want your balls chopped off so you don't make babies? Or would you want shelter and food? Neutering isn't free. You can create dog parks/sanctuaries and collect leftover food from people and restaurants (tons of it) in exchange for tax relief or just breed animals they can hunt and e…

Wouldn't sheltering and gathering dogs which aren't neutered in the same space an occasion for them to reproduce themselves and increase in number?

"You can create dog parks/sanctuaries and collect leftover food from people and restaurants", is this in practice somewhere?

I ask not to sound annoying or pedantic, just from the deepest curiosity. Animals' care has been always a problem I want to help with, so I'm open to any ideas.

Re: Bhutan declares its entire street dog population fully sterilized and vaccinated

#175

Post by _8j50 » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 11:16 AM UTC

krowek wrote: post #174

_8j50 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, life is pain and suffering. You feed and shelter them, you don't mutilate their bodies. If you were hungry and starving, would you want your balls chopped off so you don't make babies? Or would you want shelter and food? Neutering isn't free. You can create dog parks/sanctuaries and collect leftover food from people and restaurants (tons of it) in exchange for tax relief or just breed animals they can hunt and e…

Wouldn't sheltering and gathering dogs which aren't neutered in the same space an occasion for them to reproduce themselves and increase in number? "You can create dog parks/sanctuaries and collect leftover food from people and restaurants", is this in practice somewhere? I ask not to sound annoying or pedantic, just from the deepest curiosity. Animals' care has been always a problem I want to help with, so I'm open…

If you let them hunt prey for food and don't treat them when they're sick the population should be regulatable. Starving animals don't make a lot of babies and when population is normal starvation becomes rare. Animals exist in an ecosystem, having to fight with other prey and hunt/search for food means much less time making babies. The issue people have with this is tolerating the natural suffering (not intervening) , and allowing smaller animals to be hunted.

Think of it as a "dog conservation" area where dogs are allowed but predators that kill dog are not and prey dogs can hunt is introduced but not heavily regulated.

The part humans have a hard time with is allowing animals to suffer naturally. But out in nature, natural animal suffering is very common. That's how animal populations self regulate. They say dogs can't survive in the wild, that's partly true because most natural ecosystems have predators that will hunt them and prey that are hard to catch for dogs. But there are prey dogs can catch easily like rabbits that are in many areas (like farms) considered pests. Now imagine a dog conseravation area near rabbit infestes areas instead of pesticides! And imagine adapting dogs from these areas instead of kill shelters.

We humans have the power to craft ecosystems and plenty of unused and unfarmable and hard to develop wild land our pets would love (e.g.: much of oregon).

But even if that wasn't possible, my view is that allowing city dogs to starve is natural, you can feed them excess foods and they will reproduce then, but at some point there won't be enough food for the little ones to sustain them so that would be nature's way of regulating them.

And if you step back a bit for perspective. Humans have the same problem. Not that we humans should let each other starve but people who can't feed their children can avoid prefnancy at will and avert that suffering while animals aren't smart enough to do that.

Humans in the end are not in charge of regulating the natural fate of animals.