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Killing invasive species is now a competitive sport

newyorker.com

21–30 of 136 posts

Re: Killing invasive species is now a competitive sport

#21
post #8

you haven’t had fun on this planet until you've gone hunting for invasive hogs in florida or texas. stars, night observation devices, suppressed semiautomatic rifles. regardless of your stance on guns or killing things almost as smart as humans, you should give this fun and useful activity a try sometime. you’ll learn some skills and make solid friends along the way.

I've spent time in the past shooting feral rabbits, foxes and cats here in Australia, which do immeasurable harm to the native ecosystems. It can be a fairly engaging activity, but it does pay to keep in mind that it's not the animals fault that they're born into the environment they're in, and as such you do try to minimise the level of suffering around it (i.e. I'm not a fan of people bow hunting which isn't an instantaneous kill). I suppose it helps to keep a level of mindfulness around what you're doing and remember that causing unnecessary pain is something to avoid.

Re: Killing invasive species is now a competitive sport

#22
post #13

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...

Seattle once had a similar (though likely far less dangerous) program, I believe. They paid a bounty on rats, and, yep, kids soon started breeding rats in their back yards.

Re: Killing invasive species is now a competitive sport

#23
post #13

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...

I think the key here is keeping it at hobby levels of funding: a few thousand dollars worth of prizes at sporting events is a motivator for amateurs, a few hundred thousand would bring out professionals.

Re: Killing invasive species is now a competitive sport

#24
post #13

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

Re: Killing invasive species is now a competitive sport

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like a great way to earn the company of fellow psychopaths. The ecological need is easy to understand, but turning it into a "sport" tells you a lot about the caliber of people we're living with. The people engaging in this activity are worse than poachers; at least poachers kill to earn a living.

Worse how? Because they're enjoying something that needs to be done? These hogs would be more than happy to kill and eat you if they could. They regularly break into back yards and kill pets. If an animal is happy to pop slats off a fence and disembowel my cousin's dog I'm happy to put a bullet in it.

You're free do the research into what the Texas model is actually achieving. States with more amenable conditions for pigs don't have the problem that Texas has.

There is a responsible way to manage a population. Shooting pigs to get a kick ain't it.

Re: Killing invasive species is now a competitive sport

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse how? Because they're enjoying something that needs to be done? These hogs would be more than happy to kill and eat you if they could. They regularly break into back yards and kill pets. If an animal is happy to pop slats off a fence and disembowel my cousin's dog I'm happy to put a bullet in it.

You're free do the research into what the Texas model is actually achieving. States with more amenable conditions for pigs don't have the problem that Texas has. There is a responsible way to manage a population. Shooting pigs to get a kick ain't it.

>States with more amenable conditions for pigs don't have the problem that Texas has.

Which states would those be?

Re: Killing invasive species is now a competitive sport

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse how? Because they're enjoying something that needs to be done? These hogs would be more than happy to kill and eat you if they could. They regularly break into back yards and kill pets. If an animal is happy to pop slats off a fence and disembowel my cousin's dog I'm happy to put a bullet in it.

You're free do the research into what the Texas model is actually achieving. States with more amenable conditions for pigs don't have the problem that Texas has. There is a responsible way to manage a population. Shooting pigs to get a kick ain't it.

It’s also deeply concerning how he didn’t make one mention of how dangerous wild boars can be. If you don’t take it down it is 100% going to try and kill you. And they don’t go down that easy.

Re: Killing invasive species is now a competitive sport

#28
post #17

Can we do similar like we did wit regard to mosquitos where we capture a bunch, crisper the dna so offspring is infertile, and introduce a big batch back in to spread the gene?

Yes

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01186-6

Re: Killing invasive species is now a competitive sport

#29

By any definition humans are an invasive species. Unfortunately killing our fellow humans has been a competitive sport from time immemorial.

Misanthropy disguised as concern for the environment does not contribute to the discussion. Edit: Given your username, I’d expect more faith in humanity, not less.

I don't think we need to read this as misanthropy, necessarily.

> By any definition humans are an invasive species. Unfortunately killing our fellow humans has been a competitive sport from time immemorial.

Perhaps the point that we, to, are an invasive species is intended to inspire a bit of compassion within us for the hogs, toads, rabbits and whatever else.

I'm not sure how much I agree -- the invasive hogs really are damaging to the ecosystem. Though, manually going out to shoot them seems like a questionable means of controlling the population. And they should be killed as mercifully as other species -- they didn't ask to be invasive, after all.

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