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New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

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Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#71

Post by jmnicolas »

igravious wrote: post #53
jmnicolas wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of reasoning is fine until YOUR child get killed ...

I have a child, but think about it this way. Every creature killed was the child of some creature. You're saying it's our children versus their children, all or nothing? But they're non-human animals so tough luck to them. We can do better I believe. What I'm asking is are we asserting that humanity has claimed the _entire_ globe as its habitat? Where do all the other species go that because of their nature run into…

I'm certainly not advocating killing everything that moves and I certainly agree that there are too many humans on earth. I have no solution for that except stop making babies.

However when there are dangerous animals around humans I will certainly not blame someone for protecting his / her family, especially in the case of an invasive specie like the coywolf that is not in danger of extinction.

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#72

Post by gotchange »

vlehto wrote: post #63
lvs wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems overly anxious, don't you think? Isolated incidents occur between humans and all natural predators on occasion. Obviously humankind isn't currently threatened in a serious way ... until these interbreed with zombies, of course.

Btw, have you ever considered the real reason why humans so eagerly bury/burn their dead? It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. I live in a country where bears have been hunted for millenia. As a result I've slept about 1,5km away from known bear nest in the woods. It was scouting trip and none of us was really worried. Because we knew that by now, bears re…

> It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh.

What do you suggest to dispose of human cadavers other than burying them because other methods like incineration and the likes are not as economic as the former method?

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#73

Post by shawabawa3 »

gotchange wrote: post #72
vlehto wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Btw, have you ever considered the real reason why humans so eagerly bury/burn their dead? It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. I live in a country where bears have been hunted for millenia. As a result I've slept about 1,5km away from known bear nest in the woods. It was scouting trip and none of us was really worried. Because we knew that by now, bears re…

> It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. What do you suggest to dispose of human cadavers other than burying them because other methods like incineration and the likes are not as economic as the former method?

There's this method which is used in Tibet and a few other places

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#74

Post by vlehto »

samastur wrote: post #64
vlehto wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Btw, have you ever considered the real reason why humans so eagerly bury/burn their dead? It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. I live in a country where bears have been hunted for millenia. As a result I've slept about 1,5km away from known bear nest in the woods. It was scouting trip and none of us was really worried. Because we knew that by now, bears re…

Where do you live?

Finland.

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#75

Post by lost_my_pwd »

chroma wrote: post #60
haylem wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Not wanting to put words in your mouth, but that sounds like trying to impose a vegan lifestyle (for the record: I'm vegetarian and mostly vegan now) to the animal kingdom. I can understand part of the sentiment, but I'm a bit cautious of 1) the possibility of that happening 2) the impacts 3) the ethics.

That's an accurate representation of my views. Though as I said, it's pretty low on the list of things that need fixing. One day –hopefully– humanity will have its shit together. Then the majority of suffering will be inflicted by (non-human) animals upon other animals. What do we do about that? I don't have an answer, but I'm pretty sure "let it continue" isn't it. To bring the discussion back to the present: I thin…

Funny that you mention rationalizing; something these non-human predator can not do. They are simply doing what their instincts drive them to do: hunt and survive.

That is nowhere near the same thing as a human killer that does it for non-survival reasons; anger, entertainment, sexual excitement, etc. Even if we say that human killers are driven by instinct, as animals are, they also have the ability to reason about the motivations, impact, and eventual consequences of those actions.

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#76

Post by vlehto »

gotchange wrote: post #72
vlehto wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Btw, have you ever considered the real reason why humans so eagerly bury/burn their dead? It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. I live in a country where bears have been hunted for millenia. As a result I've slept about 1,5km away from known bear nest in the woods. It was scouting trip and none of us was really worried. Because we knew that by now, bears re…

> It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. What do you suggest to dispose of human cadavers other than burying them because other methods like incineration and the likes are not as economic as the former method?

Why would bronze age humans dispose corpses at all? Just drag them away so you don't get diseases.

But every culture we know of disposed bodies in some way that wolves, lions and other big land predators could not eat them.

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#77

Post by dalke »

jmnicolas wrote: post #70
dalke wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you really just argue that if a snake were to kill your child, you would want the species eradicated? If an automobile driver were the cause of death instead, would you demand the removal of all automobile drivers? Or all automobiles? If your child were to drown, would you demand the removal of all swimming pools?

Oh common stop putting words in my mouth ... When a specie is invasive and dangerous you thin it by removing the ones that are too close to human habitat, that's it.

Your response was to the statement by igravious, which highlighted "Sharks", "big cats", and "snakes".

Two of those are not invasive species at all. Of the third, only a few species of snakes are invasive. You'll also notice that sharks have not gotten closer to human habitation in any significant way.

So your response is almost irrelevant to what igravious was talking about.

I assumed it was relevant, and the only way I could figure out how to assume you mean that human (and more specifically child) safety gets priority over everything else.

If someone wants to live in or move to a place with big cats, then your view is that they should kill (or "thin") the species, yes? Eventually this means the extinction of all potentially dangerous creatures, does it not?

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#78

Post by noir_lord »

robbrown451 wrote: post #41
rwhitman wrote: post #40

In eastern Los Angeles, coyotes are everywhere , to the point where in some areas you run into them constantly day or night. They're stealthy - silent and very calculating. You can tell many of them are part domestic dog and they don't seem phased by proximity to people and appear to understand the workings of the city to some extent. I have seen the mentioned looking both ways when crossing roads, and also use of si…

If they are really as stealthy as you say, the last thing they will do is be aggressive toward humans. From an evolutionary perspective, I can't imagine a worse strategy than hunting and eating humans.

That's true but they won't know that straight away, they aren't a threat to is in the long term (if they become a threat we'll just eradicate them) but in the short term it could be interesting.

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#79

Post by gotchange »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #73
gotchange wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. What do you suggest to dispose of human cadavers other than burying them because other methods like incineration and the likes are not as economic as the former method?

There's this method which is used in Tibet and a few other places https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial

I had no idea that such practice existed, thanks for sharing!

Not to take away any credit from your argument but not all places on Earth have mountains nearby. Also, I assume that since these nations and people live in mountainous terrains, they had to come up with a method to dispose of those cadavers in the face of land scarcity where they live.

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#80

Post by maxerickson »

igravious wrote: post #47
transfire wrote: post #14

Technically not a new species , rather a new subspecies .

This puzzled me as well. Do we not have a word for this? Is _subspecies_ really the word? In linguistics mutually intelligible but distinct `languages' are called dialects. Similarly is there a term for mutually interbreedable but distinct `species'?

Similarly is there a term for mutually interbreedable but distinct `species'?

There's not really any objective standard to draw the line between such populations. A clear line exists between populations that cannot reproduce, and there is probably something similar for populations that can reproduce but largely make sterile offspring (Ligers, Mules).

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