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Elephants without tusks are a response to the selective pressure of poaching

nautil.us

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Re: Elephants without tusks are a response to the selective pressure of poaching

#71

Post by Chronic9q »

Swizec wrote: post #47
oldmanjay wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lot of emotional content to infer from a post with such a neutral tone. I'm also struggling to see evidence of occluded understanding.

I think the idea is that these events aren't catastrophic on an individual lifespan level. They're catastrophic in geological time. Look at the holocene extinction event. It's been going on for over 10,000 years. It's only noticeable statistically, doesn't affect day-to-day life much if at all. Therefore it's not really cruel because for most species it's as benign as having a little too few babies to maintain the po…

It appears that, as expected, a young millennial is trying to blame this on human accelerated climate change. (not necessarily you, but someone in the above comment chain).

And yes, I agree that human accelerated climate change is causing faster extensions. However, I could care less. When does the new MacBook Pro refresh come out?

Re: Elephants without tusks are a response to the selective pressure of poaching

#72

Post by jacquesm »

Chronic9q wrote: post #69
jacquesm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't fighting poaching just increase the overall value of ivory? That implies that less ivory makes it to the market which means that more elephants make it through life without getting killed for their tusks. Ivory isn't as easily produced as most drugs so the price of ivory is dictated by scarcity even absent any other controls. You could make as much of most drugs as bulk chemistry or farming allows. So the…

> So the value of ivory going up as a result of being tougher on poachers would be proof that it is working. Have you taken Economics 101? You do remember what happens when the selling price of a good gets too high? Lots of profit to be made will encourage poachers to hunt. They will take even larger risks (e.g. Being shot by drone) to obtain ivory since the profits are too high.

> Have you taken Economics 101?

Yes, have you?

If the price of Ivory rises then yes, more people will be driven to poaching but unless the price drops to the previous level due to the subsequent increase in supply still more elephants will make it.

Only if the price of Ivory drops relative to the baseline could you conclude that a program to target poachers has failed.

If what you write is true then we should simply not do anything about poaching at all... but ideally the price of Ivory would rise to incredible heights because none of it makes it to the market because all poachers are caught.

Re: Elephants without tusks are a response to the selective pressure of poaching

#73

Post by fucking_tragedy »

hueving wrote: post #60
adamnemecek wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trees also take decades to grow, and yet tree farms are a viable economy. How much does it cost to grow a tree? It costs quite a bit to raise an elephant. > So the elephant rancher shoots the poacher. That's what we used to do when cattle rustling was a thing, and it worked pretty well. You are implying that in your plan there would be no elephants in the wild right? Also can you tell me a bit about your knowledge…

> libertarianism fuck yeah Not libertarianism. But don't let that stop you from pathetic political pandering.

Let the market solve it: patently not libertarianism.

Re: Elephants without tusks are a response to the selective pressure of poaching

#75

Post by dacompton »

Houshalter wrote: post #59
kukx wrote: post #10

There's an interesting comment about a similar thing happening with rattle snakes. It seems they evolve into silent snakes to better avoid human predators: http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoen...

Cats are slowly becoming undomesticated because humans sterilize most of the nonstray cats.

Bah, cats were never domesticated.

Re: Elephants without tusks are a response to the selective pressure of poaching

#76

Post by inimino »

lazugod wrote: post #8

Do poachers have an incentive to kill tuskless elephants too, then, so they don't become more dominant than tusked ones?

According to the article, after a civil war half the female elephants left alive were tuskless, because they weren't killing the tuskless ones.

Re: Elephants without tusks are a response to the selective pressure of poaching

#77

Post by dvirsky »

caub wrote: post #17
darkxanthos wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the most exciting. I love seeing nature effectively defending itself.

only females lose them though

I wonder if it's possible to find even a rare mutation of a tusk-less male and manipulate things somehow. Or perhaps even if we do, for males tusks are really too much of a necessity for this to happen.

Re: Elephants without tusks are a response to the selective pressure of poaching

#78

Post by mnw21cam »

pavanred wrote: post #22
ChristianGeek wrote: post #5

This is the saddest example of "natural" selection I've heard of.

Why sad? Why should elephants have tusks. Elephants perhaps evolved tusks because they were useful weapons and tools in the past, but for generations of elephants now the tusks are the reason they are killed. So, they are evolving without tusks to counter the biggest threat for their survival, humans.

Only someone who has never seen an elephant use its tusks to rip apart a tree to get the food it needs to eat for the day could seriously ask that question.

Elephants evolved tusks because they need them. An elephant without tusks is at a serious disadvantage for all purposes apart from human predation.

Re: Elephants without tusks are a response to the selective pressure of poaching

#79

Post by kriro »

Pretty sad that human greed can force such an adaption.

With that out of the way I wonder how good nature is generally in adapting to human caused problems. This strategy seems a bit flawed as it should lead to a sharp decline in the male population and an overpopulation of females. That could in fact lead to even more danger for the elephant population. Before the damage was spread over both genders but it is now focused on just one.

I'd love to see a list of animal mutations that resulted from human intervention. Would be very interesting to read.

Re: Elephants without tusks are a response to the selective pressure of poaching

#80

Post by dredmorbius »

neximo64 wrote: post #62
dredmorbius wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tusks are used in "traditional medicines", among other uses. Even the threat of poisoned ivory would be a strong disincentive for that market. Permanently stained tusks have been used to dissuade material use (e.g., statues or figures).

Would not stained tusks have an impact on the elephants perception of each other? We as human beings have all sorts of perceptions on obesity, skin colour, hair colour..

The rhino horn dye story appears significantly overstated, looking further into it:

https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/thorny_issues/dyeing...

[I]n terms of injecting dye mixed with poison into the horn (also discussed in our 'thorny issues'), it has been proven that rhino horn is not porous and that a liquid mix does not diffuse throughout the horn. In other words, the poison/dye mix remains in the drilled holes, making it relatively easy to remove and “detox” the horn if it is, indeed, to be consumed. Any remaining external discolouration can be sanded off. And tellingly, dyeing/poisoning Sabi Sands’ rhinos’ horns did not prevent animals from subsequently being poached.

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