71–80 of 175 posts
One of the worst jobs i ever had, occasionally required us to drown some mice. Excess population / euthanized "feeders" for pet snakes. The method was to put several mice into a small wire cage, and then submerge the cage in water. Usually I filled a bucket with hot water, beforehand, and made this operation fast as possible. Dunk and done. One day I came across a cow orker attempting to do this job (I had been busy…
So it wasn't an utopia. The mice had enough water and food, but they ran out of living space. It's so obvious I can't understand nobody pointed it out yet.
There's the ever-so-remote possibility that this was precisely the point: But the thing is, this wasn’t Calhoun’s first rodent utopia. This was the 25th iteration. And by this point he knew how quickly mouse heaven could deteriorate into mouse hell. From TFA.
i think this shows only that social species' behaviours are fine tuned to the environment they have evolved in and drastically changing said environment requires the species to adapt in order to survive. i feel like there should be a pen size above which such an experiment might run indefinetly. but my gut tells me: no matter the size, it will always eventually crash and burn because mice can't "talk it out" i think…
Related: The book "Heaven's River" by Dennis E. Taylor (part 4 of the bobiverse series) contains an interesting Utopia, similar to a generation ship. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42950440-heaven-s-river https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse
One of the worst jobs i ever had, occasionally required us to drown some mice. Excess population / euthanized "feeders" for pet snakes. The method was to put several mice into a small wire cage, and then submerge the cage in water. Usually I filled a bucket with hot water, beforehand, and made this operation fast as possible. Dunk and done. One day I came across a cow orker attempting to do this job (I had been busy…
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation#Animal_...
One of the worst jobs i ever had, occasionally required us to drown some mice. Excess population / euthanized "feeders" for pet snakes. The method was to put several mice into a small wire cage, and then submerge the cage in water. Usually I filled a bucket with hot water, beforehand, and made this operation fast as possible. Dunk and done. One day I came across a cow orker attempting to do this job (I had been busy…
One of those topics where the meta is richer than the actual science. I remember my Dad mentioning as a child. The public interest is interesting in itself. Not the the science isn't interesting. Population/behavioural studies like this are quite interesting. Animal behaviour is interesting, especially group behaviours where dynamics can play out. That said, what was he actually trying to learn? If you take the same…
It’s interesting to me at least that the group’s population crashed completely to zero and not to just a low number that then began climbing again. This is undoubtably a consequence of mice not being able to escape from the chaos due to the small size of the territory, but I do wonder what the minimum viable size would be to allow for a full boom-bust-boom cycle to occur.
Consider that surviving severe overpopulation is trauma. Survivors are physically and/or psychologically sick. They're not good breeders and at this point.
Happens frequently in aquariums. Guppies breed like guppies. Overpopulate, then die back. The proximate causes can be varied. Maybe there's an ammonia spike, oxygen deficiency or other consequence of overabundance.
When the "crash" happens, survivors tend to be a precocious bunch. They're past breeding prime, and probably injured by the events of the crash and its precedents. Starting a colony with "poor stock" is always more difficult, and that's what you now have.
It doesn't have to be overpopulation that causes a crash. Say you accidentally pollute the water with soapy hands. Some fish will die today. Some tomorrow. Dead fish rotting is also polluting. Fish surviving the ordeal will probably have reduced lifespans and breeding potential.
My unqualified guess is that most extirpation events leave survivors, usually in less than ideal shape. The technical extirpation happens later, as survivors gradually drop off without successful reproduction.
Good question about minimum population size for boom/bust cycles to occur. I suspect this is more about environmental richness than pure numbers. Some predation probably stabilizes things, and some boom/bust might be possible. If you had multiple colonies connected by 500m of tubing, this "distance" between territories might allow for "local" booms and busts to occur.
One of the worst jobs i ever had, occasionally required us to drown some mice. Excess population / euthanized "feeders" for pet snakes. The method was to put several mice into a small wire cage, and then submerge the cage in water. Usually I filled a bucket with hot water, beforehand, and made this operation fast as possible. Dunk and done. One day I came across a cow orker attempting to do this job (I had been busy…
If this is such a common need, I can't help but think they should've invested in a controlled atmosphere killing setup to reduce the panic.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation#Animal_...
One of the worst jobs i ever had, occasionally required us to drown some mice. Excess population / euthanized "feeders" for pet snakes. The method was to put several mice into a small wire cage, and then submerge the cage in water. Usually I filled a bucket with hot water, beforehand, and made this operation fast as possible. Dunk and done. One day I came across a cow orker attempting to do this job (I had been busy…
Why not suffocate them with nitrogen or co2 or something?
$189 nitrogen gas tank
They likely desired a larger cube.