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Honest question from someone who knows virtually nothing about chemistry or material science: is there a difference in quality between synthetic and natural ivory? If not, why is poaching even still a viable market?
Multiplication is a bitch.
We have long had a culture where men prefer mates that are shorter than them, and women prefer mates that are taller. This results in constant pressure on the pool resulting in men being on average taller than women. Will this change over time as we outgrow this rather primitive preference? (Sadly, even many feminist women have clung to this preference.) Not all species "prefer" that the male is bigger or stronger than the female.
An obvious one is our reliance on modern medical technology, and drugs in particular. Are our bodies becoming less able to fend off disease?
The most important one for me is the balance between those genes that give us our selfishness and those that give us empathy and love. What impact does an ever more individualistic culture and an economic system that defines selfishness as a virtue have on our gene pool?
Honest question from someone who knows virtually nothing about chemistry or material science: is there a difference in quality between synthetic and natural ivory? If not, why is poaching even still a viable market?
I imagine people view it similarly to leathers made from animal hides to synthetic materials. Synthetics may be better in some ways but people are in-part attracted by the character or feel that the imperfections of a natural material provide.
Synthetic ivory is ivory.
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Superstition really seems to be one of the largest factor when it comes to animal hunting/consumption. It's ridiculous and a little bit ironic that something supposedly to bring good fortune will result in wide scale killing of animals, living earthlings.
> "It's ridiculous and a little bit ironic that something supposedly to bring good fortune will result in wide scale killing of animals, living earthlings." How is this ironic? Most cultures have prized animal products throughout recorded history, and many have practiced sacrifices, which is literally the killing of the being.
In case anyone is wondering about the size of the effect, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/wildlife-... has the numbers. Before the war, 2-4% of female elephants were tuskless. Now 32% of newly born ones are. So it's a significant change, but it's not like this property was coming out of nowhere. It started off about as common as humans having green eyes.
As sad as this is, how does this kind of evolution happen? I imagine the poaching process doesn't actually differentiate tusked and tuskless elephants, both types of elephants would fall into the trap and die? And then if it has tusks the poachers take them, if it doesn't have tusks the poachers just abandon the dead elephant? Or does their trap actually trap them by the tusk?
Edit: I found an article[0] describing some poaching methods and apparently they do use traps! Including snares and a spiked board. But that it appears homemade shotguns and rifles are the most common method.
[0] http://www.open-earth.org/document/natureR_main.php?natureId...
This is only true if "we" have very little imagination.
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I think the above commenter recognized that; that's exactly how these evolutions pretty much always work in nature, not unique to this case.
Right, but "natural selection" generally doesn't include human influence, but that's semantics. Would you also say that fruits that are selectively bred to be bigger and juicier are also under the influence of "natural selection"?
I believe natural selection includes the influence of any species related to the species in question as predator or prey, and humans in this case are predators. We may historically be responsible for far more processes of natural selection than we're aware of!
You're right that it's exceedingly rare to see us so directly play a role in natural selection today (as opposed to indirectly through affecting the environment), which makes this very interesting.
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There's a world of difference between feeling that "you can always be doing more" and criticizing poaching on the internet an hour before sitting down to enjoy a steak dinner.
Are cows an endangered species?
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As sad as this is, how does this kind of evolution happen? I imagine the poaching process doesn't actually differentiate tusked and tuskless elephants, both types of elephants would fall into the trap and die? And then if it has tusks the poachers take them, if it doesn't have tusks the poachers just abandon the dead elephant? Or does their trap actually trap them by the tusk?
They're hunted interactively by people with guns, not passively with traps.
The poacher could always hang around near the trap, but if you're doing that you might as well just shoot the elephant, not trap it.