Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals
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@Rhywden said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Rhywden said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
You say that wolves have not eaten a human in Europe. I counter that recorded human-eating has happened as little as 71 years ago.
How many cases were there actually? And if you have that number please create a chart which displays the relative risk of death for all animals.
You'd be surprised, for example, that the common cow is a rather nasty critter...
According to Wikipedia, numerous cases. Does it matter? It's a unnecessary risk anyway.
I don't live on a cow-pasture. But I have family living "in the sticks". Approximately 15% of Finnish people live in "rural areas", which is defined as having individual houses more than 200m apart. The space between is forest (personal experience), which is ideal wolf territory. Deer live in the southernmost areas (imported from the U.S.), but in most of the country the only large herbivores are moose and rabbit.
Then you should be in even less of a danger because wolves only really become dangerous when they become accustomed to humans (and by that I mean: forced to live in close proximity to humans regularly).
I'm sorry, I may have said that in a bad way. Those 15% of people cover half of the land area of Finland. The lower half. And they cover it rather uniformly. There are no houses closer than 200m to each other. But there is also no place without house within 1km (guesstimate).
This is radically different from middle and western Europe, where (if I've understood correctly), you have clusters of houses, surrounded by fields and pastures. In Finland, it's individual buildings surrounded by 200-1000m of forest. Also, in Finland, we don't grow sheep, and even cow pastures are far between (large local variation though). We mostly grow trees; tree-products was once the largest export. May still be.So, if 1000m is "close proximity", then yes, the wolves are forced to live in close proximity of humans.
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@acrow I've been to Finland and while I saw this kind of clustering, I severely doubt that it's like that everywhere in that area. You simply don't have the population for that.
I call bullshit on your "uniform distribution". Please show me evidence in form of a map that this is indeed the case.
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@Rhywden said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
By that yardstick we all should stop driving cars immediately.
You know, there are politicians and large activist groups that argue for just that...
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@Rhywden Wikipedia to the rescue: Population density in Finland on a map.
But maybe a better way to see it is to take a look at a map.
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@acrow No, that's not precise enough. You were talking about "individual buildings surrounded by 200-1000m of forest". Please show evidence for that.
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@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska That assumes both that this is the case
If it's not the case, then the answer is simple. But I doubt that any large predator could go from tens of thousands to just tens and not leave an impact on its surrounding environment for several decades. But maybe I'm wrong.
and that the ecosystem is stable now
It never is. But large actions cause large reactions. And a large predator going (almost) extinct is a large action.
But it can take a far larger time scale to adapt to “complete loss of large predator” in a way that, e.g. the resulting over-abundance of boas isn’t still causing massive further damage, even if there’s already been a large reaction. (You’ve said that below)
(and again, desert wasteland is also stable)
Why do you assume the goal is to have stability? The goal is to have lots and lots and lots and lots of resources - including wild animals.
Agreed (if I ignore calling wild animals resources).
It's just that the best way to have lots of wild animals is to not touch anything. At least that's my understanding.
Agreed. And attempts at preservation of wildlife are usually just that: creating environments with less external disturbance or stopping further destruction.
Just because the ecosystem has “reacted” already doesn’t mean this reaction isn’t “slipping out of control/balance”.
On the contrary, maybe the ecosystem is regaining balance naturally by the reproliferation.I suspect you might have messed up a few words and a couple negations here, but I think I know where you're getting at.
On re-reading, I don’t think I have, but it’s still an acceptable reading of what I said. Probably thought of a different scenario.
The change is ongoing, and it's possible the change is going towards total extinction of everything. And doing something, like restoring a species that has used to live there in the past, might prevent that outcome. But how do we know whether the ecosystem is going that way? And how do we know whether reintroduction of species won't cause the already-changed-a-little environment to go even worse? Serious questions.
We can’t know that for sure. Two things: 1) the reintroduction of the wolf example above is happening naturally (see the B*****m post), not artificially, so it’s not interference. 2) The state the environment was in before was ok for ages, so while you can’t recreate that exactly, it’s a reasonable assumption that aiming close to a known-good state will not be causing too much damage.
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@Rhywden There's Google maps. Want to look around Moksi, where I grew up?
Unfortunately, I don't have a more handy piece of evidence than Google maps on hand right now. I'm mostly talking from personal experience.
May I ask which places you visited here?
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@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Rhywden There's Google maps. Want to look around Moksi, where I grew up?
And? What's that supposed to prove? Did you grow up in the whole of the lower half of Finland?
I used GoogleMaps right now. I found plenty of wooded spots where there were no huts or houses for kilometers.
My point is: You're desperately trying to make it look like the wolves will be forced to roam through Helsinki or something. Why on Earth would they come so close in the first place?
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@Rhywden No, but I've driven around large parts of it.
Helsinki is the only place where the wolves will never come. It is also the only city with 500k+ population. It is also where the politicians live who decided to return the wolf population. The problem of our national politics in a nutshell.
They're close enough to eat 50 dogs per year. They come near houses. Do I need to dig up news articles about pawprints on backyards now? I'm trying to say that they are already living in immediate proximity of humans. And I think that this is a very bad idea.
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@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska That assumes both that this is the case
If it's not the case, then the answer is simple. But I doubt that any large predator could go from tens of thousands to just tens and not leave an impact on its surrounding environment for several decades. But maybe I'm wrong.
and that the ecosystem is stable now
It never is. But large actions cause large reactions. And a large predator going (almost) extinct is a large action.
But it can take a far larger time scale to adapt to “complete loss of large predator” in a way that, e.g. the resulting over-abundance of boas isn’t still causing massive further damage, even if there’s already been a large reaction. (You’ve said that below)
Yes, but the humanity is reintroducing so many species right now that the probability of there being not a single species anywhere that their former environment hasn't fully rebalanced itself after loss seems very close to zero.
(and again, desert wasteland is also stable)
Why do you assume the goal is to have stability? The goal is to have lots and lots and lots and lots of resources - including wild animals.
Agreed (if I ignore calling wild animals resources).
Are they not?
It's just that the best way to have lots of wild animals is to not touch anything. At least that's my understanding.
Agreed. And attempts at preservation of wildlife are usually just that: creating environments with less external disturbance or stopping further destruction.
There's preservation, and there's restoration. Preservation I can understand - but restoration (like reintroduction of already (almost) extict species) is much harder for me to reconcile with the philosophy of "we shouldn't touch anything at all because even one additional/removed species can cause an environmental catastrophe that will turn the land into wasteland for decades to come".
The change is ongoing, and it's possible the change is going towards total extinction of everything. And doing something, like restoring a species that has used to live there in the past, might prevent that outcome. But how do we know whether the ecosystem is going that way? And how do we know whether reintroduction of species won't cause the already-changed-a-little environment to go even worse? Serious questions.
We can’t know that for sure.
And doesn't the rule of "when in doubt, don't touch" apply here as well?
Two things: 1) the reintroduction of the wolf example above is happening naturally (see the B*****m post), not artificially, so it’s not interference.
At the time I posted those things, I was under impression it's done artificially. But IIRC tigers are reintroduced artificially - as well as many other species?
- The state the environment was in before was ok for ages, so while you can’t recreate that exactly, it’s a reasonable assumption that aiming close to a known-good state will not be causing too much damage.
I'm not convinced of this argument. AFAIK wolves in Europe and tigers in Asia aren't the only big predators, so removing them also results in something close to a known-good state. And yet it can cause a catastrophe.
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@MrL said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
If bees are dying off in Europe
Are bees dying off in Europe?
I remember reading news about that last summer, yes. Apparently honeybee colonies have been abandoning their nests suddenly and without trace, all over Europe.
Yeah, bees are almost extinct and huge catastrophe is looming over us every year. Next year they will also be almost extinct.
They are like cold fusion or self-driving cars.
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@Polygeekery said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@MrL said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
If bees are dying off in Europe
Are bees dying off in Europe?
I remember reading news about that last summer, yes. Apparently honeybee colonies have been abandoning their nests suddenly and without trace, all over Europe.
Yeah, bees are almost extinct and huge catastrophe is looming over us every year. Next year they will also be almost extinct.
They are like cold fusion or self-driving cars.
The main difference being that I HOPE self-driving cars go extinct. In their current form, on roads built with human drivers in mind.
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@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
roads built with human drivers in mind.
I wouldn't be so sure.
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@remi said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@acrow Honestly, I don't see that much of a danger.
I had a quick look through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_attack. Clearly if you leave aside India (and I hope you're not saying that Finland is really comparable to India, in terms of population distribution, economic activity, wildlife monitoring... everything really...), wolves are a non-problem to humans. 11 deaths in 50 years in Europe/Russia/America. That's the extent of the problem.
I'm not necessarily in favour of reintroducing wolves anywhere, but again, the danger to humans is not the factor at play here (except maybe in so far that so many people, like you here, overplay it...).
I find it fascinating that someone pointing out the idiocy of some vegan loon being ideologically opposed to killing an animal that exists only in a video game has devolved in to some sort of discussion about whether or not wolves eat kids. The only thing I have to add is that growing up in a heavily wooded area of the Midwestern USA I can say from experience that coyotes were enough of a worry that venturing in to the woods without a firearm was considered foolish and could easily get you killed by said coyotes. This is something that happens and I have no idea why wolves would not do the same. Hell, there are places in Europe even where it is illegal to go in to the wilderness without a firearm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch7HwhGynXk
Animals will hunt humans if they are available and the animals are hungry.
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@pie_flavor said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Weng said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
.... What the fuck is wrong with you people?
I know this community is built on harshness and sarcasm but this thread is literally (aside from the digression about the merits of European wolf populations) criticizing someone for their policy of choosing entertainment based on it's alignment with their opinions.
And the people who are doing it are the same ones constantly crowing about the supremacy of people's personal opinions over "social justice" and what not.
And then you're couching it in terms of imaginary generational politics.
Pro tip: If you're under 38 and not in undergrad or below, you're a fucking millennial. Get the fuck over it. If you're going to irrationally bitch about people, be up front about the characteristic of them you're bitching about. And in this, and basically every other case lately, it's "THEY LIKE SOMETHING I DON'T LIKE".
Assbags.
Flagged for off-topic
The three downvotes are boomzilla
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@Luhmann said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
there’s literally like 20 wolves in the entirety of Germany.
there are definitely more since the population is doing so good they are moving east into
They are waiting until the wine has adequately marinated the French and then they will have a feast.
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@Weng said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
.... What the fuck is wrong with you people?
I know this community is built on harshness and sarcasm but this thread is literally (aside from the digression about the merits of European wolf populations) criticizing someone for their policy of choosing entertainment based on it's alignment with their opinions.
And the people who are doing it are the same ones constantly crowing about the supremacy of people's personal opinions over "social justice" and what not.
And then you're couching it in terms of imaginary generational politics.
Pro tip: If you're under 38 and not in undergrad or below, you're a fucking millennial. Get the fuck over it. If you're going to irrationally bitch about people, be up front about the characteristic of them you're bitching about. And in this, and basically every other case lately, it's "THEY LIKE SOMETHING I DON'T LIKE".
Assbags.
Well, someone certainly put on the crankypants this morning. Have some coffee, smoke a cigarette, go to the bathroom and jerk off. Do whatever you need to do to chill the fuck out.
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@Rhywden said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin Also, an ecosystem lacking a major predator cannot be "healthy". We're seeing that in Germany - the boar and deer population is massively overinflated which leads to actual injuries of humans (due to boars), farmers having problems because their fields get literally plowed by animals (boars again) and forests having problems with their tree saplings because the deers will eat them.
In 'murica we solve that problem by killing them and eating them. Deer and boar are tasty.
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@Rhywden said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
You say that wolves have not eaten a human in Europe. I counter that recorded human-eating has happened as little as 71 years ago.
How many cases were there actually? And if you have that number please create a chart which displays the relative risk of death for all animals.
You'd be surprised, for example, that the common cow is a rather nasty critter...
That's why we kill and eat them, which buttresses my earlier point.
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@Polygeekery Would you like me to expand it further into politics? There's a good angle here for arguing the benefits of disbanding the EU, on grounds of the eventual centralized rulership being too far from the common people. I mean, I assume that our differences in opinion on the matter of wolves stem from the extreme regional differences, and subsequent differences in experience and viewpoint.
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@Polygeekery Apropos of that (coyotes), here in suburban (and even urban) Tampa we're losing dogs pretty frequently to coyotes. And Tampa is no tiny city. The coyotes are roaming in the planned neighborhoods--they've been seen in my neighborhood.
And coyotes will certainly attack kids if they can. They very quickly lose their fear of humans unless actively hunted.
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@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
Would you like me to expand it further into politics?
I'm game, but you better ask others.
@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
There's a good angle here for arguing the benefits of disbanding the EU, on grounds of the eventual centralized rulership being too far from the common people. I mean, I assume that our differences in opinion on the matter of wolves stem from the extreme regional differences, and subsequent differences in experience and viewpoint.
You would get no argument from me.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
Apropos of that (coyotes), here in suburban (and even urban) Tampa we're losing dogs pretty frequently to coyotes. And Tampa is no tiny city. The coyotes are roaming in the planned neighborhoods--they've been seen in my neighborhood.
Time for a tax stamp.
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@Polygeekery said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
Would you like me to expand it further into politics?
I'm game, but you better ask others.
Do what you want, but please make a new topic. Preferably in garage.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
And coyotes will certainly attack kids if they can. They very quickly lose their fear of humans unless actively hunted.
I grew up where every kid learned how to handle a firearm and camping and wandering through the woods were common recreation and kids would carry a 22 pistol in the woods by themselves before they were even in junior high. You are not telling me anything new, but I am sure lots of others don't realize it.
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@Polygeekery said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
And coyotes will certainly attack kids if they can. They very quickly lose their fear of humans unless actively hunted.
I grew up where every kid learned how to handle a firearm and camping and wandering through the woods were common recreation and kids would carry a 22 pistol in the woods by themselves before they were even in junior high. You are not telling me anything new, but I am sure lots of others don't realize it.
Yeah. Reinforcing, not contradicting. Not that far from where I grew up was mountain lion territory (and they reintroduced wolves not that long ago). Plus rattlesnakes. The wolves have been a total pain for the ranchers--seems they don't obey national forest boundaries very well. And there are still quite a few mountain lion attacks on people every year.
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@Weng said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
Pro tip: If you're under 38 and not in undergrad or below, you're a fucking millennial. Get the fuck over it. If you're going to irrationally bitch about people, be up front about the characteristic of them you're bitching about. And in this, and basically every other case lately, it's "THEY LIKE SOMETHING I DON'T LIKE".
What if you're significantly younger than 38?
Either way, I'm amused by the person who'll "kill" polygon people but not polygon other animals. Who cares about whether or not they're a millennial?
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@Polygeekery
In 'murica we's got figured it out - we kills'n eats 'em. Deer'n boar, them's good eatin'
?
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Polygeekery
In 'murica we's got figured it out - we kills'n eats 'em. Deer'n boar, them's good eatin' ?Basically, yes.
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@thegoryone said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
I'm a 34 year old web developer who still paints toy soldiers.
It's okay, your secret is safe with us. We won't tell anybody you're a web developer.
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@Weng said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
Not necessarily. "Did you more than trivially interact with pre broadband internet before starting a career" is a key indicator for the "xennial" transition group.
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@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
How much time has passed between humans killing off tigers and humans reintroducing tigers? Because depending on it, it's either desperate attempts to restore ecosystem, or destroying a perfectly healthy ecosystem for the second time.
Without the baseline information about what the ecosystem was like before humans were present (i.e., with a full set of native megafauna) it's very hard to be certain what is best. There's some tantalising hints that having large predators present has effects well beyond just the actual herbivores that are killed and eaten — the hypothesis is that it introduces more fear and triggers trophic shifts — but it's not really been proven one way or another.
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@Rhywden said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
I call bullshit on your "uniform distribution". Please show me evidence in form of a map that this is indeed the case.
Uniformly fuck all is pretty uniform.
There's lots of backwoods in Finland, but that's not where the people really are.
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@Polygeekery said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
killing them and eating them. Deer and boar are tasty.
@Polygeekery said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
I'm game
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@Polygeekery said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
Deer and boar are tasty.
Can confirm. They both make great burgers and roasts.
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@dkf said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Polygeekery said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
Deer and boar are tasty.
Can confirm. They both make great burgers and roasts.
Deer is great raw too.
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@Polygeekery said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
I find it fascinating that someone pointing out the idiocy of some vegan loon being ideologically opposed to killing an animal that exists only in a video game has devolved in to some sort of discussion about whether or not wolves eat kids.
I think it's technically my fault and I'm quite pleased with myself.
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@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska That assumes both that this is the case
If it's not the case, then the answer is simple. But I doubt that any large predator could go from tens of thousands to just tens and not leave an impact on its surrounding environment for several decades. But maybe I'm wrong.
and that the ecosystem is stable now
It never is. But large actions cause large reactions. And a large predator going (almost) extinct is a large action.
But it can take a far larger time scale to adapt to “complete loss of large predator” in a way that, e.g. the resulting over-abundance of boas isn’t still causing massive further damage, even if there’s already been a large reaction. (You’ve said that below)
Yes, but the humanity is reintroducing so many species right now that the probability of there being not a single species anywhere that their former environment hasn't fully rebalanced itself after loss seems very close to zero.
(and again, desert wasteland is also stable)
Why do you assume the goal is to have stability? The goal is to have lots and lots and lots and lots of resources - including wild animals.
Agreed (if I ignore calling wild animals resources).
Are they not?
Only if you think of humans as resources, too.
It's just that the best way to have lots of wild animals is to not touch anything. At least that's my understanding.
Agreed. And attempts at preservation of wildlife are usually just that: creating environments with less external disturbance or stopping further destruction.
There's preservation, and there's restoration. Preservation I can understand - but restoration (like reintroduction of already (almost) extict species) is much harder for me to reconcile with the philosophy of "we shouldn't touch anything at all because even one additional/removed species can cause an environmental catastrophe that will turn the land into wasteland for decades to come".
There's a big difference for me between "restoration" in the Jurassic Park sense and in the sense of we've been eradicating this once large population of tigers across the continent, and now are trying to not let them go extinct completely. "Preservation" and "restoration" go hand in hand in there.
The change is ongoing, and it's possible the change is going towards total extinction of everything. And doing something, like restoring a species that has used to live there in the past, might prevent that outcome. But how do we know whether the ecosystem is going that way? And how do we know whether reintroduction of species won't cause the already-changed-a-little environment to go even worse? Serious questions.
We can’t know that for sure.
And doesn't the rule of "when in doubt, don't touch" apply here as well?
Depends on how unsure you are, really. But anyways, "don't touch" would most likely mean no effort at preservation, either, and won't stop others from "touching" the rest of the population, i.e. just watching them go extinct.
Two things: 1) the reintroduction of the wolf example above is happening naturally (see the B*****m post), not artificially, so it’s not interference.
At the time I posted those things, I was under impression it's done artificially. But IIRC tigers are reintroduced artificially - as well as many other species?
The wolf discussion I'm pretty sure that (currently) that's a no. Tigers may be artificially, but even then it's done in a way that's arguably necessary to even hope to achieve preservation.
- The state the environment was in before was ok for ages, so while you can’t recreate that exactly, it’s a reasonable assumption that aiming close to a known-good state will not be causing too much damage.
I'm not convinced of this argument. AFAIK wolves in Europe and tigers in Asia aren't the only big predators, so removing them also results in something close to a known-good state. And yet it can cause a catastrophe.
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@Polygeekery said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@MrL said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@acrow said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
If bees are dying off in Europe
Are bees dying off in Europe?
I remember reading news about that last summer, yes. Apparently honeybee colonies have been abandoning their nests suddenly and without trace, all over Europe.
Yeah, bees are almost extinct and huge catastrophe is looming over us every year. Next year they will also be almost extinct.
They are like cold fusion or self-driving cars.
As in
- there are actual statistics about insects / bees,
- cold fusion is a hoax,
- self driving cars are on the streets right now?
Yes, there's clearly a pattern.
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@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska That assumes both that this is the case
If it's not the case, then the answer is simple. But I doubt that any large predator could go from tens of thousands to just tens and not leave an impact on its surrounding environment for several decades. But maybe I'm wrong.
and that the ecosystem is stable now
It never is. But large actions cause large reactions. And a large predator going (almost) extinct is a large action.
But it can take a far larger time scale to adapt to “complete loss of large predator” in a way that, e.g. the resulting over-abundance of boas isn’t still causing massive further damage, even if there’s already been a large reaction. (You’ve said that below)
Yes, but the humanity is reintroducing so many species right now that the probability of there being not a single species anywhere that their former environment hasn't fully rebalanced itself after loss seems very close to zero.
(and again, desert wasteland is also stable)
Why do you assume the goal is to have stability? The goal is to have lots and lots and lots and lots of resources - including wild animals.
Agreed (if I ignore calling wild animals resources).
Are they not?
Only if you think of humans as resources, too.
Humans have souls, animals don't.
It's just that the best way to have lots of wild animals is to not touch anything. At least that's my understanding.
Agreed. And attempts at preservation of wildlife are usually just that: creating environments with less external disturbance or stopping further destruction.
There's preservation, and there's restoration. Preservation I can understand - but restoration (like reintroduction of already (almost) extict species) is much harder for me to reconcile with the philosophy of "we shouldn't touch anything at all because even one additional/removed species can cause an environmental catastrophe that will turn the land into wasteland for decades to come".
There's a big difference for me between "restoration" in the Jurassic Park sense and in the sense of we've been eradicating this once large population of tigers across the continent, and now are trying to not let them go extinct completely. "Preservation" and "restoration" go hand in hand in there.
The only difference between this and Jurassic Park is time scale. I don't know the usual timespan after which one can say that the environment has fully rebalanced, and I don't know how long it took for tigers to get reintroduced in sizeable numbers after they were (almost) eradicated, or the hundreds of other species that have been (are being) reintroduced after being (almost) completely gone, but is the time passed always being taken into consideration by every major wildlife protection organization before they start a new reintroduction program? I never heard of it ever being discussed - of course it doesn't mean at all that they definitely don't do that; it's just that I don't have any basis to say that they do. And that seems to be a very important factor for determining consequences of reintroduction.
The change is ongoing, and it's possible the change is going towards total extinction of everything. And doing something, like restoring a species that has used to live there in the past, might prevent that outcome. But how do we know whether the ecosystem is going that way? And how do we know whether reintroduction of species won't cause the already-changed-a-little environment to go even worse? Serious questions.
We can’t know that for sure.
And doesn't the rule of "when in doubt, don't touch" apply here as well?
Depends on how unsure you are, really.
And how unsure are the scientists in charge of the current reintroduction programs? Serious question.
But anyways, "don't touch" would most likely mean no effort at preservation, either
Most of preservation is about not letting any humans interfere with nature. National parks, forest preserves, deindustrialization, emissions control... It's all about minimizing the human influence on nature. "Don't touch" means A LOT of preservation, not zero.
If preservation of nature is mainly done through interfering with nature... that just raises more questions.
and won't stop others from "touching" the rest of the population, i.e. just watching them go extinct.
By others, do you mean other humans, or natural processes? If humans, see above. If natural processes... why exactly do we want to stop natural processes from doing their work?
Two things: 1) the reintroduction of the wolf example above is happening naturally (see the B*****m post), not artificially, so it’s not interference.
At the time I posted those things, I was under impression it's done artificially. But IIRC tigers are reintroduced artificially - as well as many other species?
The wolf discussion I'm pretty sure that (currently) that's a no. Tigers may be artificially, but even then it's done in a way that's arguably necessary to even hope to achieve preservation.
Preservation of what? Tigers? The environment they used to live in? The environment that technically is gone by now but we have fond memories of it so we want to change its replacement to better resemble what it was like before?
What's the goal of preservation? To prevent environmental disaster, or to conserve the nature in unchanged form against all odds?
-
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska That assumes both that this is the case
If it's not the case, then the answer is simple. But I doubt that any large predator could go from tens of thousands to just tens and not leave an impact on its surrounding environment for several decades. But maybe I'm wrong.
and that the ecosystem is stable now
It never is. But large actions cause large reactions. And a large predator going (almost) extinct is a large action.
But it can take a far larger time scale to adapt to “complete loss of large predator” in a way that, e.g. the resulting over-abundance of boas isn’t still causing massive further damage, even if there’s already been a large reaction. (You’ve said that below)
Yes, but the humanity is reintroducing so many species right now that the probability of there being not a single species anywhere that their former environment hasn't fully rebalanced itself after loss seems very close to zero.
(and again, desert wasteland is also stable)
Why do you assume the goal is to have stability? The goal is to have lots and lots and lots and lots of resources - including wild animals.
Agreed (if I ignore calling wild animals resources).
Are they not?
Only if you think of humans as resources, too.
Humans have souls, animals don't.
You're trolling, right?
It's just that the best way to have lots of wild animals is to not touch anything. At least that's my understanding.
Agreed. And attempts at preservation of wildlife are usually just that: creating environments with less external disturbance or stopping further destruction.
There's preservation, and there's restoration. Preservation I can understand - but restoration (like reintroduction of already (almost) extict species) is much harder for me to reconcile with the philosophy of "we shouldn't touch anything at all because even one additional/removed species can cause an environmental catastrophe that will turn the land into wasteland for decades to come".
There's a big difference for me between "restoration" in the Jurassic Park sense and in the sense of we've been eradicating this once large population of tigers across the continent, and now are trying to not let them go extinct completely. "Preservation" and "restoration" go hand in hand in there.
The only difference between this and Jurassic Park is time scale. I don't know the usual timespan after which one can say that the environment has fully rebalanced, and I don't know how long it took for tigers to get reintroduced in sizeable numbers after they were (almost) eradicated, or the hundreds of other species that have been (are being) reintroduced after being (almost) completely gone, but is the time passed always being taken into consideration by every major wildlife protection organization before they start a new reintroduction program? I never heard of it ever being discussed - of course it doesn't mean at all that they definitely don't do that; it's just that I don't have any basis to say that they do. And that seems to be a very important factor for determining consequences of reintroduction.
Jurassic Park is on the order of millions of years, where "adaption" means species have mutated to completely different things, among others. This is on the order of maybe a century, where "adaption" only means things like moving to different areas or more overpopulation by species formerly being prey.
The change is ongoing, and it's possible the change is going towards total extinction of everything. And doing something, like restoring a species that has used to live there in the past, might prevent that outcome. But how do we know whether the ecosystem is going that way? And how do we know whether reintroduction of species won't cause the already-changed-a-little environment to go even worse? Serious questions.
We can’t know that for sure.
And doesn't the rule of "when in doubt, don't touch" apply here as well?
Depends on how unsure you are, really.
And how unsure are the scientists in charge of the current reintroduction programs? Serious question.
But anyways, "don't touch" would most likely mean no effort at preservation, either
Most of preservation is about not letting any humans interfere with nature. National parks, forest preserves, deindustrialization, emissions control... It's all about minimizing the human influence on nature. "Don't touch" means A LOT of preservation, not zero.
That's a good thing.
If preservation of nature is mainly done through interfering with nature... that just raises more questions.
There's already been massive interference. Undoing just a tiny bit may be necessary before you can leave it back to its own.
and won't stop others from "touching" the rest of the population, i.e. just watching them go extinct.
By others, do you mean other humans, or natural processes? If humans, see above. If natural processes... why exactly do we want to stop natural processes from doing their work?
Two things: 1) the reintroduction of the wolf example above is happening naturally (see the B*****m post), not artificially, so it’s not interference.
At the time I posted those things, I was under impression it's done artificially. But IIRC tigers are reintroduced artificially - as well as many other species?
The wolf discussion I'm pretty sure that (currently) that's a no. Tigers may be artificially, but even then it's done in a way that's arguably necessary to even hope to achieve preservation.
Preservation of what? Tigers? The environment they used to live in?
Those are interconnected.
The environment that technically is gone by now but we have fond memories of it so we want to change its replacement to better resemble what it was like before?
What's the goal of preservation? To prevent environmental disaster, or to conserve the nature in unchanged form against all odds?
To preserve nature and the diversity of species, in as large areas/quantities as possible.
-
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska That assumes both that this is the case
If it's not the case, then the answer is simple. But I doubt that any large predator could go from tens of thousands to just tens and not leave an impact on its surrounding environment for several decades. But maybe I'm wrong.
and that the ecosystem is stable now
It never is. But large actions cause large reactions. And a large predator going (almost) extinct is a large action.
But it can take a far larger time scale to adapt to “complete loss of large predator” in a way that, e.g. the resulting over-abundance of boas isn’t still causing massive further damage, even if there’s already been a large reaction. (You’ve said that below)
Yes, but the humanity is reintroducing so many species right now that the probability of there being not a single species anywhere that their former environment hasn't fully rebalanced itself after loss seems very close to zero.
(and again, desert wasteland is also stable)
Why do you assume the goal is to have stability? The goal is to have lots and lots and lots and lots of resources - including wild animals.
Agreed (if I ignore calling wild animals resources).
Are they not?
Only if you think of humans as resources, too.
Humans have souls, animals don't.
You're trolling, right?
Only a little. If you're asking whether I believe that humans are fundamentally different than animals, I do.
It's just that the best way to have lots of wild animals is to not touch anything. At least that's my understanding.
Agreed. And attempts at preservation of wildlife are usually just that: creating environments with less external disturbance or stopping further destruction.
There's preservation, and there's restoration. Preservation I can understand - but restoration (like reintroduction of already (almost) extict species) is much harder for me to reconcile with the philosophy of "we shouldn't touch anything at all because even one additional/removed species can cause an environmental catastrophe that will turn the land into wasteland for decades to come".
There's a big difference for me between "restoration" in the Jurassic Park sense and in the sense of we've been eradicating this once large population of tigers across the continent, and now are trying to not let them go extinct completely. "Preservation" and "restoration" go hand in hand in there.
The only difference between this and Jurassic Park is time scale. I don't know the usual timespan after which one can say that the environment has fully rebalanced, and I don't know how long it took for tigers to get reintroduced in sizeable numbers after they were (almost) eradicated, or the hundreds of other species that have been (are being) reintroduced after being (almost) completely gone, but is the time passed always being taken into consideration by every major wildlife protection organization before they start a new reintroduction program? I never heard of it ever being discussed - of course it doesn't mean at all that they definitely don't do that; it's just that I don't have any basis to say that they do. And that seems to be a very important factor for determining consequences of reintroduction.
Jurassic Park is on the order of millions of years, where "adaption" means species have mutated to completely different things, among others. This is on the order of maybe a century, where "adaption" only means things like moving to different areas or more overpopulation by species formerly being prey.
Or does it? I've heard of cases where the local environment changed drastically in just a few decades due to human interference.
Was there any study that determined that "point of contention" (for lack of better term) is longer than 100 years? Because if not, I wouldn't be so sure about assuming that.
The change is ongoing, and it's possible the change is going towards total extinction of everything. And doing something, like restoring a species that has used to live there in the past, might prevent that outcome. But how do we know whether the ecosystem is going that way? And how do we know whether reintroduction of species won't cause the already-changed-a-little environment to go even worse? Serious questions.
We can’t know that for sure.
And doesn't the rule of "when in doubt, don't touch" apply here as well?
Depends on how unsure you are, really.
And how unsure are the scientists in charge of the current reintroduction programs? Serious question.
But anyways, "don't touch" would most likely mean no effort at preservation, either
Most of preservation is about not letting any humans interfere with nature. National parks, forest preserves, deindustrialization, emissions control... It's all about minimizing the human influence on nature. "Don't touch" means A LOT of preservation, not zero.
That's a good thing.
I don't quite follow. You said something, I said you're completely wrong, and now you say "that's a good thing"... Are you saying that it's good that I corrected you, or that it's good that preservation happens, or what?
If preservation of nature is mainly done through interfering with nature... that just raises more questions.
There's already been massive interference. Undoing just a tiny bit may be necessary before you can leave it back to its own.
And we're back to square one - how do we know (or how do we estimate chances) that the environment that suffered from massive interference, needs even more interference before leaving it alone?
and won't stop others from "touching" the rest of the population, i.e. just watching them go extinct.
By others, do you mean other humans, or natural processes? If humans, see above. If natural processes... why exactly do we want to stop natural processes from doing their work?
Two things: 1) the reintroduction of the wolf example above is happening naturally (see the B*****m post), not artificially, so it’s not interference.
At the time I posted those things, I was under impression it's done artificially. But IIRC tigers are reintroduced artificially - as well as many other species?
The wolf discussion I'm pretty sure that (currently) that's a no. Tigers may be artificially, but even then it's done in a way that's arguably necessary to even hope to achieve preservation.
Preservation of what? Tigers? The environment they used to live in?
Those are interconnected.
Not since the tigers were gone.
The environment that technically is gone by now but we have fond memories of it so we want to change its replacement to better resemble what it was like before?
What's the goal of preservation? To prevent environmental disaster, or to conserve the nature in unchanged form against all odds?
To preserve nature and the diversity of species, in as large areas/quantities as possible.
And is the nature, if left alone, capable of taking care of that all by itself?
-
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska That assumes both that this is the case
If it's not the case, then the answer is simple. But I doubt that any large predator could go from tens of thousands to just tens and not leave an impact on its surrounding environment for several decades. But maybe I'm wrong.
and that the ecosystem is stable now
It never is. But large actions cause large reactions. And a large predator going (almost) extinct is a large action.
But it can take a far larger time scale to adapt to “complete loss of large predator” in a way that, e.g. the resulting over-abundance of boas isn’t still causing massive further damage, even if there’s already been a large reaction. (You’ve said that below)
Yes, but the humanity is reintroducing so many species right now that the probability of there being not a single species anywhere that their former environment hasn't fully rebalanced itself after loss seems very close to zero.
(and again, desert wasteland is also stable)
Why do you assume the goal is to have stability? The goal is to have lots and lots and lots and lots of resources - including wild animals.
Agreed (if I ignore calling wild animals resources).
Are they not?
Only if you think of humans as resources, too.
Humans have souls, animals don't.
You're trolling, right?
Only a little. If you're asking whether I believe that humans are fundamentally different than animals, I do.
There's your problem.
It's just that the best way to have lots of wild animals is to not touch anything. At least that's my understanding.
Agreed. And attempts at preservation of wildlife are usually just that: creating environments with less external disturbance or stopping further destruction.
There's preservation, and there's restoration. Preservation I can understand - but restoration (like reintroduction of already (almost) extict species) is much harder for me to reconcile with the philosophy of "we shouldn't touch anything at all because even one additional/removed species can cause an environmental catastrophe that will turn the land into wasteland for decades to come".
There's a big difference for me between "restoration" in the Jurassic Park sense and in the sense of we've been eradicating this once large population of tigers across the continent, and now are trying to not let them go extinct completely. "Preservation" and "restoration" go hand in hand in there.
The only difference between this and Jurassic Park is time scale. I don't know the usual timespan after which one can say that the environment has fully rebalanced, and I don't know how long it took for tigers to get reintroduced in sizeable numbers after they were (almost) eradicated, or the hundreds of other species that have been (are being) reintroduced after being (almost) completely gone, but is the time passed always being taken into consideration by every major wildlife protection organization before they start a new reintroduction program? I never heard of it ever being discussed - of course it doesn't mean at all that they definitely don't do that; it's just that I don't have any basis to say that they do. And that seems to be a very important factor for determining consequences of reintroduction.
Jurassic Park is on the order of millions of years, where "adaption" means species have mutated to completely different things, among others. This is on the order of maybe a century, where "adaption" only means things like moving to different areas or more overpopulation by species formerly being prey.
Or does it? I've heard of cases where the local environment changed drastically in just a few decades due to human interference.
Was there any study that determined that "point of contention" (for lack of better term) is longer than 100 years? Because if not, I wouldn't be so sure about assuming that.
The change is ongoing, and it's possible the change is going towards total extinction of everything. And doing something, like restoring a species that has used to live there in the past, might prevent that outcome. But how do we know whether the ecosystem is going that way? And how do we know whether reintroduction of species won't cause the already-changed-a-little environment to go even worse? Serious questions.
We can’t know that for sure.
And doesn't the rule of "when in doubt, don't touch" apply here as well?
Depends on how unsure you are, really.
And how unsure are the scientists in charge of the current reintroduction programs? Serious question.
But anyways, "don't touch" would most likely mean no effort at preservation, either
Most of preservation is about not letting any humans interfere with nature. National parks, forest preserves, deindustrialization, emissions control... It's all about minimizing the human influence on nature. "Don't touch" means A LOT of preservation, not zero.
That's a good thing.
I don't quite follow. You said something, I said you're completely wrong, and now you say "that's a good thing"... Are you saying that it's good that I corrected you, or that it's good that preservation happens, or what?
The preservation measures are a good thing.
If preservation of nature is mainly done through interfering with nature... that just raises more questions.
There's already been massive interference. Undoing just a tiny bit may be necessary before you can leave it back to its own.
And we're back to square one - how do we know (or how do we estimate chances) that the environment that suffered from massive interference, needs even more interference before leaving it alone?
If there's like 5 tigers left, that's not enough of a population to survive on its own. Boost it high enough to not go extinct, then you can leave it alone.
Why? Because it's just undoing some of the damage.
Of course, if you don't agree with the goal of not letting them go extinct while there's still a chance to do that, your conclusions may vary.and won't stop others from "touching" the rest of the population, i.e. just watching them go extinct.
By others, do you mean other humans, or natural processes? If humans, see above. If natural processes... why exactly do we want to stop natural processes from doing their work?
Two things: 1) the reintroduction of the wolf example above is happening naturally (see the B*****m post), not artificially, so it’s not interference.
At the time I posted those things, I was under impression it's done artificially. But IIRC tigers are reintroduced artificially - as well as many other species?
The wolf discussion I'm pretty sure that (currently) that's a no. Tigers may be artificially, but even then it's done in a way that's arguably necessary to even hope to achieve preservation.
Preservation of what? Tigers? The environment they used to live in?
Those are interconnected.
Not since the tigers were gone.
The environment that technically is gone by now but we have fond memories of it so we want to change its replacement to better resemble what it was like before?
What's the goal of preservation? To prevent environmental disaster, or to conserve the nature in unchanged form against all odds?
To preserve nature and the diversity of species, in as large areas/quantities as possible.
And is the nature, if left alone, capable of taking care of that all by itself?
Depends on how damaged it already is. If it looks like Mars, then no. If there's no tigers left, then it won't bring back tigers. If there's enough tigers left to survive, then leaving it alone will likely suffice.
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@Weng said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
.... What the fuck is wrong with you people?
I know this community is built on harshness and sarcasm but this thread is literally (aside from the digression about the merits of European wolf populations) criticizing someone for their policy of choosing entertainment based on it's alignment with their opinions.This guy is way beyond a snowflake. He's literally stated that he's OK with shooting people in the game, but doesn't want to hurt the animals. That's a good example of a very special kind of sociopath, but more importantly, it's funny.
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@boomzilla said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
Introduce them to farms.
Eat the Tigers!That'd be tricky, because tigers don't have a social structure, so they'd eat each other. It would be much more feasible to do it with Lions.
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@dkf said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
it's very hard to be certain what is best.
Not really.
-
@remi said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
Countless attacks on sheep, yes, and on dogs in a few cases I think, but no humans.
French people don't smell tasty
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@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@topspin said in Millennial wants to play Red Dead 2, but doesn't want to hurt the poor little animals:
@Gąska That assumes both that this is the case
If it's not the case, then the answer is simple. But I doubt that any large predator could go from tens of thousands to just tens and not leave an impact on its surrounding environment for several decades. But maybe I'm wrong.
and that the ecosystem is stable now
It never is. But large actions cause large reactions. And a large predator going (almost) extinct is a large action.
But it can take a far larger time scale to adapt to “complete loss of large predator” in a way that, e.g. the resulting over-abundance of boas isn’t still causing massive further damage, even if there’s already been a large reaction. (You’ve said that below)
Yes, but the humanity is reintroducing so many species right now that the probability of there being not a single species anywhere that their former environment hasn't fully rebalanced itself after loss seems very close to zero.
(and again, desert wasteland is also stable)
Why do you assume the goal is to have stability? The goal is to have lots and lots and lots and lots of resources - including wild animals.
Agreed (if I ignore calling wild animals resources).
Are they not?
Only if you think of humans as resources, too.
Humans have souls, animals don't.
You're trolling, right?
Only a little. If you're asking whether I believe that humans are fundamentally different than animals, I do.
There's your problem.
What problem?
It's just that the best way to have lots of wild animals is to not touch anything. At least that's my understanding.
Agreed. And attempts at preservation of wildlife are usually just that: creating environments with less external disturbance or stopping further destruction.
There's preservation, and there's restoration. Preservation I can understand - but restoration (like reintroduction of already (almost) extict species) is much harder for me to reconcile with the philosophy of "we shouldn't touch anything at all because even one additional/removed species can cause an environmental catastrophe that will turn the land into wasteland for decades to come".
There's a big difference for me between "restoration" in the Jurassic Park sense and in the sense of we've been eradicating this once large population of tigers across the continent, and now are trying to not let them go extinct completely. "Preservation" and "restoration" go hand in hand in there.
The only difference between this and Jurassic Park is time scale. I don't know the usual timespan after which one can say that the environment has fully rebalanced, and I don't know how long it took for tigers to get reintroduced in sizeable numbers after they were (almost) eradicated, or the hundreds of other species that have been (are being) reintroduced after being (almost) completely gone, but is the time passed always being taken into consideration by every major wildlife protection organization before they start a new reintroduction program? I never heard of it ever being discussed - of course it doesn't mean at all that they definitely don't do that; it's just that I don't have any basis to say that they do. And that seems to be a very important factor for determining consequences of reintroduction.
Jurassic Park is on the order of millions of years, where "adaption" means species have mutated to completely different things, among others. This is on the order of maybe a century, where "adaption" only means things like moving to different areas or more overpopulation by species formerly being prey.
Or does it? I've heard of cases where the local environment changed drastically in just a few decades due to human interference.
Was there any study that determined that "point of contention" (for lack of better term) is longer than 100 years? Because if not, I wouldn't be so sure about assuming that.
The change is ongoing, and it's possible the change is going towards total extinction of everything. And doing something, like restoring a species that has used to live there in the past, might prevent that outcome. But how do we know whether the ecosystem is going that way? And how do we know whether reintroduction of species won't cause the already-changed-a-little environment to go even worse? Serious questions.
We can’t know that for sure.
And doesn't the rule of "when in doubt, don't touch" apply here as well?
Depends on how unsure you are, really.
And how unsure are the scientists in charge of the current reintroduction programs? Serious question.
But anyways, "don't touch" would most likely mean no effort at preservation, either
Most of preservation is about not letting any humans interfere with nature. National parks, forest preserves, deindustrialization, emissions control... It's all about minimizing the human influence on nature. "Don't touch" means A LOT of preservation, not zero.
That's a good thing.
I don't quite follow. You said something, I said you're completely wrong, and now you say "that's a good thing"... Are you saying that it's good that I corrected you, or that it's good that preservation happens, or what?
The preservation measures are a good thing.
Well, that goes without saying. Especially since we've both said that some 50 posts ago.
If preservation of nature is mainly done through interfering with nature... that just raises more questions.
There's already been massive interference. Undoing just a tiny bit may be necessary before you can leave it back to its own.
And we're back to square one - how do we know (or how do we estimate chances) that the environment that suffered from massive interference, needs even more interference before leaving it alone?
If there's like 5 tigers left, that's not enough of a population to survive on its own. Boost it high enough to not go extinct, then you can leave it alone.
So are we preserving tigers first, or are we preserving the entire rest of the environment first? If we are preserving environment first, then how was it determined that reintroducing tigers will be beneficial and not even more detrimental?
Why? Because it's just undoing some of the damage.
To use a poor analogy, if I smashed a car door with a hammer so badly that the lock doesn't work anymore, it's unlikely that hammering the door from the other side will fix it. How do scientists know that more interference (because reintroduction is interference) will result in less damage to the entire environment than less interference (because no reintroduction means is no interference)?
Of course, if you don't agree with the goal of not letting them go extinct while there's still a chance to do that, your conclusions may vary.
I agree with the goal of preserving nature and the diversity of species, in as large areas/quantities as possible. Nothing in this statements implies we should preserve every single species in the world and reintroduce every single extinct/endangered one. Quite the opposite - it's certainly possible that reintroduction done badly can upset the natural balance even more, especially if it's about reintroducing species that went (almost) extinct naturally, which, to my knowledge, is done just as often as reintroduction of species killed off by humans. That's why I have concerns about reintroduction - because it sounds very much like artificially replanning natural environments, which has been shown time and time again to have very dire consequences. I have concerns about reintroduction because I care about the environment.
I'm perfectly okay with and even support reintroduction done right. But after this discussion with you, I'm still not the least bit more confident than I was before.
and won't stop others from "touching" the rest of the population, i.e. just watching them go extinct.
By others, do you mean other humans, or natural processes? If humans, see above. If natural processes... why exactly do we want to stop natural processes from doing their work?
Two things: 1) the reintroduction of the wolf example above is happening naturally (see the B*****m post), not artificially, so it’s not interference.
At the time I posted those things, I was under impression it's done artificially. But IIRC tigers are reintroduced artificially - as well as many other species?
The wolf discussion I'm pretty sure that (currently) that's a no. Tigers may be artificially, but even then it's done in a way that's arguably necessary to even hope to achieve preservation.
Preservation of what? Tigers? The environment they used to live in?
Those are interconnected.
Not since the tigers were gone.
The environment that technically is gone by now but we have fond memories of it so we want to change its replacement to better resemble what it was like before?
What's the goal of preservation? To prevent environmental disaster, or to conserve the nature in unchanged form against all odds?
To preserve nature and the diversity of species, in as large areas/quantities as possible.
And is the nature, if left alone, capable of taking care of that all by itself?
Depends on how damaged it already is. If it looks like Mars, then no.
Desert wasteland, Jurassic Park, Mars... why are all your examples absurd extremes? Why won't you talk about our world, about places that were heavily influenced by humans but that still have some wildlands left, about places where reintroduction is actually happening? We're not going to have any animals on Mars in foreseeable future, so talking about Mars is absolutely pointless. Indian rainforests, on the other hand, would make a very interesting conversation.
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@topspin and since this "good thing" line turned out to be non sequitur. Do you still maintain that "don't touch" approach to preservation would mean no preservation happening at all?
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@Gąska Not sure what particular arguments this applies to, but this is an interesting read about wolves being reintroduced to Yellowstone and some of the unexpected changes that happened. I've seen this story before on a different website. A quick skim read shows this to be about the same thing. Hopefully I didn't post a link to some crazy site.
Wolf Reintroduction Changes Ecosystem in Yellowstone
Wolves are causing a tropic cascade of ecological change, including helping to increase beaver numbers and bring back aspen and vegetation.
Väestötiheys – Wikipedia
