As many of you have heard, an ornithologist in Arkansas has recently rediscovered the once-extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker:
Rediscovery
I for one am astounded that a species never seen in like 60 years has suddenly just reappeared in the middle of the country... as it stands the area where it hangs onto existence is heavily wooded and on the road to recovery.

On to the topic... alot of people have grave concerns about how we are destroying our environment and causing global warming and all... I am going to focus on the way we are killing off Earth's animal and plant species. I for one believe every creature on this Earth has a purpose and has just as much right to live as we do. People may say who cares if we kill a beetle in the Amazon canopy that we know nothing of since they are "insignificant" in the grand scale... yes maybe there are dozens of other species that can take its place but still where do we get the arrogance to determine whether a species lives or not. We clear-cut acres of rainforest and wipe out countless thousands of species and either build on it or farm on it. If a nation must clear forest for the sake of its people, at least replant used up regions or leave patches of forest uncut to allow "islands" for animals to survive.

And although the problem is not as bad, what is with humans simply wiping out species for the hell of it? They did it to the Passenger Pigeon, the Bison, the Dodo, the Carolina Parakeet, and many others... nowadays people still hunt endangered species illegally...

So the question is what is your opinion on the way humans treat other living things? Do you think we have superiority and the right to spread wherever we want? In a case where development comes into contact with a threatened species, say a butterfly or beetle, do you care if they build? When does an animal become worth protecting? We try and save condors and bison but ignore the thousands of species destroyed by clearcutting and exotic introductions... back to the Woodpecker, it may be just a bird, but its a species that is still with us...

Okay... What I say is: Leave the @!#$ animals aloooooone! We're destroying their habitats, then trying to make it up by helping them.. Où est la raison?! We should learn from our own mistakes, dammit. Whatever.

-Jason

SPITfire:

While I understand the intent of your post, the thing that you have to understand is that you're coming at the idea from a biased mindset.

Let me explain:

Overhunting, yes.. insanely bad idea... however, how the hell do we manage it? No-one knows.

There's a lot of idealists out there that are thinking (for better or worse) its a good idea to try and stall progression in its tracks so that these species can get back up to their numbers of a while ago.

The problem with this thinking is that it just doesn't work. Yellowstone Nat'l park when it was created a wildlife preserve had herds of deer in there, and when the preserve was enacted, and no natives or any one else could hunt the deer, park rangers assumed it was because of a glut of coyotes.. so they off and culled the coyotes.. but the deer never really came back for long.. why? The food supply was exhausted. The Bison (only slightly different from buffalo) were hunted to extinction at least in the US because their bones and meat and pelts were desirable. Now, herds are being reconstituted with Canadian Buffaloes. Is this a big problem? not really... they'e served the same purpose, and they're not legal for hunting, yet.

Really, this has been happening (cyclicly) long before man set foot on earth, but in reality, we only 'manage' our environment or animals because they're useful to us. Do most of us care about a deer herd in yellowstone? Not really, because who eats deer all the time?

We may kill off part of the biodiversity in our atmosphere, but really, who can tell how many animals and insects there really are in an area? (In reality some poor goob-designate has to mark off a hectare of land and count them... hey, animals move) The same studies are done and really cannot be substaniated with impunity, because frankly, animals move! If you were to fence off and hermetically seal off a hectare of land... if you found no white-tailled deer in an area where they should have been, would you automatically assume they had all dropped dead? If you did this in succession, and found no asian longhorned beetles, would you conclude they were not a problem? No, of course not, because you can't do that to obtain an accurate count of the animals...

Some animals are on the verge of extinction, but sometimes this is not a big deal... other species (either stronger or less dependant on a single food source) fill the void, and the other acquiesces into oblivion, because it was meant to. I don't see the great idea of freezing off certain animals as untouchable because of faulty data or faulty science. I'm not excusing wanton hunting either... but ponder this:

The Earth goes through more changes on it's own than we could ever force on it, there's over 2000 rain storms or electrical storms every DAY, about 53-60 earthquakes and ensuing tsunamis or tidal waves daily, volcanoes spew hundreds of tons of caustic gasses and ash into the air every day, there's an average of 3 major land slides a day, glaciers advance and retreat by meters yearly. This has all been going on for thousands of years... western civilization will have marred the surface of the earth, but only temporarily... we're an ice age away from another mass extinction.

I'm not saying we should do nothing: I think that we need to refine our ideas and methods of gathering data before we go off half-cocked about a bird that re-emerged. I also think that we need to learn more about the natural webs that keep the cycles going before we can dream of "managing" or "protecting" an endangered species.



Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

i saw something about wolves on channel 11...years ago they re-stocked yellowstone park with about 30 wolves and 5 yrs later the park was doing so much better...more animals, more trees, more weeds and shrubs and plants for the littler animals...the only problem is the wolves don't always stay inside yellowstone boundaries and go after near by residents live stock sometimes ...but i say leave the wolves and let them live...the farmers and crap should just pay for better fences and security why don't they get electric fences around thier property or somethin?

I guess it deosn't really matter anyways were all so dead all ready and we don't even know it



1996 Mazda MX-6 LS M-Series V6 "The CAVeater"

Mikey: You're welcome for the wolves.




Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

Quote:

So the question is what is your opinion on the way humans treat other living things?

Good question. Like I've said before We aren't the only sentient beings on this world and should treat other species with some kind of respect. Before we came along Predatory animals ie: Wolves, Bears, Cougars etc. and the Native americans controlled North America. Now that we've wiped out the predatory aminals in most of the country the prey animals ie: Deer are becoming over populated and a nuisance. Some farmers are even taking there own farmland and returning them into wildlife preserves which should be done to an extent in every state however Urban Sprawl will probably curtail that. Hell if it weren't for all the concrete in suburbia we wouldn't have such destructive floods.

Quote:

western civilization will have marred the surface of the earth, but only temporarily... we're an ice age away from another mass extinction.

Good point GAM but WE might bring it upon ourselves instead of Earth doing it's routine cleaning. The Dinosaurs had a few 100 million years reign and we haven't even come close to a million year reign yet but look at the destruction we've caused.

Quote:

This has all been going on for thousands of years... western civilization will have marred the surface of the earth, but only temporarily... we're an ice age away from another mass extinction

Check out this link which links to many other sites:
Current Mass Extinction
The point is we are causing the next mass extinction and indeed, it is underway right as we speak... more than 1/5 of all creatures on Earth are at risk of extinction and we have already done an excellent job at wiping many others out. Look at Hawaii, New Zealand, almost every island in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, Europe, the US, the Amazonian rainforest. Every species that has become extinct is either indirectly or directly caused by US. Name a species that has died off by natural processes...

Quote:

if you found no white-tailled deer in an area where they should have been, would you automatically assume they had all dropped dead? If you did this in succession, and found no asian longhorned beetles, would you conclude they were not a problem? No, of course not, because you can't do that to obtain an accurate count of the animals...

but if you wipe out the entire habitat you can assume that the species is gone too... yes if you have a healthy patch of forest and you can't find the deer or beetle, it is too early to panic since these things tend to hide well.

Quote:

Really, this has been happening (cyclicly) long before man set foot on earth, but in reality, we only 'manage' our environment or animals because they're useful to us. Do most of us care about a deer herd in yellowstone? Not really, because who eats deer all the time?

yes, thats the typical human mindset unfortunately... but i don't think we utilize Buffalo anymore either. I myself would like to see those deer back in Yellowstone.
Yeah, if a species dies off another may and will take its place but the thing is, the species is GONE forever, it will never exsit again. Seeing a specimen of something that is gone forever is sobering. A beuatiful animal, whether bug or beast, is now reduced to a dusty husk of a museum skin...

there's only one species that really need to face total extinction...

Homo Sapiens


Goodbye Callisto & Skaði, Hello Ishara:
2022 Kia Stinger GT2 AWD
The only thing every single person from every single walk of life on earth can truly say
they have in common is that their country is run by a bunch of fargin iceholes.

What conservationists need to focus on is the presevation of our support system, not preservation of the Earth per-say as the Earth can take anything we can dish out.. It's us humans that need to worry about our existance. Save us, which means saving our ecosystems that support our life. We need breathable air and drinkable water, the rest will fall into place. There are more species alive today than ever before, and tomorrow there will be more. We don't need to worry about diversification, nature takes care of that on it's own. For every species that fades away, two more will pop up.. However they may be less desirable. Should we clear cut rainforest.. Well no, but that's not because we need to save the wildlife that lives there but because rainforests provide oxygen, clean CO2 and filter water.. Natural systems need to be preserved, not individual species.


PAX

humans didn't kill the dinosaurs, they were offed naturally, somehow

burn everything to the ground...... then throw the ashs in the ocean.... see if I care....... gasp. gasp.....heeeesssss.....*drops over dead.

SpitFire:

Actually, you want to talk about a very human perspective, name me 3 animals that don't contribute to the degredation of their immediate area to suit their own needs... If you can do it, then you're one hell of a scientist, because all animals do.. by simple nature of intake of one form of nutrient energy and excretion of another kind, we're all irrevocably altering our environment.

The other thing about mass-extinctions: they happen. We may, or may not be the cause, and the problem is this mind-set that every species makes a useful and meaningful contribution to their environment.. it's just not the case.

Point of fact is that the wild life preserve in the Yellowstone area was left alone to its own devices, and the deer died off anyhow, even though the forest grew.. it's actually because the forest grew, that they died off (Hardwood and soft wood forests are not fertile grounds for leafy greens that grazers eat, and they give excellent protection to their predators).

Here's my point:
Do you want to have even worse urbanisation due to the halting of outward expansion? I dare say not... I'm not saying that we should up and clear cut the forests, I'm saying that a decision has to be made... Sure, we need to learn how to live with nature as opposed to at odds with it, but at this point, we don't have the tools to do it, and the biggest hinderance to that is the antiquated Ideals that a lot of protectionist lobbyist groups are spouting. The science is at best flimsy, because it's not accurate, and it's not repeatable.. and worst, it's done with an agenda in mind. You can alter test regimen and other facilities to prove your point, no matter how skewed, impractical or malicious it is.

I'm not saying we're on the right course, and that nothing should be done, I'm saying that until we know more about the consequences of doing something en mass, we should probably start on a smaller scale and start to really learn and try to understand.

Nature is a web, and if you've seen a spiderweb, all points give the web its strength, if we dislodge one point, we may or may not affect it a lot. I'm saying we should learn what we're doing first (in a double-blind methodology, so there can be no outside influence), before we go off all half-cocked and do something potentiall more damaging than what we already doing.

Spikej:
My point was that we don't know exactly what we're doing to the earth because everyone has an agenda and good science gets left out in the cold. Until we really understand what is happening can we put aside the agendas and figure out what it is that we really ought to be doing.

For all we know, we might be royally F**king up a normal progression that would have made good the normal progression of natural extinction of all those species.


For those of you that want to learn a little, I suggest <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0066214130/qid=1115181744/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-1917733-4330314?v=glance&s=books&n=507846">Michael Chricton's State of Fear</a>. It's a fictionalised account of environmentalists gond berzerk.. but the interesting idea is that credible scientists are refuting the Mass-extinction/abrupt climate change/henny-penny doom-mongering dime-novel trash science that a lot of organisations and Governments look to rely upon. There is little hard science behind a lot of these claims (or exclamations)... I don't put a lot of stock in them, I do listen and read, but there is usually little behind most of the "science" other than projections, or guesses at any rate. Rarely when there is solid science behind a lot of the claims, it's either denounced or is passed over... people want to be kept afraid so their world makes sense to them...




Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.