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African animals to roam Australia ?
Invurt writes: "In a strange twist to the traditional conservation story, Media Magnate Kerry Packer has announced that he is planning to open a huge African game reserve, for reasons of conservation and endangered species breeding in Australia. This would basically replicate Africa in the Australian continent, on a huge scale. They are not sure if they'd leave the kangaroos there or not - always wondered what it'd be like with kangaroos roaming the plains with lions."
I'm sure it won't work as intented. We all know what happened with rabbits, right?
;-)
And besides, we all have seen "Jurassic Park", didn't we?
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always wondered what it'd be like with kangaroos roaming the plains with lions
Have you? Really? Or are you Lion?
Short. And messy ;-)
cmclean
"Any similarity between the hooting of a million eager monkeys and Slashdot is purely coincidental." -THEFLASHMAN
I wonder what the effect on the Australian wildlife will be... It might sound great now, saving all kinds of African animals by housing them in Australia, but we might just be introducing new animal deceases in an equally precious eco-system... I don't think this is the way to go...
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I think I speak for all Australians when I say:
"Kerry, you are a fucking idiot!"
Everything he touches turns to shit, whether it's TV networks, airlines, or now the whole fucking ecosystem.
So Australia will have a huge african wilderness park and a 1km high concrete windmill?
I guess calling the place Oz was a nice bit of foresight.
Since your UID is smaller than mine, I can only conclude that you're trolling. -s20451 (410424)
From the article:
Wait a minute, the source code for a hippo is available? How come I've never seen this here?
Inventor of the LOLbalrog meme.
Why would one person feel it appropiate to fight nature and bring groups of animals from one region to a completely seperate land. This makes no sense in the fact that Australia has some of the most unique creatures and we don't want them to lose them because we want to save some other animals from a certain extinction. Why do we feel that we need to save all animals from extinction. Yes we may have caused them to dwindle much faster then they normally would. Moving them to Australia would be an ecological nightmare (especially if they got out).
Kerry Packer likes to claim he is the true blue australian tycoon, unlike his rival Rupert Murdoch.
However what this nutcase is proposing here is nothing short of ecological genocide. If large predators escape from this "park" you can kiss goodbye all of the rare and beautiful marsupial animals that inhabit his "home". If he really wants to preserve african wildlife, he can do it much more easily by offering to fund the anti poaching forces in tanzania and kenya, as well as solving rural african poverty that means many in poorer outlying areas must hunt for bushmeat which goes for a high price in Nairobi. Perhaps a biology and a reality lesson is in order Mr. Packer?
So, the filthily wealthy has decided in his insecure ego (the contradiction in terms is on purpose) that he needs to leave some tangible legacy behind. And what, in his utter wisdom, has he chosen?
Yes, the preservation of wildlife. A noble cause in itself, noble indeed. But to introduce African wildlife into Australia? That is pathetic.
Let's start with the famous rabbits, foxes, cane toads etc which roam the Australian country side. It's not a pretty sight, with all the introduced animals, having perhaps few predators and therefore outbreeding the local fauna.
There may also be the small problem of germs brought into Australia by the animals. Ever been to Oz? Ever try to bring something even remotely animal-sourced material into the country? Even the soil under your shoes has to be cleaned, for fear of foreign infection due to the relative isolation of the continent.
And also, if they plan to put a big fence around the property, they also need to maintain the damn thing, which, due to the size of it, should mean a constant monitoring of the thing and watching for any escaping animals (which would bring us back to point 1).
In short, any "let's bring in species X into that continent" has, up to now, caused so many unforeseen side effects this should not be done without a proper scientific ground, and even with that, it should not be done lightly. And certainly not on the whim of an insecure rich man like Kerry Packer.
Consolidated already has secured a land swap deal with the WA Government to free up property north of Kununurra for the reserve.
What do you reckon is on this land then..? I think the hippos are just something to hide behind.. the lions are to keep people from snooping. He's building a secret shuttle launching facility? Nuclear weapons experiments? There are opals there? Perhaps it *is* Jurrasic Park?
not only small critters can cause problems.. I've heard about trouble in australia with the roaming horses... Australia apparently has no hooved animals, and the horses are compacting the soil too much.. Ofcourse, actually I have no idea what I am talking about.. so if someone knows either better or more, feel free to correct me..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
This is the same thing in a larger scale.
Why transport them to .au, and put them in a foreign environment where they may not survive?
Surely it would be smarter (and cheaper) to put a reserve in Africa and just keep the bloody poachers out.
Its just going to be like Dubbo's open plan zoo but on a larger scale.
The premise is noble, but in reality the idea is faulty.
Southern Africa has already implemented plans to create the world's biggest game reserve that spans three countries - Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe - and which will ultimately be 38,600 square kilometres in size. Within this game reserve, animals will be free to roam, the way they were able to in deepest, darkest Africa of the past before colonisation/civilisation. Due to the success of game parks, the wildlife population is springing back despite problems such as poaching and overcrowding. So while there is always a problem associated with "threat of eventual extinction of species", Africa is already doing the best it can to preserve its species. Australia should take care of its own problems first.
Visitors to game parks in southern Africa are very lucky if they get to spot "the Big Five" in the same day - that is, lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino, leopard; and when they do, it is at a very respectful distance, and always with an armed game ranger. These are not the tame and cuddly animals you see in zoos or sanitised environments like Disney's animal park.
What I'm saying here is that African wildlife is dangerous. Beautiful to look at, but dangerous. Forget Rudyard Kipling's stories about the lion being the king of the jungle (Africa isn't even a jungle, it's more of an arid savannah!) - here, each animal knows its place in the hierarchy.
Ignoring for the moment that there has to be a reason (whatever it may be) why kangaroos are not found in Africa, and the Big Five are not found in Australia, I'm very much afraid that in a pissing match between the two continents, the Australian wildlife will lose.
Kerry Packer's billions would be better spent at creating more game reserves in Africa, but bearing in mind the cliche "charity begins at home"....
We've already got one...
Admittedly, it's prolly not as big as the one Kerry's planning.
|>
Here be Dragons
Well.. if some species become extinct because of humans.. it's natural selection aswell. In history there were millions of species exctinct because of other species. Why would now be any different? How will extinction of Lions affect the world? If for the better or not affect at all.. then we do not need to preserve them
We only have to be cautious.. because our own dominance might kill us. We might someday make globalwide disaster, which will make roaches a dominant species...
There are 6 billion people on the planet so 5000 odd Americans not reaching the expected life expectancies is really a non-event.
The 4 most important things on this planet are:-
Air
Water
Topsoil
Biodiversity
Really humity doesn't rate - we are dependent on all of them, they are not dependent on us.
In actually fact we have become a cancer to our host -in a biological very short time we've gone from being in Balance with the enviroment, say up to half a million years ago, to the point where we are breeding out of control & poisoning our host with our bi-products - we are no longer a balance part of our hosts eco-system, just like cancers are to the body - its gotten to the point there's an extra billion of us every decade (the last billion took 12 years, the next billion will take 8 years).
The fact is that we are causing extinctions a 1000 times faster than these species could evolve naturally to adapt to us (evolution is a very slow process)
You know there's only less than 20 Sumatran Tigers left, which means if I had the choice of saving one Sumatran Tiger & saving all the Americans on the planet, I pick the Tiger without hesitation, because 250M/6B is 1/24, so really then 1 Sumatran Tiger is worth more than 250m Americans (1/20 is bigger than 1/24)
I wonder if the rapid domination of the planet by humans started with a mutation, just like the way cancers start? & you know how cancers end? With the destruction of their own host, unless they are halted in time.
Actually Camels are the only introduced species in Oz that arn't bad for the enviroment.
When the lions/hyenas get loose, and start eating all the indigenous Australian wildlife like <strike>camels</strike> kangaroos, they'll be an ecological menace right? We'll have to track them down and kill them, right? And if we're going to have to do that, wellll, we'll have to do it as an organised, controlled hunt - the lions still belong to the reserve, so we can't have any old Bruce Stockman just thinking he can shoot them, right? And while we're doing that, we might as well charge concerned individuals a fat free for the priviledge of helping out? All funds to go back into the reserve, of course...
Am I being overly cynical here? I really don't know if I'm joking. At the least, if they get the ecosystem wrong within the park, they'll have to cull the big predators anyway, and if they're going to have to do that, they might as well make some money off it (and so on).
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
A (ex)cattlestation full of African game animals would be no worse on the enviroment than a cattlestation full of tradition grazing livestock.
Really this is just going to be like Dubbo's open plane zoo , but on a grander scale
I read somewhere once that the gold rush crowd in the western US (forget if it was California or Alaska, think it was the former) sometimes amused themselves by importing large predators from around the world, and pitting them against grizzly bears. They discovered a grizzly bear can kill just about anything in a minute or so.
I wouldn't wish anything like that on the australians.
I guess we'll have to find some other way to pay them back for unleashing Rupert Murdoch on us...
The main reason Australia has the number of marsupial species it does is because it got seperated from Europe / Americas at a time when both mamals and marsupials were expanding - everywhere else the mammals won.
Given this, you have to assume that introducing some species of mammals will have a negative impact on the local populations. Larger animals such as lions, elephants etc may not have much of an effect by themseleves but what happens if you start to introduce dung bettles etc? If you dont you'll be neck deep in elephant crap within a couple of years as its unlikely that there will be any local species designed to break it down. How will the smaller creatures which bred very fast going to react? Look at the rabbits - only 6 were initially released and not there are millions of the damned things, not even myxamatosis has an effect on them anymore. So what would insects be like?
The sad fact is that ecosystems are far too complex for us to recreate properly at the minute and introducing african specials to australian will simply result in a new hybrid which adapts to the local environment and not what you started with.
My vote goes for keeping the local species in place and finding ways of minimising their impact of african farmers and ensuring a decent revenue stream to make it worthwhile for the African governments to keep them alive. ----- Before speaking first engage brain. Then stop and think again.
Maybe Kerry Packer has enough money now that he doesn't need to think. Maybe he focussed on economics in school rather than taking biology. I don't know. Mr Packer seems pretty clued up when it comes to money but whats he doing now?!?
There's a food chain and an ecosystem. Mr Packer wants to isolate an ecosystem with some sort of fence. The food chain goes down to tiny organisms which can easily pass through his fence. Either the food chain will have significant gaps which cause this idea not to work, or there will be some mixing between ecosystems.
If the ecosystems mix, then he risks unbalancing nature's balance within the Australian ecosystem. If he leaves gaps in the food chain, then it's possible that Australian organisms may fill them but then how does Mr Packer expect to contain birds with his fence?!? What about plant life? It's part of the ecosystem too... birds can spread plant seeds and plants can probably spread through Mr Packer's fence.
I don't take biology as a subject but there are problems preventing this from being feasible that are incredibly obvious. Has Mr Packer thought about this idea at all? It seems as if he had the dream last night and started working on the press release just after he woke up.
How about this? We take samplings of each eco-system, and put them on every other eco system, and see which ones destroy which eco system. If it gets out of control, that's okay - because we'll just bio-engineer giant mutant ants that can fly, which will wipe out only the bad stuff. And if that doesn't work, we'll make an army of intelligent android like machines to kill all offending life forms - and that's perfectly safe, because we can always hit the "off switch".
I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It's that you humans aren't actually mammals. You see, every mammal instinctively reaches a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You multiply and multiply until every last resource is consumed, and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another being on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is?
A virus. You humans are a disease, a cancer on the planet. And we? We are the cure.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I support this wholeheartedly. Yes, the introduction of other species in the past has decimated Australia's natural wildlife, but what this guy is talking about seems to be very different.
There is a huge difference between inadvertently introducing small species such as rats and rabbits across the country (well, starting at coastal shipping ports), and introducing large mammals into a controlled region. Large mammals such as elephants and hippos are much easier to track, and more importantly will typically have offspring every few years (about every two years for hippos and rhinos, four years or more for elephants, and two years for lions, though the latter usually have a few cubs per litter), while rabbits breed like well, rabbits.
Personally I think he'll have a very hard time of doing this succesfully; it's not easy to create an African savannah ecosystem from an Australian outback, and megafauna are notoriously slow at increasing population (thats one of the reasons we need reserves in the first place).
The results do vary, but here is the result of a recent clash...
But! A game reserve for ENDANGERED species might be ok, because that would be things like rhinos and giraffes and primates. There's a reason that they're all endangered, and part of it is because humans can kick the ass of any natural population with ease (compared to rabbits, which breed like rabbits, and thus are not endangered).
So for these species it would be less risky. On the other hand, a reserve in Africa would be ideal, and it is possible to have a reserve without major problems from poachers if the location is right.
I'd say, fix the problem instead. And what is the problem? The problem is the africa's wildlife is being killed off. Fix that instead of screwing up Australia.
.au yet, but he is one of the few who really do care about animals and knows his shit. It's people like him we need to make decisions.
I would love to hear what Steve "the Crocodile Hunter" would say about this. Sure the guy is the goofiest person I've seen from
A guy called John Wamsley (google search) set up a reserve in Oz to protect Australian species from Cats, Dogs, Toads etc... that had been imported.
He got put in jail. Why? He killed all the Cats, Dogs and Toads on his land. This is against the law as its 'cruel'. The law has since softened - but technically it is still against the law to protect native species to the detriment of introduced ones.
He has been succesful in setting u a number of reserves though - everywhere he has killed Cats the native marsupials etc have thrived. Often coming back from just a few hundred specimens to many thousands.
He sells shares in his reserves to people, to fund purchasing of more land, and maintenence of the existing land. From memory he aims to have 10% of australia set aside as native only reserves within 10 years.
This project should happen in Africa - not Austalia. Its not as if African land is expensive. I'm sure old megabucks Bill Gates could buy the Congo and ship out everything that threatens the wildlife if he wanted to. Those gorillas are so cool!
Some of these species are very close to extinction; isn't it worth it just to create another breeding population to be on the safe side? Besides, while I'm all for helping African countries develop, what's best for people in Africa (more land brought under cultivation, better infrastructure) could be very different than what people need. You also have to take into consideration cultural factors; you have had a rise, for example, of native middle and upper classes in a couple of countries. All well and good, but this has created a profitable market for "bush meat". So the gorilla and chimpanzee populations have seen a substantial hit because these middle and upper classes feel that chicken is a remnant of imperialism.
The lives of 5% of the total of a rare species are obviousl more important than the lives of 4% of the total of a plague species.
Wouldn't this just be a dream come true for the big white safari hunters (and watchers) of the world; exciting African wildlife without the pesky african people to spoil the scenery.
As pointed out by many already, the conservation aspect of this plan is trite. Look at the actual percentage of conservation land in Africa (especially S. Africa, Zambia Kenya, Botswana, Zimbabwe and increasingly Mozambique) - its far higher than any western country. All of these places have viable stocks of elephant, rhino etc. The dangers of poaching are usually specific to an area (ie Reduced elephant population in Tsavo in Kenya). Having elephants in Australia is hardly going to solve this.
There are vastly more important conservation projects going on in Africa that make this look ridiculous - particularly the peace parks mentioned in another post.
If he wants to do something stupid like this - fine; but not by claiming some kind of moral imperative about saving African wildlife from the predatorial, poaching africans.
Matthew
P.S.Apologies for the invective; my currency (the South African rand has just fallen even further into the mire based, as far as I can see, on similar self-fulfilling racist (or more likely, cynical) fantasies of those that control the money markets.
...weaned, as it were, on the webs of ritual... (Mervyn Peake)
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
what's best for people in Africa (more land brought under cultivation, better infrastructure) could be very different than what people need.
That's supposed to read "could be very different than what animals need." of course.
Inserting endangered species in an already endangered eco-system is the most stupid idea i've ever heard, even if they are in a reserve with the great wall of China as borders.
... )
Everyone knows the effect of inserting foreign species in a balance eco-system and that already happened in Australia during the colonial days. These species are now making it harder for the native Australian fauna. ( That happened with rabbits, dogs,
Those who watch the croc guy on discovery know what i'm talking about, and i would certainly like to hear from Steve about this idea.
Sometimes, i just want to hit people with a buick! I don't know why, don't ask.
On the other hand.. it's probably better for breeding than a zoo (it's a more natural environment, especially the size), and by organizing safaris they can get some of the startup money back. Basically, I see this as an oversized zoo.. especially since zoos do play quite a big part in breeding programs for endangered animals, education, and they're fun too.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
It does seem fairly odd at first...but really, it's just like an extension on the "African Savanna" exhibit at your local zoo, right? If the "Park" is separate (and I'm quite sure it will be...lions are expensive...can't have them wandering off to Canberra to be hit on the freeway) they shouldn't alter the biosensitivity any more than the Bronx Zoo does. I do wonder what's being "displaced" in order to make this possible though. Protect endangered African wildlife--Kill Australian Wildlife!!! I agree, it must be a front for something. A four-acre Meth Lab masquerading as The Lion House? An underground nuclear weapons lab underneath the Giraffes of the World enclosure??
Soon to be seen on Animal Planet:
... CRYKIE TERRI, THAT LION JUST BIT ME DAMN LEG OFF ..."
"...and here we are in my native Australia, home to the koala, the kangaroo, and
The thing is that humans have already introduced many species of animals to Australia, volountarily or involountarialy. And some of these introductions have had disastrous ecological effects (still, since this is biology, scientists disagree whenever they can), for instance the introductions of rabbits, cats and foxes. Add to this various invertebrates and plants affecting local species.
Actually, there is an ecological theory called "the tens rule", stating that approximately 1 out of ten imported species escapes and becomes introduced to the local flora and fauna. In the next step 1 out of 10 introduced species manages to maintain self-sustaining populations. And in the final step, 1 out of 10 established species becomes a pest.
So, if statistics are true even down under, there is a slight risk that the Australians will end up with pest elephants roaming the countryside and eating peoples grapes (they produce much but wine there, do they?).
Furthermore, even though insects are not the most important savannal grazers, they are still numerous enough to be of ecological significance. So they'll probably have to import them as well.
Ehh, not to mention the savanna itself of course.
:o)
Probably better protection for the animals. >There probably won't be any hunters try to hunt >them down. If I am an animal, I would rather >living down under than in Africa, no offense of >anything
only mild offence taken.
I couldn't work out exactly what the proposed size of this would be, but even at say 100 000 hectares, this would still be tiny compared to the completely safe environment of SA's Kruger park (+- 2million hectares) a superbly managed wildlife park that has a surfeit of elephants every year. Not to mention Botaswna's Okavango, Moremi and Chobe, Namibia's Etosha, Zambia's South Luangwa, and even Zimbabwes Hwange is not seriously at risk despite the political situation there.
Similar places exist in other countries. A crude assesment that Africa's wildlife is at risk in untenable. Specific habitats, and particular fragile ecosystems are at risk, but a wildlife park in Austalia is hardly going to save a Rwandan rainforest is it - no matter how many elephants are in the outback.
It would NOT be better for such animals to be in Australia. It would be worse for african wildlife in general if people visited this la-la land because they have irrational attitudes about to going to see the real thing.
Matthew
...weaned, as it were, on the webs of ritual... (Mervyn Peake)
As a slight clarification, the marsupials _are_ mammals. With a few oddball exceptions they meet the mammal characteristics -- for example, the platypus lays eggs, but it is a fur-bearing animal and it suckles its young when they hatch.
The rest of the world's mammal population are largely placentals. The American opossum is a marsupial, the only one I know of outside of the greater Dan Unda region.
To address the story, I'm stunned that this idea is being taken seriously. All parts of the world have seen ecodisasters caused by what "seemed like a good idea at the time". Look at the introduction of kudzu to the Southeastern US as an example. Australia, though, has been especially hammered. Cats, rats, rabbits, cats, dogs, pigs, you name it. Given the unique ecosystem of Australia, the world should support them in their efforts to protect and preserve what they still have. So maybe the marsupial isn't an evolutionary ideal -- the rise of placentals pretty well shows that -- but so what? Can't we protect something just because we want to? What makes the endangered lion and elephant so precious that we risk eliminating koalas or wombats or wallabys to protect the African critters?
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
But the risks of a safari are much greater than that of a zoo. Do you want to create and maintain a huge fence that is probably a few hundred if not thousand km long? And what do you do when an animal escapes? Remember that there are probably very few natural predators for any of the animals in the safari.
If you really want to breed African animals, do it in Africa! The only reason Kerry Packer wants to do it in Oz is to manage his media image, "as caring about Oz as your man next door". But it shows how little he thought this one through and in his desire to bolster his image, he will end up hurting the Australian flora and fauna much more than he will benefit it.
the benefit to ozzie flora/fauna is at most 0. It might do something for the african fauna though... maybe.. but you're right.. there will be scaling problems..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
unfortunately hunting won't work, at least where i am. the deer are in a heavily populated area, and so hunting would not be so good, there are apartment complexes all around the deer areas. the only solution would be wolves or some other natural predator, of course then instead of hitting deer on the way home from work, i'd be hitting wolves, or the joggers they are chasing into the road.
-sam
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
Feral horses are a major problem in the arid American West, as well. Thanks to "Wild Horse Annie" we can't use lethal methods of control (we can't kill them, in plain English).
So we taxpayers pay to have them rounded up, the small percentage that are young enough and in good health to be attractive to potential owners are adopted out, while the majority are penned in huge yards in places like Texas. Fed and watered again, at taxpayer expense, because people so love horses that they can't bear to seem them killed even in areas where they're a unmitigated pest and negatively impact our public lands.
Of course even I'd choose a horse over a cow on the range, and admittedly some (not all) of BLM's control efforts are to maximize forage for cattle, not wildlife. The BLM's bent priorities are no excuse for being stupid about feral horses, though.
It is the nature of life to strive to become as robust as possible. (see the example of rabbits in Australia that has been continually referenced as a part of this discussion for an example of that) This applies to insects the same as it applies to Sumatran Tigers. Things that humanity considers vile and indecent happens everyday in nature. Did you know that Lions will routinely search out and kill lion cubs that are not their own? They do this to protect their own bloodline. Humanity as repugnant as it in general views this activity, has still engaged in it. Of course, we just call it war.
The main difference between us and lions is that we're prolific enough for our conflicts to take place over large areas, not just an African plain, and we've developed weapons that are far more effective than a lion's claw and tooth.
However, I suspect that you are really calling humanity a cancer due to our seeming disregard for the ecosystem. We take advantage of our ecosystems; we don't merely co-exist with it. But such is the nature of being the 800 lb. gorilla. Our decision is whether to be a benevolent caretaker and to manage our resources in a way where every species benefits, or to be ruthless about it and horde resources for ourselves. In either case, you can rest assured that humanity's collective decision to this dilemma will be resolved by what benefits us the most at the time. It won't be because there are only 20 cats left in the world somewhere. The only reason we would save those tigers is so we can lock them up in a zoo so people can pay money to look at it.
Personally, I think we should be more responsible about how we treat our natural environment and resources - but only because we will be royally screwed if we don't.
My only problem with your argument about saving tigers versus saving all of America is this: you only want to save the cute animals. But you don't seem to have the first bit of sympathy for cancer cells. No... viruses, mold, mildew, maggots, fungus, weeds, e coli, bacteria, the crabs... none of those would make your list of the top 20 things to save. But then again, you wouldn't want any of those as pets.
I can sympathize with your conservationist leanings, but when your examples lean towards the cute, I have to wonder just how sincere you are.
And what are they going to do when mammalian parasites from the African animals start infecting the Australian wildlife? The Aussie critters will have no defenses to tsetse flies and the like. And there's no way they're going to get enough animals to Australia to make a stable population, but make sure they're all free from parasites, too. It's just going to make another big mess...
This type of thing is still going on. There is a plausible theory that BSE did not suddenly jump from sheep to cow but was introduced by a particular wilderbeast at a safari park that died with BSE type symptoms and whose body was sold for rendering. Wilderbeast in their natural habbitat are subject to a prion type disease similar to BSE.
The theory is still controvertial, the MAAF are ridiculing it. Unfortunately they have little credibility after it was discovered that three years of research into 'sheep brain' turned out to have been examining cow. The MAAF theory was used to reassure the public that BSE was the bovine form of scrapie, a disease of sheep that people have been eating for centuries without contracting CJD, the human form. However people have been contracting CJD so the 'scrapie' theory requires the emergence of a new form of scrapie prion while the wilderbeast theory does not.
Whether or not the 'wilderbeast' theory is true the risk of introducing exotic diseases is significant.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Drawing parallels is fine, but it's no substitute for thinking and analysis.
The rabbit, like the rat and the cockroach, is pretty much unexterminable. The large mammals this would be about, OTOH, are already threatened and by definition easy to exterminate, should the need arise.
There may be problems with the plan, but the chance that the introduced species will overrun the local fauna and be impossible to control isn't one of them.
Some things you might not know about deer hunting:
"Sport hunting" is a legal term, which includes all legal hunting other than "market hunting" (i.e. hunting to sell the carcas or its parts). While it does include those hunters who hunt "for the fun of it" or for the trophy, most hunters are hunting to put a seasonal meat on the table. Most "trophy hunters" use the meat also - or donate it to some feed-the-hungry program. (Hunters consider anyone who "wastes the meat" of a non-vermin animal to be scum.)
(Unfortunately, many "food banks" won't accept hunted meat - out of political correctness rather than any practical reason. The sickos would rather let the meat rot and the poor starve than do anything that might be mistaken for "encouraging hunting".)
Being shot by a firearm is about the easiest death available for a deer. A good life, a sudden pain, typically dead of blood loss before the shock wears off. Indians switched from bows to firearms because they considered them less cruel - dying from an arrow generally takes longer. But both are much more humane than the "natural" way of death for a deer: Being eaten alive over hours by peredators, painful starvation over several months, disease over weeks, infection from wounds incurred in deer-deer battles or escape from peredators.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
- G.K. O'Neill to his students in 1969
I don't think so.
Seastead this.
The Swedes in Minnesota are also very law-abiding.
Okay fellows, enough of the lessons learned from watchin' Jurassic Park III. It's really not so big a deal to introduce select foreign species on a limited basis. I did a very basic study of bamboo lemurs (http://www.duke.edu/web/primate/labamb.html) at the Duke University Primate Center (http://www.duke.edu/web/primate/) some years ago. The guys were hanging out in a fenced enclosure with a couple of other species of lemur and loving it.
I had to take readings every five minutes and record their actions, and I had several interactions with squirrels and the like. Really pretty interesting to see two disparate species like this have face-to-face "showdowns". There's no real worry that these guys are going to transmit anything.
The point, in brief, is this: Zoos do this all the time in the US, from San Diego to Asheboro, North Carolina. Believe me, they keep a very close eye on the animals. The biggest hurdle for many zoos is finding a climate that suits the animals. Australia fits the bill for many African hoofed mammals almost to a T, I'd bet. The only real concern is what happens if a large habitat is cleared of rare indigenous animals to make room -- that could potentially have some obviously bad repercussions.
This isn't a case of kudzu, African "killer" bees coming up from Mexico, or rabbits running rampant around Australia. In this case, hopefully, the goal is to breed rare animals in a land well suited to the task (stable government and good climate). The whole purpose is to breed animals that have a hard time making more, not to give range to wascally wabbits. Assuming the intentions are sound, good luck to them, and don't worry about us playing god.
One final point -- if you're worried about this guy making money, don't be unless animals are being hurt or exploited. We won't have conservation without placing worth on healthy animals, and, for better or worse, money is the way we seem to measure worth in this "first world".
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
I can't wait to see those pussies get their asses kicked!
I don't imagine that the lions will have much of a chance against the kangaroos. Besides their superior speed, kangaroos can also kill predators with a single kick.
Though, I wonder how the cheatahs will fare.
Personally, I think that this won't solve the problem. Species will become extinct, period, in one fashion or another. When there isn't sufficient habitat, species suffer. The only one that doesn't seem to suffer is the human species. We seem to be able to sufficiently adapt and destroy whatever environment we're put in.
Ah, human nature.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The story hints that the virus was accidentally spread around New Zealand.
Not the case.
There were ideas of importing it and releasing it, but there were also fears that immunity would be quick in appearing. They wanted to do tests to check that the virus would be effective before releasing it.
However some eager, peed off with the rabbits, can't wait for the silly Government, types from the upper South Island got a hold of some "Rabbit Calitrivirus" and let it loose.
Big stink in the papers at the time.
I'm glad you told me all of this. Because your oppinion really matters to me. It really does.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.