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Condor Chick Born In Wild
hank writes "Great news (Yahoo! News link) today on the endangered species front! A condor chick born in the wild is alive and well. Originally, biologists planned on interfering and giving "life support" to the egg; however, biologists were surprisingly pleased to see the father aggressively protecting his young. Wisely, they decided to let nature take control. The chick in Los Padres National Forest in Santa Barbara County is the first conceived, hatched and raised in the wild to survive more than a day. It was 4 days old on Monday. What does this mean for genetic cloning and incubation research? Can nature really repair itself? What do you all think?"
When I think of condors and chicks, I think of The Condor in SF - Former home of Carol Doda
This is what the regular /. reader sees from the headline:
"****** Chick **** ** Wild"
This is the place where you write something that will make you seem like a complete idiot.
ADAPT is the key word here. The individuals that are best able to ADAPT are not necessarily the strongest individuals. Make sure you make a distinction here. "Strong" and "weak" don't necessarily have anything to do with this.
I also find your blending of fields interesting. Darwin and ecology? Cause and effect. When ecological parameters change, that which can adapt to the changes survive and those which cannot die out.
Your background is even weaker than I originally thought. Don't you have any clue what Darwin discovered? Darwin discovered natural selection, which is what the whole thing you are arguing is based on. And blending fields?? Perhaps you would care to explain to me how in the world one can study ecology without studying Darwin? Darwin's principles are the major driving force in ecology. I'm not blending fields at all. Darwin's findings are central to almost all issues in ecology includign why animals go extinct, why they have certain physical and behavioral characteristics, etc.
"I would love to see how you would demonstrate that the singular cause of the Condor's demise has been industrial man."
I wouldn't say the singular cause is industrial man. But that is definiately a large part of it. More than likely, DDT played a role in this as DDT effects are cumulative throughout the food change and top predators in an ecosystem tend to have the highest levels (and receive the most damage from it).
It has to do with cloning because it suggests that animals raised in captivity can still exhibit instinctive behaviors...like successful rearing of young.
So if we use cloning to bring back species that are currently extinct, this suggests we may also be successful in re-introducing the cloned individuals to the wild. Otherwise they could only ever be zoo curiosities.