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Remember When Elephants Had Tusks?
Boing Boing links to an interesting story today. If an antibiotic kills 95% of a germ species, but 5% bear a gene for resistance, indiscriminate use of it will result in a surviving line of entirely resistant germs. But on a slightly larger scale, genetically tusk-free elephants are gaining ground relative to their tusked brethren, says one study, thanks to a nasty antibiotic called poaching. If elephants don't have the decency to go extinct, maybe they'll just hang around to tusklessly remind our grandchildren where billiard balls originally came from, and to invite us to ponder what the last poacher was thinking as he shot the last tusked elephant.
This same phenomenon has been observed in lakes where extensive sport fishing takes place. Since either by regulations or due to the angler's behaviour the larger fish seem to have the most fishing pressure applied to them. Over time the abundance of large fish decline, and remain low even after many years where not fishing is permitted on the lake. What happens is those fish with the genetic disposition to grow very large have a much lower success rate when it comes to mating, and there fore the genes that allow fish to grow large become increasingly rare.
Just another crappy blog
My simple objection is that poachers are not starving. They are members of organized crime gangs, often so powerful to be able to challenge the state institutions themselves. Poaching is a sistematic process, and it's very "well" tought out: the reason why poachers don't plan for the future (i.e. why they poach all they can and to hell sustainability) is because poaching gangs are compiting against each other. It's a destructive logic, and it makes me revolt, but it's logic.
Sigged!