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White Dolphin Functionally Extict
An anonymous reader writes "For the first time in nearly fifty years another mammal, specifically an aquatic mammal, has gone extinct. In this case, it was the white dolphin, also known as the Baiji, which used to live in the Yangtze River in China. The dolphin had been known to exist for the last 20 million years."
Hindsight in 20-20 indeed. Maybe now governments will get the idea that if you want to protect a species, you actually have to protect it. Just sitting arond and holding press conferences and askind advisors endlessly will not solve a single thing. This crap needs to change, and soon.
.-.
Makes me feel bad about the tuna sandwiches I had for dinner last night.
While many ocean dolphins do get killed by tuna nets, the species that went extinct was a river dolphin, unique to the Yangtze. They were done in by the increasing pollution of that river. So instead of feeling bad about the tuna sandwiches you had you should feel bad about the cheap DVD player you bought -- not only did the people who put it together get paid slave wages, but the company that employed them didn't "waste" any money on pollution control.
Because this extinction can be directly traced to human interference. Because the animal was part of an ecosystem that has now been diminished, and human interference therefore harmed the entire ecosystem. Because diminished ecosystems are less resistant to new predators and diseases. Because diminished ecosystems have a point of no return at which they completely collapse, even if other species are still present.
Most importantly though, because the planet just got a little less interesting and wondrous.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I agree. In the book he gives a poiniant description of the environment of the Baiji. Due to heavy traffic the river itself contains constant mechanical noise. For a creature that uses sonar to see and move life in white noise is blindness. He compared it sleshwere eloquently to spending your life in a snowstorm able to see but seeing nothing.
As much as people may want to celebrate this, or at least gloat, about the weak dying off and this being part of the "natural cycle" I say that's just a bit sick and way too short sighted.
I'm an environmentalist for many reasons chief among them is that I'm selfish. No matter how much we may like to hide in our offices we depend, completely depend, upon the life on the earth around us. Between Dolphins dying in the Yangtse, to the sheer number of ocean species that will die as the ice retreats the web we depend on is, strand by strand, being cut. Sitting around and saying "I told you so" to each other will do no good. Either we all (all animals) survive or we don't but resorting to simple stories gets us nowhere.
20 Million Years.
Repeat after me: Twenty Million Years
Yeah, they just happened to have been naturally selected for extinction now, nevermind that we KNOW exactly what the cause of their decline has been, and that we KNOW it is because of OUR artificial impact on their natural environment.
You couldn't have picked a worse place or time to pull that steaming pile of shit out.
No Comment.
Sometimes stuff dies.
/. where software monoculture is almost universally agreed is a Bad Thing(r).
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Marginalizing an important issue like biodiversity is fun isn't it?
This is
It stands to reason a biologic monoculture carries with it even more dire consequences than software. Our best interests are served to ensure there are as many species as possible walking/crawling/swimming around.
Let me give you an example. Bees. The American commercial bee population is a monoculture. In California the central valley bee population has been decimated by a disease that the bee keepers can no longer control. Guess what? No tree nut harvest. How about the other plants that bees pollinate? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor
Now, what happens when it's cows or corn? Rice? Wheat? Please re-examine this belief carefully and mod parent down.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
OK, so it's natural selection.
The problem is this: We can pick our actions. We cannot pick their consequences.
Anyone who thinks humans can't have an impact on the environment have their heads so far up their butts that the lump in their throat is their nose.
Our actions or lack of actions do have consequences, and we do have to live with those consequences.
I have no idea what the consequence of this species being lost will be, but I guarantee there will be consequences, and doubt very highly that they will be positive and produce a net gain in the world.
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The difference between man and the "natural world" is poetic, not scientific. It is a romantic view, and it is irrational. We view nature as everything other than what we have created. Whenever we talk about nature, it is usually associated with the good and man is associated with the bad. However, when speaking of a scientific phenomenon such as natural selection it is stupid to separate man and nature. We are part of the ecosystem just like every other animal. The "destruction of nature" IMO is only dangerous as far as it affects us. The world is a cruel and harsh place, with or without humans. Extinction happens. Life on Earth was here long before we emerged, and it will be here long after we are gone.
I have to give credit where credit is due, though. The stupidity of all the organizations - from Greenpeace to the Chinese Government - that could have made a difference but chose not to make a difference that mattered is not the mundane stupidity we see in everyday life. This is a highly trained, highly refined breed of stupidity that only the truly gifted hand-wringer could develop.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
So if we're going to feel bad about something, feel bad that some Chinese kid had food to eat and could go places.
Try pulling the stick out of your ass before you go judging others.
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Are you implying that I should feel bad about buying something that creates a job in a part of the world that desperately needs them? What is a slave wage to you may be a godsend to the worker. To quote Sowell: "The real minimum wage is zero [unemployment]."
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
I figure that we could handle environmental changes far better than most species. First of all, we have considerable intelligence and tools that extend our "natural" adaptability. Second, how many other animals can thrive on 6 of the 7 continents (or all 7 if you let people use tools)? Third, we can eat a fairly varied diet, so our survival isn't dependent on any specific prey. Fourth, our population is enormous compared to the minimum number needed to sustain the species (i.e. not enter an extinction spiral/cascade). If 5 billion of us were to instantly just fall over dead, the human species still wouldn't be threatened with extinction. Of course, a significant climate change probably would kill a bunch of people, and make life kinda suck for the survivors, so it's in our best interest to prevent that from happening. Extinction is probably impossible for humans unless we do something really dumb, like ignite the atmosphere or create some super virus.
Um, just to clarify things, people who hunt are sadists.
Never met one. Every hunter I know goes to a lot of trouble to make sure that the animals they eat - which live in the wild and pretty much never die of old age - meet a rather instantaneous end. Do you eat fish? When was the last time you saw to it that your salmon had a nice peaceful death, or a completely abrupt one? Hooking or netting a fish is a painful, panicky thing, just like capturing crabs, or running cattle into a chute for slaughter. I take very seriously my opportunity and responsibility to take wild game in an ethical manner.
I also participate in keeping the eastern seaboard whitetail deer population under control. Since the natural predators are gone from suburbia, and such developments create ideal deer habitat, you wind up with many times the population of deer that were present even 300 years ago. When poor weather happens, or during the rut, you get vast number of these animals moving across highways or gathering in unnatually large herds. The result is painful (and sometimes drawn-out) death by injury from a vehicle, or very high rates of disease transmission from over crowding. People who want deer to live like that are sadists (to use your word). People who take the role that wolves used to play (in keeping the herds properly thinned out) not only are doing the species a service, but are also putting into their freezers some very healthy, lean meat that isn't soaked in steroids and anti-biotics, and which didn't involve huge farming operations (which burn tons of fuel and drench the soil with fertalizers) to raise and transport. While performing this little service, we (hunters) also pay large sums of money into state coffers, and support all sorts of wildlife conservation programs. Hunters do more to ensure the long term viability of wildlife (from ducks to deer to foxes and wild turkey) than most any other group.
Since you so obviously want everyone to know that you are a sadist you must be even more deranged than the average hunter.
Says the anonymous coward.
I'm more than happy to tell people where the holiday meal they're eating came from. In my family, it's nice pheasant appetizers followed by a really good venison roast. All taken by me, in the field, while on my two feet. While I'm at it, I pick up trash, dispose of old abandoned barbwire, report poachers to the game wardens, tell farmers what I've seen on their back 40, and reduce - by at least a few meals - the demand for factory farming and all of the waste that goes with it.
So, since you're a vegetarian, tell me everything you know about how the soybean farmers you buy from don't ever shoot the varmits that dig holes in their crop sections. Tell me how they tuck each groundhog and jackrabbit into bed every night. Do you sleep better at night knowing that the farmers you deal with use special combines that are guaranteed not to slowly crush voles, mice, and other small mammals as they drive over those animals' home turf? Oops! I forgot. That's simply not true, is it? Tell me what you know about the "organic" operations that, none the less, still practice ditch-to-ditch farming, thus reducing the very habitat that would provide homes for grouse or quail. You know, nature's little pest-bug patrol. In fact, tell me what you know about any of this whatsoever, since your previous comment would imply that you're an ignorant fool that thinks all food is produced by extracting it from rainbows, and delivered by My Little Pony to your grocery store. Hunters aren't sadists. But people who eat meat and wear leather without every personally doing the work of producing it are: cowards (and usually shrill, hypocritical asses, as well).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
This is un-natural selection. Big difference.
Every time a land developer gets told they can't build something on land that they paid for because it's habitat of some obscure and largely irrelevant species, that's costing someone tons of money, the burden of which is borne by a few individuals. IMHO, that burden should be shared by all. If land is declared unbuildable because of endangered species laws, it should be mandatory that the government purchase that land at fair market value. In that way, everyone pays their fair share instead of a few people getting screwed.
I say this as someone about to buy property in California, desperately terrified that I'll be told halfway through the project that they found some species I've never heard of and I'll lose every penny I have. And therein lies the flip side of the argument. Everything has its price, and that price when viewed in abstract terms (100 less jobs) seems small until you see it in more concrete terms (40 people are now homeless because they can't afford a roof over their heads). The key is balance.
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The name itself, "natural selection", is somewhat misleading. Natural selection does not imply lack of human intervention. On the contrary, humans are part of, influence, are influenced by, and are subject to natural selection and evolution. Therefore, you are wrong to think that natural selection is only such if we stand aside and let nature do its will. That is the fallacy of the Social Darwinist as Divine Right Theorist: Success must take intervention and attempts of change into account in order for it to be truly objective.
Sorry, I went on a limb there, didn't I?
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And to those who would claim that human life is more precious than animal life... why?
These are some example questions. Assume you're on vacation far away and none of this causes you any direct physical harm. Now the questions:
- Say there's going to be a huge tragedy and someone's family is going to die. If you could chose whether your family dies or someone other family dies, which would you choose?
- Say there's going to be a huge accident and a whole town or city is going to be destroyed (comet, bomb, whatever)? Do you want it to be the town where you live, or some other town?
- Say there's going to be a plague and a whole nation is going to die from it. It will be everyone who speaks a particular language. Do you want it to be your people, or some others?
Are you getting it yet? It's pretty obvious. Everyone else understands the point implicitly -- all the rational ones anyway. It's OK if you're not. Be insane all you want. Just stop recruiting.