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Empty Landscape Looms, If Large Herbivores Continue to Die Out
From the BBC comes this depressing excerpt: Populations of some of the world's largest wild animals are dwindling, raising the threat of an "empty landscape", say scientists.
About 60% of giant herbivores - plant-eaters - including rhinos, elephants and gorillas, are at risk of extinction, according to research. Analysis of 74 herbivore species, published in Science Advances, blamed poaching and habitat loss.
A previous study of large carnivores showed similar declines.
Prof William Ripple, of Oregon State University, led the research looking at herbivores weighing over 100kg, from the reindeer up to the African elephant.
"This is the first time anyone has analysed all of these species as a whole," he said.
"The process of declining animals is causing an empty landscape in the forest, savannah, grasslands and desert." Here's the study, published in Science Advances, on which the BBC article is based.
I'm going to have a nice steak, while they're still available. I hadn't heard how badly Herbivores are doing.
Good thing whale populations are rebounding. It would suck not to be able to get a nice steak.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It will be inevitably filled with humans... ...at least until we destroy ourselves...
Whenever I hear prophecies of doom like this from any outlet I wait about 5-7 years before I even think about adopting it as something to look into with any seriousness, by then if there is still a hue and cry about the same thing there's the possibility it isn't total BS.
We're smart enough to kill off everything else, but we're not smart enough not to.
Society as we know it is over.
Have a nice steak, and maybe hold off on the children, Soylent Geen is our future.
Goodbye...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
If any of you diseased, truth hating creatures have stopped to consider that you are also in the "1 in 6" category of species that will become extinct.
The sooner you useless dead enders are gone, the better.
The sad truth that no one will ever talk about is that there are way to many humans on the earth to ensure the rest of the animals are not brought to extinction. we need to cut the human population in half in the next 100 years (by breeding less, not killing people off) if we really want to sustain the earth
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Just head on out to your favorite search enginez and see how many chickens are killed EVERY YEAR over 20000000 chickens are killed OMFG these things are going to be extinct in about 50 seconds if we don't do something now I mean there are only like 12 elephants left on planet Earth so how many can even be killed every year but 20000000 chickens are killed every year so the chickens will be extincted even faster why don't they put these poor birds on an endangered list ijustdontunderstandanyofit.
This has been going on for tens of thousands of years, so while it matters, it isn't news.
Large size makes animals evolutionarily fragile and is often a dead end.
They say, during the K-T event, no land animal larger than a cat survived.
Because, after all, computers got better, therefore we'll all be 3D printing our food in our Mars condos, right?
Copypasta from FARK. Slightly cleaned up for formatting.
Rik01 4 hours ago
Folks have heard me biatch about changes in my own city in the State of Florida -- and changes in the State itself. Basically the response has been (1) progress old man, (2) change the onion on your belt, (3) yelling at clouds, (4) who cares -- it's Floraduh!
However, these changes have been going on in other states.
I've watched politicians promise Eco-improvements with one hand and sell the voters down the river with the other. [For example] We had a massive oyster bed in the Indian River placed off limits to the public for preservation and ecological reasons for close to 20 years. That thing had huge oysters in it and the water in its cove was nearly crystal clear. The local police arrested scores of people sneaking down there to poach oysters and the shores were dotted with piles of empty shells. The cove was absolutely packed with the things, no river bottom exposed. Then, during the Housing Boom, an upscale development went it around it. Since the cove was too shallow for wealthy owners to park their boats at the planned docks behind the cove-side homes, it was dredged. No warning to anyone who wanted to get these delicious oysters. Dredges came in, ripped thousands of them out and disposed of them. The cove is now full of dark water and few oysters, making a lot of folks like myself wonder why we preserved them.
Water use in the state has quadrupled. Florida used to be very swampy, but the water table was shallow. Now, after sucking so much out and changing the lay of the land, plus paving over every square inch they could, we're the capitol of the US when it comes to sink holes. Water shortages began to pop up years ago, where before, we never had any.
Millions of acres of wild woods have been developed, endangering a host of native species of animals we used to have and the amount of fish in the rivers has diminished to the point that you need a license and a fishing season for Mullet -- once so plentiful that it was considered 'garbage fish' and caught mainly for bait. Within the last 40 years, the Indian River has to be closed to shellfish harvesting and fishing periodically during the summer because of massive human fecal bacteria contamination.
The previously crystal clear air of my seaside town now shows signs of grey pollution. They stopped dump burning ages ago, along with burning huge piles of used tires. Land clearing agencies have to use these massive air blowers that surround burn pits to burn stumps and brush with, creating a hotter, less smoke making fires. However, the local traffic, even with more eco-friendly cars, has quadrupled and quadrupled again. Their lesser pollution has, by the sheer weight of volume, has surpassed that which was present in times of less pollution control, when you used to have 'smokers' rolling down the roads.
Major advertising campaigns have convinced the public that instead of one or two cars per family, everyone except the dog needs one, plus a couple of ATVs, a boat and a couple of those fast, small watercraft good for nothing except going fast on the water and making a lot of noise. Prior to that, dirt bikes were the thing, tearing up thousands of acres of wild woods and chasing out local animals for fun. To round things out for the macho man, we have air boats, running on aircraft engines, no mufflers, tearing up the diminishing acres of wild swamps and annoying the crap out of neighbors when the owners 'test' them in their yards.
We have fewer forest fires than when I was a kid, thanks to sophisticated fire equipment -- but then again, the acres of undeveloped woods has fallen by 3/4, so there's less to burn. Where lightening would hit decades old pine trees and forest floors thick with dry pine needles, it hits houses, paved streets, power poles and grassy lawns.
My yard has an 'old growth' pine in it. Around 60 feet tall and nearly three feet around. It was 6 feet tall when we moved in around 1958. Across the street used to be a
Last time I checked, small animals existed. What about those?
Won't they just grow in numbers to fill the space?
More food available + less larger predators = fun times for all the little creatures.
Large animals are overrated. Including us. They all have their time. And they all eventually die off due to unsustainable growth.
We are, ironically enough, not smart enough to curb our own growth. In fact, China was about the only country to literally write in to law a limitation of growth and the majority of the world hates them for that. (not to mention the other things they also do, but this alone is attacked regardless of the other things they do)
Honestly, I would go saner, and at least more reasonable, one free kid, any kid after that, you need to prove you can financially support it for the entire period it is dependant on you. Money locked away in an account operated in part by banks and government to prevent abuse.
Break the law, all kids removed, locked up. Moron.
Problem fucking solved.
But "muh rights". Fuck people. Fuck everyone.
Also, I'm willingly never having children. I'd adopt at best, but never birth unless there was a serious lack of births for some odd reason.
We killed just about all of the bison in North America in the 1870's. We killed them for their skins, and the cows that replace them taste good. We are poorer for it- the great plains are boring and nobody goes there for a safari. It will be an even greater loss if the same happens in Africa, because they still have the top predators that were lost in North America tens of thousands of years ago.
But hey, fuck it, I want a burger.
Rhinos, elephants and gorillas taste terrible, 'nuf said. Who cares if they all die. Plus all of those species are aggressive assholes. Seriously, they don't know their place in this world. Search "unprovoked attack". They all suck and should be eliminated.
we need to cut the human population in half in the next 100 years (by breeding less, not killing people off)
Pretty sure the Nazis also tried forced sterilization. It did not turn out well.
Otherwise if you wanted to see an ever stronger reaction than telling people you are going to kill a group of them off, then try to say you are now telling them who they can and cannot fuck.
Or you could try a middle ground like China's "one child" policy, which leads to other disasters...
Or you know, you could try not telling people how to live their lives according to some poor rationale you've developed as to why they should obey your whims, and they in turn will be somewhat less likely to kill you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
IOW Vegetarianism is bad for your health.
https://xkcd.com/1338/
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The sad truth that no one will ever talk about is that there are way to many humans on the earth to ensure the rest of the animals are not brought to extinction. we need to cut the human population in half in the next 100 years (by breeding less, not killing people off) if we really want to sustain the earth
What is to blame for all of this excess of humans? Vaccinations!
This is slashdot. We don't RTFA. So why did you write one?
where once again, the white man is going to come in and tell the black man what to do with his land.
Yes. Yes, I know. It will be for his own good. He's too [stupid|short-sighted|ignorant|uneducated] to live his life correctly. The wise white man has to tell him what to do.
Even when you dress it up in left-wing causes, racism is pretty ugly.
GP, I appreciated it. This guy sounds like your new city manager.
Your flatulence is destroying our climate. To the dinosaurs with you, stinkers!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I think that the number of humans will naturally decline. The birth rate in the US has been below the replacement rate since the '70s (expect for a year or two right before the '08 financial crisis). The same is true in every industrialized country, and there's no sign of that changing. The economic benefit of having kids is simply much lower in modern economies.
It'll be interesting to see what increasing automation does to population levels. I have the feeling that a lot of jobs will go poof due to automation, and that will further reduce population levels. If so, it won't be fun: there is a ~20 year lag between when the birth rate declines and when the labor force entrance rate declines...
It's time to clone the Mammoth. We've waited long enough.
In 1900 there were only 20 white rhinos left; in 2010, there were 20,000.
So what happened? we privatized them.
In fact take any animal that can be bought: chickens, horses, cows, etc..., and none of them are in any danger of extinction.
Why this works? Well, suppose I owned those 20 white rhinos. Simple supply and demand would make them worth a fortune. I would have a very strong incentive to try to get 21, so I would make everything I could to make them reproduce. Eventually I would have enough rhinos that I will start selling some for profit and continue reproducing them. The people that buy them would also have a strong incentive to reproduce them. As supply continues to increase, the value of an individual rhino will fall. At that point, the animal is safe from extinction, and it may become more profitable to sell them to hunters for example.
Simple market forces would make us breed them when there are too little, and hunt them when there are two many, keeping a sustainable population.