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60,000 Antelope Died In 4 Days, and No One Knows Why
An anonymous reader writes: The Saiga antelope has been hunted to near extinction. They've been put on the endangered species list, and they play a vital role in the ecosystems around Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan, where their grazing helps get rid of fallen plant matter, which is prevented from decomposing by the cold temperatures. But earlier this year, a huge die-off hit the Saiga antelope herd in Kazakhstan, felling over 120,000 of them in a few short weeks. Scientists say an entire group of 60,000 died within a four-day span. The cause of this die-off is still a mystery. The researchers suspect some sort of bacteria, and early on pointed to Pasteurella strains. But those bacteria don't usually cause this much damage unless something else has weakened the antelope. "There is nothing so special about it. The question is why it developed so rapidly and spread to all the animals," one researcher said. They're looking into environmental factors, but nothing else seems too far out of the ordinary.
... that buck stopped there.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
This is how The Pronking Dead starts, you know.
By the sounds of it the "genetic diversity" between your parents wasn't much to talk about either.
Who will be the next victims of our inaction? Gnus?
I don't see how global warming could lead to the extinction of Free Software Foundation.
These deer were actually God's chosen people, and have been raptured. We all have to live through the end of days.
It was aliens.
Many extinct species would beg to differ.
http://news.discovery.com/anim...
I don't know why some people think that population reduction can only occur through mass-murder/pandemic. People can have less babies you know.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It's hardly a matter of one political bend or another - I just had Jehova's Witnesses on my porch trying to tell about the world that is to come, and how only the really good people will be in it (making for a much smaller population, they emphasized) and God's going to clean everything up...
But you'll see it as a trope in fiction of all stripes. There's some terrible disaster, and mankind re-emerges into a form that somehow fits the political biases of the author. A lot of people imagine that being in horrible circumstances like that, fighting for survival with less technology and an awful lot fewer people would make for a simpler, more real world and yearn for it.
Not that long ago, here on Slashdot, a bunch of people were explaining to me that in such a world, as a woman, I would go back into my biologically ordained role of reproductive servitude, which struck me as saying a lot more about their preoccupations, I thought, than anything else, but then people always seem to project their fantasies into these scenarios. (Especially since I'd already mentioned that I was in my forties, as well as being a martial artist and martial arts instructor and having an awful lot of skills useful in such a society.)
Many extinct species would beg to differ.
How can they do that? They're extinct.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
China has a negative population growth rate now.
India's population growth rate is slightly positive, but decreasing steadily. They should be negative growth in another decade or three.
Africa is a whole 'nuther issue. Of course, what Europe, North America, China, and India have in common is increasing standard of living. - maybe that would work for Africa too....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"