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Killing Rats Could Save Coral Reefs (bbc.co.uk)
The much maligned rat is not a creature many would associate with coral reefs. But scientists studying reefs on tropical islands say the animals directly threaten the survival of these ecosystems. From a report: A team working on the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean found that invasive rats on the islands are a "big problem" for coral reefs. Rats decimate seabird populations, in turn decimating the volume of bird droppings -- a natural coral fertiliser. The findings are published in Nature. Scientists now advocate eradicating rats from all of the islands to protect these delicate marine habitats.
If "fertilizer" is the problem for coral reefs then why can't we fertilize them ourselves?
No sig today...
Do try to keep up:
verb
1.
kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of.
"the inhabitants of the country had been decimated"
2.
historical
kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as a punishment for the whole group
. "the man who is to determine whether it be necessary to decimate a large body of mutineers"
I'm relieved, I thought humans were responsible for the damage done to the coral reef.
Well, if you look up the term in a dictionary, then you'll see that your interpretation is historical:
1. kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of.
2. historical: kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as a punishment for the whole group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)
The word is often used in other languages in the 1st meaning (that could mean "slaughtering to the extent of leaving one in ten")
Than people. Trump of course is King Rat. Or is that George Segal? Linda?
What is your point?
That you want to avoid facing the actual cause (us acting like a planetary pathogen) at all costs? That you need a scapegoat to feel (and only feel) like you "did someting"?
Just think what killing POTUS could do. ** ducks**
The politically correct term is "rats with a migration background".
Is "killing rats" "the killing of rats" or "rats that kill"?
(Sorry, can't resist.)
To save the coral reefs, of course.
As subject
What will happen once we kill all of the rats? The problem is nobody knows or has thought to study what might happen if we kill off or poison the rats. Furthermore, how can scientists definitively say for certain that rat droppings are the cause of the dying coral reef. It could be far more complex a single reason.
So we just need to introduce the natural enemy of ratsa into Australia to save the Grat Barrier Reef. And as soon as they have all the rats, they will die as well. Nothing can go wrong this time.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Rats are rapacious omnivores, much like the humans who bring them across oceans in their cargo ships and the humans who concentrate food and waste that the rats can grow their population with. So I'm afraid the rats are a logical result of the much higher human population density near reefs: the local ecology near the reefs fed a much smaller human population without modern agriculture and food imports And I'm afraid that humans do not tolerate the carnivores of rats: they tend to be big enough to threaten our young and our livestock, and many make attractive trophies.
Rats have been co-evolving with humans very successfully. They're going to be very difficult to alter our ecological balance with.
And of course, it's good clean fun for all the family!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The rats are not the problem here, it is the humans that brought them and provide for them with an easy habitat to thrive in. Humans leave garbage and food waste literally everywhere they go, because they are the most disgusting, unhygienic animals on this entire planet. They destroy the local ecosystem wherever they go, replacing it with a myriad of detrimental species, garbage, and waste.
Get the invasive humans off the islands (and the rats they brought with them), and the problem goes away. If the humans stay, the rats are staying.
Then you decimate again?
Ezekiel 23:20
We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the rats.
If you're into homeopathy you do it several times.
And at the end, there are more left than there were at the start.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
...think it means...
But then, you American, aren't you...
To 'decimate' means to kill ONE TENTH of a group, hence the "dec" part of the word...
You're right in that the word originally meant kill one tenth. But it's also worth pointing out that "Awesome" was originally a synonym for "Awful". Somehow the meaning of awesome has completely swapped over time. In the 1800's if you said two people had intercourse, people would assume that they had had a conversation. In the 1800's if you said two people conversed, people would think that they had just had sex.
Words change meaning over time, and yes, it frequently is because people don't understand the real meaning and use them incorrectly. "Decimate" has been used so long (incorrectly) to mean to destroy a large percent that that is now the most commonly understood meaning of the word.
Personally, that grates with me a little too- but I try not to get too hung up on the fact that the modern meaning isn't what I originally learnt. The meaning of words change over time, they always have... All you can do is try and keep up and pick out meaning from context.
Some people think that's awesome, others don't.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
If you're into homeopathy you do it several times.
You'd need quite a lot more than several decimations. Assuming that homeopathy starts once the substance goes below 1/Avogadro number dilution, a sample of substance of as many grams as the atomic weight of its particles, requires at least 520 decimations.
And at the end, there are more left than there were at the start.
After a few years dip, indeed. The population of rats on those islands started from just a few rats that came from a ship, there's no doubt it can recover again. And the rats will be those you're least likely to catch. Assuming you don't decimate enough times that it doesn't leave at least one mommy rat and daddy rat. But then, a Noah's ark^W^Wdirty fishing ship comes by and we start again.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Bleaching occurs because the coral expels its zooxanthellae This happens (mainly, I'm told) due to the water warming.
Question: What is the evolutionary benefit to the coral?
What is the benefit of losing the symbiont and (eventually) dying?
Just how do you propose to apply the fertilizer?
There are a LOT of small islands out there
OH. And how do you propose to create the fertilizer?
The birds are free
Even if the New York subway doesnât have coral reefs.
Palestinians.
Must be from an American dictionary.
Decimate ....part of the treatment due Trotsky bitch-sluts & wealthy race-traitors:
1) strip them bare of all monies and property
2) flog them 'round-the-streets
3) decimate the survivors
4) sell wives and daughters to Saudi whore-houses
"decimate" meaning "to kill one tenth" is first attested in 1600, in an *ENGLISH* language text. the meaning "to tax one tenth" (ie, "tithe") is attested 1606. the meaning "to kill a large but indefinite number" is attested 1656. the original medieval latin word "decimatus" meant "to tithe," not "to destroy," so you're both falling victim to the etymological fallacy while also fucking up the etymology. maybe try doing some research before mouthing off next time?
We can't just kill them even if it would save a reef
Can we?
here's a source from those filthy americans at oxford: https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/09/10/does-decimate-mean-destroy-one-tenth/
...think it means...
That's kind of the crux of language. As long at it means what most people think it means then it has that meaning.
The only one confused by this use of the term appears to be you. Time to get yourself a dictionary from the 1900s.
But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Climate change. Please start arguing now.
But it's also worth pointing out that "Awesome" was originally a synonym for "Awful". Somehow the meaning of awesome has completely swapped over time.
And neither of them now mean to cause or inspire awe.
Personally, that grates with me a little too- but I try not to get too hung up on the fact that the modern meaning isn't what I originally learnt.
It shouldn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
We just need to trap the rats, let them starve and then eat each other. Then we go and release the sole surviving, now cannibal, rat back into the population...
Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
What are the filthy Americans doing in Oxford?
Personally, that grates with me a little too- but I try not to get too hung up on the fact that the modern meaning isn't what I originally learnt.
It shouldn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
How to selectively quote someone and make it sound like the complete opposite of what they were saying 101.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
If you start a program to fertilize coral reefs, and it turns out the fertilizer has other unintended consequences (like causing algal blooms), you become financially and possibly criminally liable for those consequences.
If birds fertilize coral reefs with their droppings, and their droppings have other unintended consequences, nobody sues the birds in court.
Gives multiple meanings to the phrase, "shit happens."
Can we just kill all rats everywhere? Can that be a thing? They're shitheads.
It _meant_ have 9/10 members of a group beat 1/10 (selected by lot) of the group to death.
Now it means 'devastate'. Think of all the letters they are saving.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You completely missed the Roman politician (Suetonius) quoted using 'decimate' in the comments section below your cite. He died in 122 AD...
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
... Still not as bad as "inflammable" and "flammable" or "regardless" and "irregardless."
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
Two of you attempted the punchline and neither of you got it right. It is:
"No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death."
Like mice? :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
What? It SHOULD grate you? You SHOULD embrace the fallacy instead ignoring of it - as YOU DO?
but I try not to get too hung up on the fact
I fear we have a misunderstanding here. Of motives if not of words.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens