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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...
I'm relieved, I thought humans were responsible for the damage done to the coral reef.
Just think what killing POTUS could do. ** ducks**
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."
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
Not to worry! When winter comes all the Gorillas will freeze to death.