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That's a beautiful story if it is indeed the case. It seems absolutely conceivable to me that an intelligent species could mark places as safe havens. Poachers
by codyb 11y ago
That's a beautiful story if it is indeed the case. It seems absolutely conceivable to me that an intelligent species could mark places as safe havens.
Poachers are really shitty.
- aianus 11y agoWhy are poachers shitty but ranchers are not? It seems much more ethical to me to kill an existing wild animal for money vs. breeding new animals in inhumane conditions for the sole purpose of killing them for money later on.
- fosk 11y agoWe don't necessarily have to choose: they are both unethical and evil activities.
- aianus 11y agoI agree, I just can't see why people vilify poachers and not ranchers.
- DanBC 11y agoBecause thes submitted article is about poachers, not ranchers. When someone submits an article about ranchers you don't get comments saying "but don't forget the elephant poachers".
- eruditely 11y agoBecause the article is about poachers you moralizer.
- aianus 11y agoI'm not moralizing, parent was moralizing about poachers. I couldn't care less about elephants or cattle. I just can't stand cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy.
- chrismcb 11y agoWhat cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy? If some says "I don't like x" do you think they need to enumerate everything they like or dislike as well? Perhaps the op thinks ranchers are shitty too, except the article mentioned poachers. Why would the op then make a non sequitur about ranchers?
- simonh 11y agoIt's because biodiversity is beneficial to all species on Earth because it makes for a more resilient and stable ecosystem. Poaching endangered species tends to drive those doecies to extinction, reducing biodiversity which as I've explained is a common good for all living species. Ranching maintains biodiversity by establishing an equilibrium artificial ecosystem. Combined with conservation, it contributes to economic prosperity and sustainable management of a rich and resilient ecology.
- eimai134 11y agoPeople do vilify ranchers. There are tons of organizations that are fighting against animal farming, and it's a movement that is gaining a lot of traction. Like others have said, people just aren't talking about here since this article is about poaching.
- rbritton 11y agoWithout picking a side, one notable difference is the sustainability of ranching. To my knowledge it hasn't driven many species to the brink of extinction (though maybe it has contributed indirectly by changing the habitat?)
- aianus 11y agoThe sustainability of an evil act is a con, not a pro.
- elektromekatron 11y agoOn that logic, murderers would be better if they killed everyone, as then murder would not be sustainable.
- aianus 11y agoCertainly there are situations where killing is more ethical than prolonged suffering. We kill injured or sick animals to 'put them out of their misery' all the time. Isn't killing someone preferable to enslaving and torturing them and forcing them to reproduce so that you may do the same to their descendants?
- eimai134 11y agoI agree - factory farming and even most "humane" farms are horrid. It would be better if we didn't eat meat (for our health, the environment, and ending world hunger). Then a smaller number of these animals could be pets or live on nature preserves.
- quickquicker 11y agoOne case that comes to mind is that of wolves in Montana: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/05/science/earth/conflict-over-wolves-yields-new-dynamic-between-ranchers-and-conservationists.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/05/science/earth/conflict-ove...
- drdeca 11y agoOf those two, poaching seems to me more likely to reduce the number that remain in the wild.
- hyperbovine 11y agoThe legal version of poaching is called hunting. Provided the laws are sound (you haven't e.g. bribed someone to "legally" kill a tiger), hunting is fine. Killing a legally-protected animal almost always means you shot something whose species is in some sort of jeopardy. That's bad.
- aianus 11y ago> That's bad. Why? Why is it bad? Why does it matter if, say, elephants go extinct? If they're extinct they're not suffering.
- dredmorbius 11y agoLoss of species diversity, 50 million years of evolution, and potentially profound impacts on ecosystems. Look for the story in the past year or so about dramatic impacts of reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone. How Wolves Change Rivers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q http://www.livescience.com/17263-yellowstone-wolf-environment-change.html http://www.livescience.com/17263-yellowstone-wolf-environmen... Destroy a species and it's gone forever. Moreover, if you're looking to eliminate suffering, it's humans and their rampant overconsumption which are driving that. Not the elephant.
- codyb 11y agoThanks for sharing that video, I'd heard of keystone species before but never have I had it so concretely shown to me just how vital and vast the effects can be. Really enjoyed the watch.
- erikpukinskis 11y agoI hope people stop downvoting you because this is an excellent question. There is a number of species in that ecology today, let's call it N. It's a known good number of species: they work together, more or less, to stay alive as a group. There are smaller collections of species which are nonviable. For example, if all species disappeared except elephants and tigers (2 species) the entire ecosystem would then disappear (the elephants would starve and then the tigers would) and eventually only inorganic material would remain. There is a number of species, let's call it K, below which the probability of entire ecosystem collapse is nontrivial. We don't know what K is, but if we care about the existence of any ecosystem we must approach it carefully. And we won't know we've crossed it unless we go over. We know K is somewhere between 2 and N. I think a good strategy is just to put the brakes on all extinction to try to buy us extra time to do science while we are approaching N=K. As long as we keep N above K, we have a relatively easy problem: influencing a system at equilibrium. Once N drops below K we have a much harder problem: bootstrapping an ecology from nothing. Keeping N above K gives us more agency for less effort. For that reason, I think the extinction of elephants would be bad.
- beams_of_light 11y agoRanchers are breeding animals for food. Humans are omnivorous, and it relieves us of the burden of hours of hunting. Elephants are not poached for food, they are poached mainly for their tusks. One could reason that this is an egregiously unnecessary waste of one of the most intelligent species on Earth.
- aianus 11y agoWould you rather have a normal life and be shot for your teeth as an adult or grow up your whole life in a cage being force-fed and end up shot for your meat anyways?
- disordinary 11y agoNeither. Society is changing, at least in the West, eventually all animals will be treated humanely and reared in conditions that are not only better for the animal physically but allow them to interact and socialise as they would do in the wild, and therefore its better for them mentally.
- eimai134 11y agoYes! It's exciting to see how animal rights is becoming the next big social justice movement.
- perfTerm 11y agoWho said anything about ranchers? Where do you come up with this presumption about ranchers based on gps simple "poachers are shitty"? This is an article about poachers, thus the comment talking about poachers.
- aianus 11y agoBecause elephants and lions and whatnot being poached makes international news and ranching is business as usual. Clearly there is a substantial population that believes the former is wrong while the latter is not.
- dacohenii 11y agoRadiolab has a new episode about this called "Rhino Hunter" about this type of thing: (show and description here: http://www.radiolab.org/story/rhino-hunter/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/rhino-hunter/) It talks about how hunting is used as a funding mechanism for conservation, and in general the ethics of whether (and how) killing an individual could benefit the species as a whole. If you have 50 or so minutes to spare, I highly recommend it.
- eimai134 11y agoRanchers are shitty too.