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Giraffes Added to the Endangered Species List (2016)
- cvaidya1986 9y agoWe need stupid long yellow spotted horses for our children to behold.
- dang 9y agoPlease don't post unsubstantive comments here.
- InitialLastName 9y agoIt's like we're going back and killing off the megafauna we missed the first time around.
- aleksei 9y agoI don't think we've gone back to it, it's just taking us longer than we expected.
- InitialLastName 9y agoIt seems to me that we paused in killing them off so rapidly from ~10,000 years ago when we stopped spreading around the world (there were a few stragglers, but the bulk of them were gone by then) to ~19th century when industrialization and globalization started letting us destroy all habitats everywhere.
- mentalpiracy 9y agoJust that classic mid-project dip in motivation, once you've picked all the low-hanging fruit.
- rpenm 9y agoNot that much longer. This mass extinction is believed to be 10-100 times faster than any previous.
- illlogic2 9y ago"many giraffes are slaughtered just for their tails, which are considered a status symbol and have been used as a dowry when asking a bride’s father for his daughters hand in marriage in some cultures." Humans are the most wasteful species.
- njarboe 9y agoI would say more that humans have evolved to be very interested in status (as stated in the text you quoted) and that wasting resources is high on the list of how to show your high status. Status used to be critical to survival when being kick out of the tribe was basically a death sentence. Tim Urban wrote a good article about this[1] with some good ideas to ponder about the value of caring about what other people think about you. [1]https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/06/taming-mammoth-let-peoples-opinions-run-life.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/06/taming-mammoth-let-peoples-op...
- loceng 9y agoEffort should be prized, it's quite lazy - likely paying someone else - to slaughter an animal, and then pay for its tail.
- devmunchies 9y agoThat’s how I feel about the meat industry and its attempt to be seen as masculine.
- madeuptempacct 9y agoI was about to ask you what the hell you are talking about, and ask you to take your SJW bs elsewhere, but now that I think about it, eating steak and such is portrayed as masculine, for no reason at all.
- loceng 9y agoI'm not sure I understand what you mean, can you elaborate?
- almostApatriot1 9y agoAfrican fauna are finished. Is there any doubt of this? Over a billion more people there by 2050 and the continent will be the hardest hit by climate change. We're just burying our heads in the sand about the reality of it.
- k__ 9y agoWon't we adapt?
- jonjojr 9y agoyes we will and billions will die in the process.
- Erlich_Bachman 9y agoEveryone dies in the end, no matter what anyone does. It's nature.
- emodendroket 9y agoRight, which is why murder is legal.
- KON_Air 9y agoWell isn't it if the organization is large enough?
- emiliobumachar 9y agoThat's not a good argument in favor or against any particular policy.
- 2ion 9y agoUnsustainable (human) populations should shrink, which is alright and can't happen fast enough. A pragmatic and realist approach to demographic management, long overdue by today, I think, was last workable on a large scale in China (1-Child-Policy) and is never going to be effectively implemented again unless a major collapse happens. Ideally, that collapse would be local to areas where pressure on resources is especially high and the cost to civilization is relatively low, like in Africa, so that humanity overall can develop further.
- cup-of-tea 9y agoIf you're planning to have children, they might not be able to see a giraffe in their life. Think about that for a moment.
- Falling3 9y agoWhile I understand (and agree with to some extent) the sentiment, I hate that this is the first and most prevalent argument. Instead of worrying about the loss of individuals that make up a species, the concern always seems to be what humans are going to miss out on being able to look. If we focused more on valuing the individual organisms and how we interact with them, then maybe we wouldn't get into this position so frequently.
- cup-of-tea 9y agoDefinitely agree with you, but if people can't even change their lifestyle for their own children I don't think they're going to do it for giraffes.
- thaumaturgy 9y agoIn "What You Should Know About Politics ... But Don't", these two points of view are labeled "environmental moralists" and "environmental utilitarians". For the most part, the goals remain the same, but the reasons given for those goals are different. Things tend to break down a bit when utilitarians try to force moralists to adopt their view, or vice-versa. In the end, it should just be sufficient to have some reason to care about the environment.
- k__ 9y agoWhy should we mourn the loss of a species? We lost species all the time, it's a normal part of evolution. Also, why is it sadder that humans lead to their extinction than when other species extinct each other?
- QuotedForTruth 9y agoThe ridiculous rate at which it is happening is not a normal part of evolution. It is the 6th great extinction event known. [1] Its "sadder" because its preventable. Humans are self aware and know that we are causing this. If we change our behavior it wont happen. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
- lgleason 9y agoSome sub-species are dwindling and others are thriving, there are farms in South Africa where they are raised, not unlike how you raise other animals for food consumption and then they do the whole trophy hunting thing with some of them. The hunting funds the the efforts to care for and breed the animals. Depending on the value of the Animals, farmers will spend big money on the care of the animals because there is profit to be made from it. Given how corrupt the governments are in that part of the world and the poverty this may be one of the only realistic options for preserving some species. When the population doesn't have the basics, let alone disposable income, funding for conservation tends to be de-prioritized.
- aphextron 9y ago> Given how corrupt the governments are in that part of the world and the poverty this may be one of the only realistic options for preserving some species. When the population doesn't have the basics, let alone disposable income, funding for conservation tends to be de-prioritized. I wish more people could understand this. Hunters paying for high dollar trophy hunts are literally the only thing keeping African megafauna from total extinction at this point. It may hurt for someone who loves animals in a "Disney" sense to understand this, but most hunters have a far deeper love, respect, and appreciation for the natural world than any new age "environmentalist". We (hunters) have been doing this work for generations now, and it's not pretty. Not everything can be turned into a touchy feely bumper sticker that agrees with your political stance. The reality is that wild animals are a natural resource which must be carefully managed if they are to continue existing.
- NiklasMort 9y agoCan't understand how people still deny that there are simply way too many humans on this planet. We need population control asap otherwise this will only end up in the worst humanitarian and ecological catastrophe ever imagined. Edit: Love the downvotes, where is this anthropocentric bias coming from? it's absolutely illogical and irrational, look at the situation neutral, replace humans with another species, we kill certain animals if they overpopulate areas and cause other species harm, so how are we any different? your cognitive dissonance most likely only stems from society's norms or religiously induced moral standards
- abpavel 9y agoComing from a human?
- NiklasMort 9y agoSo? I wouldn't have kids, putting kids in this world seems like one of the most egoistical and damaging things one can do. I'd volunteer for a vasectomy (if freely provided by the gov)
- vlunkr 9y agoGood thing your parents didn't think the way you do huh?
- NiklasMort 9y agothat's literally "ad hominem" & what kind of answer you want to hear now? a) yes I wish too b) lucky me ? in either case it doesn't provide any good points to a solution
- vlunkr 9y agoSaying that putting children in the world is the most egotistical thing you can do seems like an ad hominem to me, so we'll call it even.
- jarcoal 9y agoCompassion and foresight are in short supply these days.
- throwawaymanbot 9y agoTo save Africa's flora and fauna, would the US and EU (as the richest areas on the planet) be willing to take Africans to their country in order to stop the destruction?
- jannyfer 9y agoCan we add (2016) to the title?
- sctb 9y agoYes we can! Thanks.
- Sir_Substance 9y agoExcept that they aren't on the endangered species list, they are on the vulnerable species list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffe This has been your regular reminder that "endangered" is a technical term with a specific meaning, and that misusing it makes it harder to focus global resources on species that are actually endangered. Thank you for your attention, please return to freedom and consumption.
- martey 9y agoFrom the Wikipedia article you mentioned: > Two subspecies, the West African giraffe and the Rothschild giraffe, have been classified as endangered, as wild populations of each of them number in the hundreds.
- scott_karana 9y agoOkay, so two of nine extant subspecies are endangered... And the other seven are not.
- Sir_Substance 9y agoAnd also, to call Marty out on not reading the article, the first paragraph of TFA makes it clear and obvious that the article agrees with my interpretation and knew it's headline was factually incorrect, but chose sensationalism anyway: >announced yesterday that it was moving the giraffe from a species of Least Concern to Vulnerable status in its Red List of Threatened Species report. That means the animal faces extinction in the wild in the medium-term future if nothing is done to minimize the threats to its life or habitat. The next steps are endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild and extinct.
- mirimir 9y agoYes, it's bizarre that the article's title is falsified in the first paragraph. But maybe the title is using "endangered" in a nontechnical way.
- wufufufu 9y agoSolutions (not all serious): 1. Paid trophy hunting where proceeds go towards reservations 2. Make giraffe burgers common and desirable so we have giraffe farms for manufacturing giraffe meat 3. Domesticate giraffes and make them the new dog/cat 4. Similar to #3, progressively breed smaller and smaller giraffes so they're hardier, take less space, and can eat anything. Make them the new deer (how deer are viewed in the US).
- mrnobody_67 9y agoArguably chickens and cows are an incredibly successful species because of the economic incentives for food production....
- pvaldes 9y agoBut we enjoy the 1% of the rainforests in what wild red fowl live. After feeding billions of humans, men, women and children, we are still so ungrateful that had not granted this species an international "earth-treasure" park for the protection of the chicken and all other species in the same ecosystem. Bos primigenius are now extinct, and we left for die the last real wild horse in Poland after chasing it toward a hole and breaking their legs.
- nroets 9y agoThis article (and most comments here) assumes that all African countries are the same. Hans Rosling of gapminder made it clear how different they are. South Africa is very dependent on tourism. And it's not just SA National Parks. The municipality of Tshwane/Pretoria has reintroduced giraffe and other herbivores into some of its reserves. And now it collects more revenue from ticket sales and property tax.
- 0x737368 9y agoI know this opinion is probably going to be wildly unpopular on an engineering-centred newsfeed, but most of our problems could be solved by going back to a more primitive lifestyle or at least trying to emulate it. So far ever since we tried to solve a problem with technology a multitude of new ones have sprung in their place. Solve lack of food - people form progressively larger living spaces until disease wipes them out. Solve disease by using medicine - the disease mutates until we have no more antibiotics to prevent it. If nothing kills us off we start multiplying exponentially until climate change and pollution reach levels incompatible with life. And to what end? From what I see most people living in the developed world have a pretty uninspiring lifestyle - sedentary, devoid of meaning(probably less relevant here since most people here are brimming with enthusiasm for their job, but that is not the case for most people), depressed and isolated. On the flipside of such benefits as buying meat in supermarkets and Netflix-watching leisure we're ruining the climate, killing off most living creatures that we have no use for and condemning most of the ones that we do need to a life that is most unenviable to put it lightly, and consequently tightening the noose around our necks ever tighter. For the majority of the homo sapiens' history we were hunter-gatherers and were doing fine because that is how we were designed by nature. Because our population didn't spiral out of control or was at least tempered by the amount of food, our hunting and gathering didn't throw whole ecosystems out of balance. Small communities offered close relationships that are rare to find now in our multi-million strong cities. Hard conditions permitted for only the most fit to survive so there was no need for extreme medical intervention. I find this whole narrative parallels how when people who grow tired of cities and go into the forest to try out that lifestyle at first completely disregard, say, the Native American's techniques to build houses and try to build cottages until a tree almost kills them when it barberchairs and even if they do manage to build something that resembles what they're used to they have to abandon it quickly because it's just hard to build and maintain, doesn't go well with fire and so on. Then over trial-and-error they eventually come back to the original Native American design because it was tried for millennia and can't be improved any further. So this very much reminds me how now everyone says how sitting is bad for you - yeah, no wonder. Or how the obesity sky-rocketed when some unscrupulous or ill-advised agencies decided to recommend that ridiculous amount of carbohydrates and sugars aren't bad for you, but fats are. The physique and athletic ability that so many people strive for by going to the gym was effortless for hunter-gatherers because they didn't overeat and physical activity were a part of their daily life(not to say that hunting all day is effortless, just the physique came as a by-product of surviving). Of course, our population has grown much too large for everyone to go into the forests, so we've kind of screwed ourselves already by burning that bridge, however I think we can at least steer humanity in the right direction by looking at where we came from and trying to chart our future path using that.
- rhemgla_corp 9y agoRIP giraffes! Here is a link to a zoo livestream showing giraffes: https://2no.co/1QyvB6 https://2no.co/1QyvB6
- emiliobumachar 9y agoI'll suggest again that we should legalize fraud in some narrow cases regarding faking endangered animal parts. Let startups and big corporations manufacture convincing fake shark fins, rhino horns and giraffe tails, and mail it to anyone who would try their luck passing it off as the real thing.
- magoghm 9y agoIt seems that if you use Microsoft Azure for image recognition you would come to the conclusion that there are giraffe's everywhere: http://aiweirdness.com/post/171451900302/do-neural-nets-dream-of-electric-sheep http://aiweirdness.com/post/171451900302/do-neural-nets-drea... Maybe it's because Microsoft worked on a project to help conservationists protect giraffes: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/machinelearning/2016/04/11/how-microsoft-is-helping-conservationists-protect-the-masai-giraffe/ https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/machinelearning/2016/04/... This might be an example of how a specialized dataset that was used to train an AI for a specific task, was later taken as part of another dataset to train a more general AI and the result was an AI with a "distorted view" of the world.