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If we spoke to someone 1000 years ago and told them in the future we've eradicated bears and wolves, they'd think the boar problem would pale in insignificance

If we spoke to someone 1000 years ago and told them in the future we've eradicated bears and wolves, they'd think the boar problem would pale in insignificance to the triumph of removing bears and wolves. I'm not saying extinction is a good thing, but contextually it sounds weird to talk about us suffering from large issues from eradicating those predators.

LoSboccacc 8y ago
heck, around here our grandpas did a large fest out of killing the last wolf around their village.
pvaldes 8y ago
When big predators are wiped, medium sized predators explode, big herbivores explode taking all plants and soil and finally many types of diseases will take the place targetting humans.
ceejayoz 8y ago
Maybe "let's ask someone from a thousand years ago" isn't the best way to manage an ecosystem. Hell, ask someone in the 1950s if smoking is dangerous and you'll see the faults in the approach.
- verbify 8y ago
  My response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18309857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18309857
jaegerpicker 8y ago
If you spoke to someone 1000 years ago, they would also believe the earth is flat, diseases are caused by humors and bloodletting could cure the cold, and that it was ok to burn heretics at the stake. You might have heard but we have progressed a little in the last 1000 years, maybe taking their advice about science based decisions isn't a good plan?
- verbify 8y ago
  I think you're waving away my point. I was trying to say that people 1000 years ago disliked bears and wolves because people would die. Roads weren't safe. The problems with boars pale in significance to the problems bears and wolves caused. OP said "we're currently having large issue in Europe for having eradicated most boars' natural predators" - but these issues aren't larger than the problems that boars' natural predators caused, which would've been obvious to anyone who lived at a time when they still existed.
  - jaegerpicker 8y ago
    I’m not waving away your point, I’m saying your point isn’t a good one to consider in the context of the discussion about eco-systems. The problems with boars in NO way pales to the problems that bears and wolves cause. In an unbalanced eco-system boars (or deer or elk) cause massive problems to the whole system, eating certain plants to local extinction, destroying crops, boars themselves are extremely dangerous to people, large populations carry and mutate diseases that easily transfer to both human and livestock populations, etc... Simply put people 1000 years ago didn’t understand science or the larger world around them in th way we do. They weren’t stupid and they lived in the natural world the most of us don’t now but that knowledge only goes so far. Making modern eco-systems decisions based on the “wisdom” of 1000 years ago is a horrible idea and the issues that removing boars natural predators cause are in fact much MUCH larger than co-existing with those predators.

LoSboccacc 8y ago

heck, around here our grandpas did a large fest out of killing the last wolf around their village.

pvaldes 8y ago

When big predators are wiped, medium sized predators explode, big herbivores explode taking all plants and soil and finally many types of diseases will take the place targetting humans.

ceejayoz 8y ago

Maybe "let's ask someone from a thousand years ago" isn't the best way to manage an ecosystem. Hell, ask someone in the 1950s if smoking is dangerous and you'll see the faults in the approach.

verbify 8y ago
My response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18309857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18309857

jaegerpicker 8y ago

If you spoke to someone 1000 years ago, they would also believe the earth is flat, diseases are caused by humors and bloodletting could cure the cold, and that it was ok to burn heretics at the stake. You might have heard but we have progressed a little in the last 1000 years, maybe taking their advice about science based decisions isn't a good plan?

verbify 8y ago
I think you're waving away my point. I was trying to say that people 1000 years ago disliked bears and wolves because people would die. Roads weren't safe. The problems with boars pale in significance to the problems bears and wolves caused. OP said "we're currently having large issue in Europe for having eradicated most boars' natural predators" - but these issues aren't larger than the problems that boars' natural predators caused, which would've been obvious to anyone who lived at a time when they still existed.
- jaegerpicker 8y ago
  I’m not waving away your point, I’m saying your point isn’t a good one to consider in the context of the discussion about eco-systems. The problems with boars in NO way pales to the problems that bears and wolves cause. In an unbalanced eco-system boars (or deer or elk) cause massive problems to the whole system, eating certain plants to local extinction, destroying crops, boars themselves are extremely dangerous to people, large populations carry and mutate diseases that easily transfer to both human and livestock populations, etc... Simply put people 1000 years ago didn’t understand science or the larger world around them in th way we do. They weren’t stupid and they lived in the natural world the most of us don’t now but that knowledge only goes so far. Making modern eco-systems decisions based on the “wisdom” of 1000 years ago is a horrible idea and the issues that removing boars natural predators cause are in fact much MUCH larger than co-existing with those predators.