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Komodo Island Is Closing to Tourists Because People Are Stealing Dragons
- crushcrashcrush 8y agoThe article makes no mention of who’s doing the poaching or where they’re shipped to. I’m sure we can make some educated guesses. Hint: it ain’t America or Europe.
- whymauri 8y agoWhy is this relevant?
- crushcrashcrush 8y agoBecause it’s an important detail to the story. Where is the demand coming from?
- whymauri 8y agoSorry, the tone seemed accusatory in your original post. As if the US and Europe were somehow morally above poaching, but I understand that is not the intention.
- babyslothzoo 8y agoYou work at MIT and you're asking why questions are relevant?
- RobertRoberts 8y agoI think it could be reworded like this: "Does anyone know if they are catching the criminals that steal the animals, and where they are being exported to?" Unfortunately, this would likely devolving into arguments similar to the plastic pollution in the ocean. When we know it's all the same countries doing the crimes, it looks like some kind of racism or stereotyping. So either we ignore who the culprits are or we can be mature and civily discuss why these same country's culture seem to thrive on certain consistent destructive behaviors.
- droithomme 8y ago> the plastic pollution in the ocean I read in the press that the Philippines is one of the primary producers of plastic pollutants that doom the oceans. Example: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47608949 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47608949 It's an amazing claim that that modest sized country was the source of much of the global problems given that plastic bags and six-pack rings etc are routinely used across the globe. Maybe it's true. Perhaps Filipinos are vastly more likely to discard plastic bags than most of the rest of the world. But how were these assessments and rankings really made?
- hc8bn1 8y agoAnother hint: epicanthic fold.
- engineerworks 8y agoAmerican, European, Arabs do routinely buy these exotic animals to keep them as pets. But most of these are used for traditional Chinese medicine.
- microtherion 8y agoKomodo dragons would seem to be very poor choices as pets. Fast, aggressive, not very affectionate, and their bites can cause major septic problems: http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,133163,00.html http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,133163,00.h...
- tomhoward 8y agoI can't find any reports of Komodo dragons being used in Chinese medicine. I can find news reports from 2017 of discoveries that compounds found in Komodo blood could have medical applications as an antibiotic, but I can find no mentions of it having started to be used in Chinese medicine. Can you point to any evidence for this?
- chewz 8y agoCarmine offers Clark the opportunity to make a lot of money just for running small errands. The first is to pick up a Komodo dragon from JFK Airport and transport it to a specific address. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freshman_(1990_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freshman_(1990_film)
- babyslothzoo 8y agoWho is stealing them? Why? For what purpose? Who is buying? What an impressively useless article void of any important information. For those wondering, it's for hocus-pocus "traditional" medicinal nonsense elsewhere in Asia, like Traditional Chinese Medicine, which is solely driving many global species to extinction. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/indonesia-foils-illegal-facebook-sale-of-komodo-dragons-11385886 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/indonesia-foils-il... Anyway, Komodo is very remote and there's no easy trip there and back, it's either a multi-day seasick inducing trip from Bali or a puddle jumper over to Flores before riding a boat for a couple of hours so you can watch a guide toss some meat slop at the lizards and maybe push one away with a stick if it gets too close. Hard to imagine how closing the area off to tourists is going to help anything.
- crushcrashcrush 8y agoI made the same roundabout point below but I feared coming across sinophobic.
- babyslothzoo 8y agoI know. But acknowledging that some glorified voodoo like Traditional Chinese Medicine is singlehandedly driving many species to extinction is merely acknowledging a well known fact. Anyway, I lived in China for a while. The sale of endangered species is rampant and in open display all over the country. TCM is still a huge part of culture for much of the population, arguably more so than ever with the growing middle class. Even something as nonsensical as bear bile cough drops are as routine to many as something like taking Dayquil is to a westerner.
- droithomme 8y agoYour post is sinophobic and racist because it's not based in facts but rather on your desire to push a false narrative. Komodos are NOT used in TCM at all, ever, end of story. I'll pay you $150,000 for proof Komodos are being shipped to China for use in TCM. Accept or deny within 12 hrs of my post with your financial information and binding contractual agreement because if you fail to deliver proof you get to pay me $100,000. It's a fair wager since you are so incredibly confident the inane and vile racism you spout are facts. Put up or shut up. If you have proof I'll pay you and apologize and I'll even come to wherever you are and wash and detail your car. Accept? I don't know who is stealing Komodos. Based on the price it's probably not the redneck meth makers who keep pitbulls and mountain lions. I'd suspect Saudi Arabians and UAE and Kuwait folks who love to keep bad-ass animals. In their case the animal will have a comfy life but that doesn't mean it's what's best for the animal and it's probably not. edit: massive downvoting and flagging. Rather than a super easy $150,000 pay out if parent post can prove his extremist racist claims. Flagging and downvoting instead of proof. It's what I expected. The offer stands. And why does HN allow racism like parent post to stand when it can't even provide proof when are called out and highly incentivized to document their racist claims.
- philwelch 8y agoAre they poaching the dragons or stealing them while they're still alive? Usually you'd say "poaching" or "illegally hunting" or something if that's what it was, but stealing a live Komodo dragon sounds like a foolhardy endeavor.
- devoply 8y ago> The lizards were selling for about $35,000 (500 million rupiah) each. Sounds to me like they should be farming these things. 100 animals is 3.5 million. Not a bad way to make money.
- ni-hil 8y agoIf you start farming them the price won’t stay $35k for long
- devoply 8y agoI think they are very difficult to breed hence why farming is not common. Indonesia a pretty poor country so labor and land should be cheap. Whatever you have to do to get them to breed... you could figure it out.
- wavefunction 8y agoApparently... leave them alone. Unfortunately the simplest messages seem to be the hardest for humans to understand.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- avip 8y agoKomodo Dragons are notoriously reluctant to breed in captivity. There have been ~200 born in captivity the last 20 years, making the economics of your Dragons farm questionable.
- tomrod 8y ago
- village-idiot 8y agoAnother case of “this is why we can’t have nice things”.
- james_s_tayler 8y agoAt some point I think we just need to accept it. We can't have nice things.
- Defenestresque 8y agoAs a bit of an aside, I posted a comment [0] on Reddit when this was posted yesterday. It links to a gallery with a lot of interesting info about Komodo dragons. Like me, you probably have at least a few false beliefs about Komodo dragons (such as the fact that they are slow scavengers, or that they are venomous or use bacteria to poison animals before waiting for them to die). Anyone curious should check out this amazing gallery of pics/videos and captions that really blew my mind and totally changed my perception of this fearsome lizard! [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/b8joz9/komodo_island_is_reportedly_closing_until_2020/ejyd1uu/ https://old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/b8joz9/komodo_island_... [1] https://imgur.com/gallery/RUeB9 https://imgur.com/gallery/RUeB9 (credit: theitinerantnaturalist on imgur)
- justaguyhere 8y agoThere was a video on /r/natureismetal, I watched about 10 seconds before fast forwarding - bunch of dragons munching on a deer, while it is still alive :( These are scary animals! They do look cool though
- Defenestresque 8y agoOh yeah, that's this one [0] I believe. I just realized its age-restricted. Definitely NSFW/L! [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPBiLXp5Uj8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPBiLXp5Uj8
- justaguyhere 8y agoI intentionally didn't link it :( Warning to those who want to watch : it is horrible, and I just watched a few seconds. Really, don't watch it if you can't see nature in its most raw form
- koboll 8y agoAs horrific as that video is, it leaves me with so many questions. How did the deer stay alive so long? Why didn't it scream / fight more? What caused it to kick into survival mode right at the end, seconds before death?
- charliebrownau 8y agoSo an Island with a huge amount of certain animal Refuse to arrest and jail people for illegally hunting/pouching Refuse to ask for help from other countries Refuse to hire security staff
- paulcole 8y agoSeems like putting the dragons on some type of block chain might be a possible solution? Sounds like a fun weekend hack!
- gravelc 8y agoThat's very sad. Stayed in Flores and went to Komodo Island on my honeymoon. The dragons are amazing and was fortunate enough to see fully-grown males have a battle for dominance. The ranger's carry a long branch with a fork in it to defend themselves (by catching the dragon's neck in the fork). Dragons are smart enough to catch things like goats, so they are a danger to adult humans - more by sneaking up rather than a frontal attack. Wouldn't be too much of a challenge to take one unfortunately. They're usually quite hungry (lots of them hang around the rangers' hut waiting to be fed), so setting a trap with a piece of meat in it would work with little danger to the operator if they were careful.
- BucketSort 8y agoIs this Reddit now?
- lyxsus1 8y agofor a while now, yes
- abyssin 8y agoWhere can I find a place that feels more like it was here five years ago?
- tekkk 8y agoExcellent question, I too think that the comment and perhaps post quality has somewhat deteriorared. To me it's the inane comments that don't add anything which bother me the most. And I don't want to start downvoting everyone for doing that but still, I'd much rather read some deep and thought-provoking observations than remarks such as "that's interesting" or even worse, puns. But I guess this is what happens with all services when they start to get "main-stream" and start to become diluted by the masses. Without sounding too elitist, it's not all too terrible but you can see the difference between older posts comments and new.
- lyxsus1 8y agoWhat concerns me the most is a wave of people who don't like learning. It's the best part of our jobs! People are complaining about new languages, frameworks, platforms, features here more and more. There's always at least 1 post hanging in a top that is about "You don't really need X", which really says "If you're going to keep doing next 5 years what you've been doing last 5 years, don't bother", which as I suspect some read as "Relax, you don't need to bother about this tech, just memorise a few sentences to sound smart if asked about". It's HN. There's something new? Cool! You managed to serve 1000s users per second from linode $20 node? Awesome! How? What tradeoffs you had to do and where? You have a good idea on how to better make choices about your tech and created some nice decision tree chart? Thank you. Hope it's on github, we'd like to collaborate.
- 4ntonius8lock 8y agoWould it not make sense to instead of restrict all extraction put a number < what is extract up for sale each year at an exorbitant price in a highly regulated market? Then you can fund conservation. It would create an economic incentive for protection, since all parties would want to keep the cash cow alive (instead of this being more of a PR issue, which is how conservation is treated) In the US, much of national conservation came from hunting. Bullet taxes pay for it. It's a shame conversations about cold hard realities are driven by ideals and feelings and not trade offs.
- aphextron 8y agoThis is exactly how African game reserves work. It’s a fantastic system which provides life changing income to the locals, ensures a large thriving population of animals through conservation funding, cuts down on poaching, and lets trophy hunters partake in their sport legally and ethically. Yet Western animal rights activists lose their minds when Cecil the Lion is killed because they grew up watching Disney movies and have no conception of reality when it comes to conservation. In a perfect world of course we would want to provide funds to protect these animals without the need for killing. But the simple fact is that without managing them like a natural renewable resource akin to forestry, they simply would not exist. The number one way to ensure the survival of an animal species is to make its’ existence financially viable.
- sametmax 8y agoYeah, like paying protection for your restaurant from time to time to the mobsters instead of being totally burnt down. This way the local economy can rake off knowing you are safe. Win-win.
- 4ntonius8lock 8y agoLike with nuclear energy, we are stuck with bad options because most people see two options with pros and cons and decide to ignore all cons of one option, and all pros of another. There is nothing without pros and cons. It's just a matter of picking your poising. Most people don't want to think about that. So we get ruthless manipulators to sway masses. The masses meanwhile are adamant about making decisions and having a voice... while completely ignoring the reality out there. They want decisions made from the vantage point of what they feel with no real care about the real world consequences of what they choose.
- aaron695 8y ago>Komodo Island Is Closing to Tourists Because People Are Stealing Dragons No they are not. Smugglers are smuggling dragons (Well, one case anyway) and Komodo is being shutdown while they rehabilitate their environment. https://travel.tempo.co/read/1190380/wisata-pulau-komodo-ditutup-tahun-depan https://travel.tempo.co/read/1190380/wisata-pulau-komodo-dit... Sure the article might be technically correct, but it's very misleading. I'd also like a bipartisan look at whether breeding native animals for sale increases smuggling or not. It seems like one of the many BS tales people tell that has no actual proof but we all base policy on it.
- joduplessis 8y agoLooks like the Jurassic Park movies were allegorical after all. Go figure.
- vhold 8y agoPutting satellite communicating GPS tracking devices in Komodo dragons would probably be one of the best ways to locate non-super villain headquarters.
- petre 8y agoWhat do they do with them? Keep them around as pets? Stuff them? Make traditional Chinese meds out of them?
- miguelrochefort 8y agoI stayed in Bali for a month, 2 weeks ago. I considered going to Komodo Island but I thought I could go back later. Looks like I missed my chance.
- IndonesiaBased 8y agoMiguel you haven't there is a lot op misscommunication here. Komodo National Park is open! The people of Flores went on had a meeting with Vice President after rumors started about Komodo closing down, earlier this year. It is fake, it is not true! Marta Muslin says after meeting Mr Jusaf Kala the Vice President of Indonesia https://wickeddiving.com/2019/04/komodo-is-open/ https://wickeddiving.com/2019/04/komodo-is-open/
- skilled 8y agoWho needs dragons when you have the tech industry changing the World?
- IndonesiaBased 8y agoThe Director Gerneral of Nature Conservationa and Ecosystems, of the Ministry of Conservation and Forestry Mr Wiratno has announced in an official statement that te rumors of closing Komodo are not true. #Komodoisopen https://wickeddiving.com/2019/04/komodo-is-open/ https://wickeddiving.com/2019/04/komodo-is-open/
- TwoQ 8y agoPeople will not stop themselves when it comes to abusing and defiling nature. This is true of the general populace and all of us. We might not be stealing dragons, but bit by bit each of us contribute negatively. Eventually we will have to police one-another, be it through Government or through societal change and pressure.
- ocfnash 8y agoJust recently I learned that Komodo dragons have the unusual feature of being able to reproduce via parthenogenesis. This means that a female dragon, can become pregnant spontaneously! Apparently the cell which grows into the baby dragon is formed from an ordinary egg cell that duplicates each of its chromosomes rather than having a second set of chromosomes provided by a male sperm cell, as in sexual reproduction. It turns out that the Komodo sex determination system means the offspring are always male. I believe this means that the offspring are thus completely homozygous, though not clones of their mother because the egg chromosomes were formed by the usual meiosis. Even more amazing (I think) is that there are apparently some boa snakes which can also reproduce via parthenogenesis but whose sex determination system makes all offspring female. IIUC, if any of these daughters were also to reproduce via parthenogenesis, then their offspring would indeed be clones of their mothers. A sort of genetic end point.
- mikorym 8y agoThis occurs in other snake species as well, the documentation is not always complete, but there is evidence for adders and pythons. > It turns out that the Komodo sex determination system means the offspring are always male. Do you mean when it is not parthenogenenis? How does this work? EDIT: these are some of the snakes that I think it has been (partially) documented for: Copperhead Fur de Lance Some types of rattlesnakes Burmese Pythons Reticulated Pythons
- ocfnash 8y ago>> It turns out that the Komodo sex determination system means the offspring are always male. > Do you mean when it is _not_ parthenogenenis? How does this work? I mean all Komodo offspring produced by parthenogenenis are male even though offspring from usual sexual reproduction in Komodos can be either gender. The reason is that the Komodo sex determination system is logically opposite to that of mammals. Specifically, whereas in mammals, a pair of homologous sex chromosomes XX, produces a female, in Komodos this produces a male, ZZ. (Parthenogenenis means there is also the possibility of Komodo WW embryo but these are not viable.) Happy to hear someone else thinks this is interesting.