4 ms·

I think the funniest part of this story is how much Portugal spends on the corpse removal & burning. The vultures do the job for free! Another example of this

I think the funniest part of this story is how much Portugal spends on the corpse removal & burning. The vultures do the job for free! Another example of this is in The Biggest Little Farm. The farmers have a problem with gophers. The "traditional" ways of handling gophers are all very expensive or have bad side effects. They figure out that if they attract owls to their farm by building owl houses, the owls take care of the gophers. Both of those are good examples of letting nature work for you, rather than you trying to work against nature. For humans to have a sustainable future for tens of thousands of more years, I think we need to figure out how to work side-by-side with nature rather than try to bend nature to our will.

rozab 7y ago
It reminds me of an article posted on HN a while back [0] about how zebra mussels have helped clean up Lake Erie. It's written by a modern druid, who laments that humans so often avoid the ecological solutions mother nature has provided us. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20359876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20359876
- selectodude 7y ago
  And then birds and fish eat the dead zebra mussels and die of heavy metal poisoning. It's a solution, but it's not a very good one.
- eric_h 7y ago
  > zebra mussels have helped clean up Lake Erie [...] modern druid, who laments that humans so often avoid the ecological solutions mother nature has provided us. Zebra mussels are an invasive species that were transported to Lake Erie (and the rest of the Great Lakes) via unnatural and unintentional methods. They also make murky water more clear which does not have anything to do with how clean or healthy a body of water is. They're more like cane toads in Australia than the restoration of the wolf population in Yellowstone. But apparently they make for bigger salmon in Lake Ontario https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87843464 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=878434... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- pvaldes 7y ago
  I doubt that clogging our drinking water pipes and blocking the refrigeration system of electric and nuclear plants would count as solution by modern non-magical people.
- Smoosh 7y ago
  Beware the unintended consequences. Australia is still ruing the introduction of the cane toad, which was introduced to the country as a biological control mechanism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia
DoingIsLearning 7y ago
I think there is some historic background here as well. You had brucellosis scares in Portugal with a lot of media coverage, which lead to quite a few human brucellosis cases and several sheep and goats exterminated in containment measures. I have no evidence that these are related but the corpse collection could be an over the top measure by the regulatory authorities to stop brucellosis disease vectors.

rozab 7y ago

It reminds me of an article posted on HN a while back [0] about how zebra mussels have helped clean up Lake Erie. It's written by a modern druid, who laments that humans so often avoid the ecological solutions mother nature has provided us. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20359876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20359876

selectodude 7y ago
And then birds and fish eat the dead zebra mussels and die of heavy metal poisoning. It's a solution, but it's not a very good one.
eric_h 7y ago
> zebra mussels have helped clean up Lake Erie [...] modern druid, who laments that humans so often avoid the ecological solutions mother nature has provided us. Zebra mussels are an invasive species that were transported to Lake Erie (and the rest of the Great Lakes) via unnatural and unintentional methods. They also make murky water more clear which does not have anything to do with how clean or healthy a body of water is. They're more like cane toads in Australia than the restoration of the wolf population in Yellowstone. But apparently they make for bigger salmon in Lake Ontario https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87843464 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=878434... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
pvaldes 7y ago
I doubt that clogging our drinking water pipes and blocking the refrigeration system of electric and nuclear plants would count as solution by modern non-magical people.
Smoosh 7y ago
Beware the unintended consequences. Australia is still ruing the introduction of the cane toad, which was introduced to the country as a biological control mechanism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia

DoingIsLearning 7y ago

I think there is some historic background here as well. You had brucellosis scares in Portugal with a lot of media coverage, which lead to quite a few human brucellosis cases and several sheep and goats exterminated in containment measures. I have no evidence that these are related but the corpse collection could be an over the top measure by the regulatory authorities to stop brucellosis disease vectors.