6 ms·

Statement about the 480M animals killed in NSW bushfires since September

32 points by vo2maxer 7y ago

anotheryou 7y ago
Can someone tell me how quick and easily nature can bounce back? I guess the speed of tree growth might be a bottleneck.
- cyorir 7y ago
  This question is complicated by the presence of other ongoing pressures, such as climate change. Realistically, nature won't just "bounce back" to the way it used to be because of these ongoing changes.
- donavanm 7y ago
  Unknown, but unlikely in relevant time scales. The fires have been much larger and hotter than typical. The vegetation that does regrow probably wont be the same as we lost, ie pyrophillic scrubland replacing forrest. The fires are also destructive enough to destroy pyrophytic plants that would resist previous bushfires. Both of these are going to disrupt the regrowth of the ecosystem in unexpected/abnormal ways. Concern is that it leads to a long term cycle of more, hotter, larger fires and permanent habitat loss. Edit: as a comparison I was just out on the tasman penninsula which burned in 2013. It was doing well enough, with medium sized trees and full ground cover.
- cmdshiftf4 7y ago
  >I guess the speed of tree growth might be a bottleneck. Also depends on what grows back in their place. For example, re-forestation efforts in places like Ireland have lead to an "ecological dead zone" [0] due to the choice of the trees that have been planted, the Sitka spruce and its sheddings offering or removing habitable areas for animals to prosper. Without an expensive and concerted effort to clear the floors of ash and re-plant animal-friendly, indigenous fauna I would imagine we won't see much of a recovery in our lifetimes, if ever. [0]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/trees-ireland-biodiversity-sitka-birds-extinction https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/trees-...
  - perilunar 7y ago
    This is Australian bush we are talking about: there won't be any ash clearing or replanting. The indigenous flora will regrow by itself.
- xenospn 7y ago
  Out here (Southern CA) we had devastating fires. We used to have thousands of rabbits. A year later and they’re still gone. And they’re supposed to be the first ones to bounce back.
- Tomminn 7y ago
  One of the problems is the bounce back is not evenly distributed. The fastest breeding animals bounce back fast, the slow breeding animals take hundreds to thousands of years, if they ever recover at all.
cyorir 7y ago
"The figure includes mammals, birds and reptiles and does not include insects, bats or frogs." I wonder what the figure for just mammals would be.
geddy 7y ago
Ironically, hundreds of billions of animals are killed every year for food, contributing massively to climate change, which is the root cause of these massive fires. But no one seems to care about _those_ animals. EDIT: This was linked below which further illustrates my point: https://twitter.com/mbeisen/status/1212959832522625024?s=21 https://twitter.com/mbeisen/status/1212959832522625024?s=21 "if you find the death of 500,000,000 mammals, birds and reptiles in weeks of australia wildfires mind blowing and horrifying, note that more were killed worldwide for food in the same period of time - and these facts are not unlinked"
- deanCommie 7y ago
  1) That's not ironic 2) Do you not see the massive obvious difference between killing an animal with a PURPOSE (sustenance), vs ones that die completely without any side benefit? 3) Plenty of people care about animals being killed for food. That's why there is continuous progress and campaigns to A) change how they are raised (more humanely), B) how they are killed (ditto), C) reduce overall consumption of meat by meat eaters, and D) change entire diets to cut out meat entirely. 4) The animals killed for food are MOSTLY (exceptions - certain forms of hunting and fishing) raised for that purpose, and therefore their populations and species are entirely sustainable. The animals that died in wildfires are wild ecosystems, some of which may not recover (see: Koala population)
  - geddy 7y ago
    The irony I see is that people suddenly care about animals being killed for no purpose. Regarding your #2, no, it is not a necessity to raise and slaughter animals. You can survive just fine on an entirely plant-based diet. It's detrimental to the world which is literally on fire right now. To add to this, there is no sustainable way we can raise them "more humanely" as the population increases and countries like China raise the demand exponentially. Factory farming exists for a reason. Regarding #3, there is no way to humanely raise an animal only to kill it unjustifiably. If we needed them to survive, that would be a different story. But we do not. #4, I don't even know what point you're trying to make here.
growlist 7y ago
I was downvoted a few days ago for saying I hoped people weren't starting fires deliberately. Turns out they were.
- rstuart4133 7y ago
  Of course they were starting them deliberately. They always have. It's a constant you have to accept - like dry lightening and other ignition sources. You were probably down voted because the radical fringe in Australia have been saying people lighting fires is the cause of them problem, not climate change. It's not a popular sentiment in Australia right now. The entire country has had a gut full of climate tensions being cynically exploited by our politicians to further their political careers.
  - growlist 7y ago
    Cui bono? The climate catastrophe crowd have jumped all over it as a propaganda tool.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Surely the heat and dryness are symptomatic of the climate (define the climate?) Fires are inevitable. Its the conditions on the ground that make for different results. I'd say, we can look for this type of catastrophe worldwide from here on.

32 points by vo2maxer 7y ago

Can someone tell me how quick and easily nature can bounce back? I guess the speed of tree growth might be a bottleneck.

cyorir 7y ago
This question is complicated by the presence of other ongoing pressures, such as climate change. Realistically, nature won't just "bounce back" to the way it used to be because of these ongoing changes.
donavanm 7y ago
Unknown, but unlikely in relevant time scales. The fires have been much larger and hotter than typical. The vegetation that does regrow probably wont be the same as we lost, ie pyrophillic scrubland replacing forrest. The fires are also destructive enough to destroy pyrophytic plants that would resist previous bushfires. Both of these are going to disrupt the regrowth of the ecosystem in unexpected/abnormal ways. Concern is that it leads to a long term cycle of more, hotter, larger fires and permanent habitat loss. Edit: as a comparison I was just out on the tasman penninsula which burned in 2013. It was doing well enough, with medium sized trees and full ground cover.
cmdshiftf4 7y ago
>I guess the speed of tree growth might be a bottleneck. Also depends on what grows back in their place. For example, re-forestation efforts in places like Ireland have lead to an "ecological dead zone" [0] due to the choice of the trees that have been planted, the Sitka spruce and its sheddings offering or removing habitable areas for animals to prosper. Without an expensive and concerted effort to clear the floors of ash and re-plant animal-friendly, indigenous fauna I would imagine we won't see much of a recovery in our lifetimes, if ever. [0]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/trees-ireland-biodiversity-sitka-birds-extinction https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/trees-...
- perilunar 7y ago
  This is Australian bush we are talking about: there won't be any ash clearing or replanting. The indigenous flora will regrow by itself.
xenospn 7y ago
Out here (Southern CA) we had devastating fires. We used to have thousands of rabbits. A year later and they’re still gone. And they’re supposed to be the first ones to bounce back.
Tomminn 7y ago
One of the problems is the bounce back is not evenly distributed. The fastest breeding animals bounce back fast, the slow breeding animals take hundreds to thousands of years, if they ever recover at all.

cyorir 7y ago

"The figure includes mammals, birds and reptiles and does not include insects, bats or frogs." I wonder what the figure for just mammals would be.

geddy 7y ago

Ironically, hundreds of billions of animals are killed every year for food, contributing massively to climate change, which is the root cause of these massive fires. But no one seems to care about _those_ animals. EDIT: This was linked below which further illustrates my point: https://twitter.com/mbeisen/status/1212959832522625024?s=21 https://twitter.com/mbeisen/status/1212959832522625024?s=21 "if you find the death of 500,000,000 mammals, birds and reptiles in weeks of australia wildfires mind blowing and horrifying, note that more were killed worldwide for food in the same period of time - and these facts are not unlinked"

deanCommie 7y ago
1) That's not ironic 2) Do you not see the massive obvious difference between killing an animal with a PURPOSE (sustenance), vs ones that die completely without any side benefit? 3) Plenty of people care about animals being killed for food. That's why there is continuous progress and campaigns to A) change how they are raised (more humanely), B) how they are killed (ditto), C) reduce overall consumption of meat by meat eaters, and D) change entire diets to cut out meat entirely. 4) The animals killed for food are MOSTLY (exceptions - certain forms of hunting and fishing) raised for that purpose, and therefore their populations and species are entirely sustainable. The animals that died in wildfires are wild ecosystems, some of which may not recover (see: Koala population)
- geddy 7y ago
  The irony I see is that people suddenly care about animals being killed for no purpose. Regarding your #2, no, it is not a necessity to raise and slaughter animals. You can survive just fine on an entirely plant-based diet. It's detrimental to the world which is literally on fire right now. To add to this, there is no sustainable way we can raise them "more humanely" as the population increases and countries like China raise the demand exponentially. Factory farming exists for a reason. Regarding #3, there is no way to humanely raise an animal only to kill it unjustifiably. If we needed them to survive, that would be a different story. But we do not. #4, I don't even know what point you're trying to make here.

growlist 7y ago

I was downvoted a few days ago for saying I hoped people weren't starting fires deliberately. Turns out they were.

rstuart4133 7y ago
Of course they were starting them deliberately. They always have. It's a constant you have to accept - like dry lightening and other ignition sources. You were probably down voted because the radical fringe in Australia have been saying people lighting fires is the cause of them problem, not climate change. It's not a popular sentiment in Australia right now. The entire country has had a gut full of climate tensions being cynically exploited by our politicians to further their political careers.
- growlist 7y ago
  Cui bono? The climate catastrophe crowd have jumped all over it as a propaganda tool.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Surely the heat and dryness are symptomatic of the climate (define the climate?) Fires are inevitable. Its the conditions on the ground that make for different results. I'd say, we can look for this type of catastrophe worldwide from here on.