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Wildlife is reclaiming Yosemite National Park
- throwaway888abc 7y agoThat's so nice to read. Coral reefs, glaciers, many species ... https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/03/1059061 https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/03/1059061
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoIt’s happening all around the world. Places like India has seen a remarkable drop in pollution levels. People are able to see Himalayas for the first time from their homes near by. Everest gets a break from the climbers. And even Ganges is showing levels of purity never seen before : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/destinations/ganga-river-water-becomes-fit-for-drinking-in-haridwar-rishikesh-during-indias-lockdown/as75079848.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/destinations/gang... [..] When the ancient Yamuna River in Delhi has reached a remarkable level of purity due to the absence of industrial pollutants in the last many days of India-wide lockdown, how can River Ganga show its sparkling clear waters to the nation? Well, news has it that Ganga waters at Rishikesh and Haridwar have become very clean according to the observation made by BD Joshi, Environmental Scientist and Ex-professor at the Gurukul Kangri University. According to Joshi, it is after a long time that Ganga water has become good for achaman (ritual sipping) in Haridwar. Joshi also added that the cause behind cleaner Ganga water is a 500 per cent decrease in total dissolved solid (TDS), industrial effluent, dharmashalas, sewage from hotels and lodges. [..] Perhaps this is the solution when pollution markers reach a certain threshold. Shut down everything for a month.
- allannienhuis 7y agoor treat your effluent, or avoid it in the first place? Pretty sure it would cost less than shutting everything down...
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoWe would have done it already, no? Perhaps only punitive measures work. Pollution and environmental damage cannot be quantified ...it is invisible and we assume that it is a function of time. But it isn’t..it is because of consumption and population growth(which leads to more consumption)
- icebraining 7y ago> We would have done it already, no? No, lots of countries had a problem with water pollution, including the US (Tom Lehrer wrote a satire song in '65 on that issue[1]), and then they implemented measures to improve it. India can and will do the same, I'm sure. [1] https://youtu.be/nz_-KNNl-no?t=18 https://youtu.be/nz_-KNNl-no?t=18
- wh1t3n01s3 7y agoCome on, are you serious? This is capitalist BS. Side note: ‘improving pollution’ means more pollution, not less.
- wh1t3n01s3 7y agoEdit, I was wrong on the improving pollution side note, sorry. Anyway the capitalist consumism will pollute more than it can be improved...
- mensetmanusman 7y agoDramatically raise prices for travel, add lottery’s etc.
- WalterBright 7y ago> Everest gets a break from the climbers. As there's no wildlife to damage on Everest, I don't see a big problem with it being crushed by tourists.
- Someone 7y agoThere is life everywhere (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile#Classifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile#Classifications) including in boiling water, so why would there be no wildlife on Everest? A short search gave me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euophrys_omnisuperstes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euophrys_omnisuperstes: ”the Himalayan jumping spider, is a small jumping spider that lives at elevations of up to 6,700 m (22,000 ft) in the Himalayas, including Mount Everest, making it a candidate for the highest known permanent resident on Earth“ (That’s above the base camps on Everest)
- WalterBright 7y agoIf I meant there was absolutely no life on Everest, I would have written "absolutely no life" or "sterile". My point stands.
- jt2190 7y ago> "The bear population has quadrupled," said [Ahwahnee Hotel employee Dane] Peterson... > "It's not like they aren’t usually here," he said of the bears, bobcats and coyotes that he and other employees now see congregating outside their cabins and apartments. "It's that they usually hang back at the edges, or move in the shadows." Edit: The title used here omits the quotation marks of the article title, making it more misleading.
- jschwartzi 7y agoAs I discovered on an evening hike once when I encountered a few cougars.
- Loughla 7y agoSex jokes aside. . . How do you encounter 'a few cougars'? I've only ever run into them as single animals. They're very solitary.
- jschwartzi 7y agoIt was during the colder months. There were three of them on the path. I think it was a female and two adolescents. One of them tried to get closer to me by heading up the back of a hill. I threw a rock at it to deter it, then we turned around and headed back down. The eyes and the way it moved in the dark were very catlike. I've not seen any bears or coyotes that would move like that.
- weej 7y ago>"The bear population has quadrupled" Isn't this due to hibernation concluding and Spring arriving?
- hentrep 7y agoAs noted in the article, the headline is misleading. The population obviously hasn't quadrupled since Yosemite closed to visitors on March 20th. It is remarkable though to see how quickly wildlife is willing to re-enter areas that have historically been overrun with humans!
- ASalazarMX 7y agoI was going to ask how their bears reproduced so fast. Maybe they were waterbears.
- techopoly 7y agoThis is probably why rabbits have been getting abnormally bold in my yard lately...
- burlesona 7y agoYeah there are suddenly a lot of rabbits around me too. I suspect it’s the great decrease in cars running them over.
- wtvanhest 7y agoIt is probably because you are home instead of the office in springtime.
- outworlder 7y agoYou are lucky. Now I got Raccoons and Skunks. Where there were none before.
- OscarCunningham 7y ago'Bear population makes itself four times more vulnerable to the return of humans.'
- dang 7y agoIf you say that the population of a city has doubled, it mostly means that people moved there, not that they were born there. The headline is fine. All: Obviously the bears weren't born in the last month. Please assume basic intelligence in your fellow readers. Edit: Ok you guys, I surrender. There is no fighting the dreaded title fever. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22title%20fever%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....
- sharkweek 7y agoI sometimes wonder if the earth is trying to remove us, its own infection of sorts. If memory serves this was also the plot of some terrible M Night Shyamalan movie.
- 7thaccount 7y agoThat's the plot of the anime "Blue Gender" I saw as a kid.
- eloff 7y agoWell of course not. The Gaia hypothesis is dead. Makes for good fiction though.
- mcnamaratw 7y agoI never believed it for a millisecond, but is it dead? What killed it?
- eloff 7y agoThe lack of any evidence or potential mechanism to the contrary. You can't prove a negative, but after a long enough while of no evidence, nobody will take it seriously anymore.
- mindcrime 7y agoAre you thinking of "The Happening?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happening_(2008_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happening_(2008_film)
- sharkweek 7y agoYes! I haven’t seen it for a while but I believe there’s a scene where Mark Wahlberg yells at a house plant
- MadSudaca 7y agoNature has been trying to remove us since the very beginning. The process of preventing our removal is called surviving, we've been at it for as long as we can remember.
- 0xB31B1B 7y agoI hope this inspires our generation. I hope we remember that the way things were recently aren’t they way have to be, or the way things naturally are. We need more pollution controls, clean power, and less driving. I also think we need to reduce how many people visit certain places as the harsh reality is that impact is clearly related to visits. It will mean a shared sacrifice but a healthier planet. Hopefully limits can be done in an equitable way like a lottery or apportionment somehow.
- rllearneratwork 7y ago>>"I also think we need to reduce how many people visit certain places" - Yes, please start with yourself
- Glavnokoman 7y agoNo. That would not help. This is the case when it is better to start from the neighbor and not yourself.
- mcnamaratw 7y agoDo the bears really care which person bothers them? I've lost my nose for irony at this point.
- miscPerson 7y agoAuthoritarians always argue that. Starting with yourself, while making a negligible impact, makes an impact that is positive (according to you) and shows your commitment to enacting that policy. Have integrity: do it first.
- munk-a 7y agoSorry but "practice what you preach" isn't a valid response to talking about systemic issues.
- jdminhbg 7y ago
- izzydata 7y agoIt's nice to know that the earth starts to heal so quickly after humans are gone. Although by the time we are actually gone we might make it uninhabitable for other life too.
- erikig 7y agoPhilosophical question: if humans are gone, does it really matter what happens to the earth?
- xyzzy_plugh 7y agoIf you're gone, does it really matter what happens to the earth?
- izzydata 7y agoI don't know. Does anything really matter at all even when you are alive?
- komali2 7y agoDoes anything really matter?
- xornox 7y agoIt does not matter in any case. The earth is just completely insignificant, extremely small grain of matter.
- everdrive 7y agoYes, of course. Things matter, even if there is no observer, (animals can observe in any case.) unless you're going to argue that "things mattering" is a matter of human perception in the first place.
- lukas099 7y agoIt matters to me what will happen when we're gone.
- throwaway894345 7y ago
- Plough_Jogger 7y agoPro-tip for LA Times paywall: Open developer tools > Application > Local Storage > Right click to clear
- encom 7y agoPro pro-tip: https://noscript.net/ https://noscript.net/ Took care of it for me.
- pathseeker 7y agoFlagged for misleading click-bait stupidity in the headline. The bear population cannot have quadrupled in a month since the shutdown as the title implies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear#Reproduction_and_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear#Reproduction_and_developm...
- davis 7y agoDid you read the article? They didn't say bear reproduction; they said population. They are just moving back into Yosemite and being more visible. > “It’s not like they aren’t usually here,” he said of the bears, bobcats and coyotes that he and other employees now see congregating outside their cabins and apartments. “It’s that they usually hang back at the edges, or move in the shadows.”
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bsimpson 7y ago> This month is typically a busy month in Yosemite: Of the almost 4.6 million tourists that visited the valley in 2019, about 308,000 came during April. "This month is typically a busy one: less than 1/12th of the number of annual visitors." ️
- mschuetz 7y agoI like the absolute numbers. "Less than 1/12" lacks important information: less than xx of what?
- blawson 7y agoI think the point is how can April be a busy month when it gets less than the naive expected number just from averages.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dwighttk 7y agoPerhaps 6-10 of the other months are, on average, less busy.
- anigbrowl 7y agoPeople tend not to go camping in winter.
- bhassel 7y agoAccording to their visitor stats [1], April is busier than the five months preceding it, so I suppose it's relative. 1: https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/visitation.htm https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/visitation.htm
- jxy 7y agoyeah, this sentence jumped out on me too, making the whole article so less convincing. those schools of journalism should really include basic math in their core corriculum.
- iLemming 7y agoHow do we know they're not migrating away from fires that are raging now uncontrolled in the valley?
- djrogers 7y agoUmm, because there aren't any? There are still people in Yosemite, and sattelite imaging isn't under a Shelter order...
- anigbrowl 7y agoBecause we have satellite coverage and people outside the park would be able to see smoke plumes, so if there were huge fires raging we'd know about it.
- iLemming 7y agoAh, my bad. So I saw a headline this morning that says: "Amid coronavirus shutdown, Yosemite wildlife roams free" And I read it as "wildfire". I saw it first on my phone, then tried searching for it on my computer and realized that I misread the headline.
- anigbrowl 7y agoIt's happened us all at one time or another :-)
- ranman 7y agoI thought this was a bear market joke at first.
- dennis_jeeves 7y agoAh, the impact of modernity :)
- nsthorat 7y agoHow could a bear population quadruple in a month of lockdown when the gestational period of a bear is 200+ days?
- reality_inspctr 7y agoBear sightings have quadrupled
- no_flags 7y ago... reckons local hotel employee.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- volak 7y agoA month without humans, bears are moving through survey zones more frequently. The problem highlighted here is our methods for setting up survey zones is terrible and is severely UNDERCOUNTING the population. Even more troubling is systems of surveillance like these provide the inputs for the climate change models we've depended on and which have predicted we'll all be extinct in 50 years. I swear by the end of Covid19 we're all going to look back at the models and determine what climate skeptics have been saying for decades: Models are easily manipulated by bad inputs - and generally trash
- Fauntleroy 7y agoThat's an amazing amount of speculation and extrapolation from a tiny data point. How exactly do bear sightings relate to temperature readings?
- volak 7y agoSure I'll take a shot at being a modeler - You take temp readings from various wildlife zones around the world, and calculate how many less bears you see for each degree increase in temperature. Then extrapolate that to humans by a simple equation designed to compare bear survivability to humans. Obviously the models need to be able to understand how temp readings equate to survivability. Population counts from various sites would obviously fit that need
- TYPE_FASTER 7y agoYeah, I didn't understand how hard it was to get wildlife population surveys right until I read about some of the work of MacArthur Grant winner Ted Ames (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Ames https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Ames). Some years, the random sampling wouldn't find any fish. Some years, it would end up sampling a school of fish that happened to be moving through the area (as far as I understand it). That data is used to determine fishing limits, so it's important to figure out how to survey (local limits might be different in different areas, etc.).
- asperous 7y agoEarth temperature and vegetation biomass readings are done by an army of earth facing satellites checking the entirety of the earth daily using a variety of different sensors and techniques. https://climate.nasa.gov/nasa_science/missions/?category=31 https://climate.nasa.gov/nasa_science/missions/?category=31
- neonate 7y agohttps://archive.md/TpE5t https://archive.md/TpE5t
- pugworthy 7y ago403 for me
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- 3xblah 7y agohttp://web.archive.org/web/20200413161736/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-13/yosemite-national-park-closed-wildlife-waterfalls-muir http://web.archive.org/web/20200413161736/https://www.latime... One can also get LA Times stories via Reuters, thanks to shared TLS hosting: printf "<base href=https://www.latimes.com />" > 1.html printf "GET /california/story/2020-04-13/yosemite-national-park-closed-wildlife-waterfalls-muir HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: www.latimes.com\r\nConnection: close\r\n" | openssl s_client -connect www.reuters.com:443 -servername www.latimes.com -ign_eof >> 1.html firefox ./1.html
- 3xblah 7y agoCorrection: In the example, there should be an additonal \r\n after "Connection: close".
- salvad0r 7y agoEmpty except for this one person taking photos and videos...
- antibland 7y agoWhile articles like this always bring a smile, I'm saddened for the animals, knowing that their ecological reprieve will soon be dashed by human recklessness. I've actually begun to enjoy many aspects of the quarantine, and would like it to continue a lot longer. The planet is better off without us.
- debacle 7y agoThe problem is the constant drive to monetize national and state parks. It results in over-developed strips of "wilderness" crisscrossed with roads and packed with voyeurs. I greatly prefer the model Ontario has taken with Algonquin - it is expensive to camp there, camp sites are very limited, and the park can only be described as pristine.
- seph-reed 7y agoMuch love for you!
- romanovtexas 7y agoI wonder if we can create ways in which this will remain enabled even post the COVID crisis. Limit the amount of visitors, keep the parks open only during certain months of the year, etc.
- jshevek 7y agoI'm excited about the possibility that the covid experience (and data) will strengthen the arguments and motivations for various ecologically sound cultural shifts, but I'm less sure about the specific issue of bears getting comfortable in close proximity to human campgrounds.
- romanovtexas 7y agoWasn't talking about the bears specifically, but yes, this should enable us for a greater call to action to save our ecological systems.
- prawn 7y agoLottery systems are already used in some places, but they're very frustrating for those that miss out. Charging makes things less accessible to poorer people. I think tiers of experience are part of the answer - scenic shuttle/route at the easy end up to paid backcountry permits at the challenging end. Parks already do this but I think they could do more. One thing that can make overrun scenic routes a challenge is parking for photo stops and I suspect a solution to that lies in changing the way people think about photos and documenting their experience. It's probably changed since, but many years ago I hiked a couple of days in Tiger Leaping Gorge in China. There was a lower route for tourist buses and an upper trail for hikers. Upper route required greater commitment - better fitness, multiple days, guesthouse stop, etc. As both routes were on the same side of a steep gorge, neither was really aware of the other.
- ackbar03 7y agoTo look t this objectively from the perspective of nature, humans really are the actual virus. But hey we all gotta do what we gotta do
- briga 7y agoThis is nice, but I bet you the moment SIP is lifted Yosemite is going to be absolutely flooded with people and will receive an all-time high level of visitors. Enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts, animals.
- 11235813213455 7y agoLet's not be negative, this period should definitely raise awareness. I find myself picking plastic litters on the road-side while cycling, because currently it's so silent, pure and beautiful, growing fast, with plenty flowers, insects. People will take time to go back in dense public spaces, entertainments, with still that (irrational) fear of viruses
- salimmadjd 7y agoOT - One of my most personal profound moments was chasing this winter photo [0] and sharing it with a coyote. I wanted to take a night shot of the Cathedral Rock (that I had seen a few years earlier but didn't take a good photo of it) under the full moon and fresh snow. It took me several years of driving up to Yosemite when there was snow storm and one night I got lucky. It was around 11 PM when the storm stopped and sky started to clear up. I drove to the spot set my camera and I was able to take two images before the mist disappeared. While I was taking the long exposure photo all alone in middle of night. There was such profound sense of being so small in a universe so much vaster than what I'm able to comprehend. Out of nowhere, this coyote quietly walked up to me and stood right next to me looking the same view. I wasn't sure if it was going to bite me or do anything, but it seemed so harmless that I just looked at it and then we both looked at the view. Shortly after the coyote walked away and the mist vaporized, but left something indelible in me. [0] https://sf.smugmug.com/BW-Landscape/i-tPZrsLz/A https://sf.smugmug.com/BW-Landscape/i-tPZrsLz/A
- exolymph 7y agoBeautiful shot. Thank you for sharing the photo and the story!
- yawz 7y agoReally beautiful! Thanks for sharing.
- flycaliguy 7y agoSounds like a spirit. I had a similar visit from an owl during my wife’s pregnancy.
- jungletime 7y agoI visited Yosemite, while beautiful, it is so commercialized. It feels like disney world for nature. It did not seem wild at all in the valley. More like a hippy tent city, with a pioneer village. I saw some deer, wanted to take a photo from maybe 200 feet away. And I literally could take photo with two other photographers in my line sight with the deer. It was a little ridiculous. 3 in one head shot. And a little moment of self reflection later, I realized I'm part of the problem by being there.
- Gibbon1 7y agoThat's a problem I have with Parks. There is a conflicting mandate. They 'protect' but they also 'promote'. My parents took us up to Yosemite on weekend trips in the summer growing up. 50 years ago they tended to studiously avoid the valley proper. The farther you're willing to hike the fewer people and more bears and Germans.
- lorenzfx 7y agoGermans?
- gilrain 7y agoIt's a stereotype with a grain of truth. In general, European tourists seem to be more accomplished or more enthusiastic hikers. You come across a lot of German-speaking people. But also Scandinavian and various others. Like all stereotypes, it breaks down on close inspection.
- petsormeat 7y agoYeah, I feel like any strenuous backcountry hike I take in the western U.S. will have me encounter at least one Scandinavian by its end.
- prawn 7y agoWorldwide stereotype for off-beaten-track hikers. I remember Israelis felt over-represented on trails in South America too.
- williamscales 7y agoI hope we keep it closed, more or less. They could restrict visitors using a lottery system. No motorized vehicles within the park boundaries. The valley would have a chance in that scenario. Otherwise it will just be swamped by even greater crowds rushing in to "enjoy" (really destroy) the beautiful nature. I visited Yosemite valley proper for the first time last year after living in California for five years. I was blown away by the scale of development and the sheer number of people. If we truly want to save these places, we need to keep most humans out.
- wkyle 7y agoThe goal of a park (particularly the valley) is to allow as many people as possible to see and appreciate it. There are hundreds of thousands of square miles of empty wilderness in the Sierra (including in Yosemite) , with much of it similar in scale to Yosemite. Your story is a good example for one of the goals of parks, but you seem to have missed the point. If you've never been to the Yosemite after living in CA for a few years, then you likely wouldn't expend a lot of effort to see wild places in nature. Thus, Yosemite is a perfect place for you to see and appreciate since it is spectacular and relatively accessible. With your newfound appreciation, you now can advocate for the preservation and protection of wild places – though preferably not in the sense that you want to prevent others from having your experience, and rather in the sense that you should want to advocate for the protection of undeveloped wilderness.
- dntrkv 7y agoNot hundreds of thousands, the Sierras are about 23,000 square miles, but the point still stands. The Sierras are massive and the majority of it is desolate. I spend about 10-20 days each year (for over 15 years now) exploring these areas and have barely made a dent in covering them. Even if you just consider Yosemite National Park, the main valley where you mostly see overcrowding, is a relatively small portion of the park. Most of the Sierras are inaccessible to your average weekend camper. Having a few of these hotspots with high tourist activity, in my mind, is a good tradeoff to preserving the vast majority of the Sierra's. I think if we made it even less accessible to your average Joe, we wouldn't have as much support for preserving these places. If you really want to see untouched nature, there are many places in the Sierra's where you can drive for hours without seeing another car or hike for days without seeing any trace of humans.
- mrfusion 7y agoI never understood why no animal has emerged to fill the niche of hunting squirrels in the suburbs? They’re everywhere. (Same question for pigeons)
- Loughla 7y agoFeral cats, maybe? There's just a shit-ton of squirrels and pigeons, is my guess as to why there still seems to be so many of them. I'm a firm believer that I should be allowed to hunt squirrels during squirrel season in the suburbs. They're so big there.
- bnjms 7y agoYou can. They sell pellet guns at Walmart. Good ones that will kill a squirrel. From experience understand giving one to kids will likely end with a pellet through a window or through a shoe.
- Dramatize 7y agoWe'd kill them before they could fill the niche.
- fiftyfifty 7y agoRed-tailed hawks are pretty prolific at hunting squirrels in urban areas. There are even pairs nesting in Central Park in NY and subsisting almost entirely on squirrels. Peregrine Falcons also hunt pigeons in Urban areas and again there are dozens of pairs nesting in the NY City metro area. Predators generally tend to find an equilibrium with their prey animals in an area, so they're not going to completely eliminate their prey.
- tren-hard 7y ago> The best available research indicates 95% of an average rural fox’s diet consists of meat, both hunted and scavenged, and mainly rabbits, rats, birds and small mammals. Insects and worms may constitute another 4% and the remaining 1% may consist of fruit. http://foxproject.org.uk/fox-facts/red-fox-diet/ http://foxproject.org.uk/fox-facts/red-fox-diet/ Probably because they would also not discriminate against taking a swipe at small dogs and pets. So people complain and now your suburb is free from foxes and coyotes
- sabujp 7y agonon paywalled / adblocked : https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/science/wildlife-is-reclaiming-yosemite-national-park-the-bear-population-has-quadrupled/ar-BB12z1m7 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/science/wildlife-is-reclaimin...
- cardamomo 7y agoI think it's amazing that wildlife is flourishing in Yosemite right now. I feel conservation is important in the preservation of biodiversity. But I want to point out an incorrect historical assumption on the author's part. This paragraph caught my attention: > Tourists aren’t allowed in California’s most popular national park, but if they could visit, they might feel as if they had been transported to another time. Either to a previous era, before millions of people started motoring into the valley every year, or to a possible future one, where the artifacts of civilization remain, with fewer humans in the mix. In fact, Yosemite, like much of North America, was inhabited by Native Americans for thousands of years. The Miwok people and others lived in Yosemite before it became a national park. It's a shame the L.A. Times author didn't include this, especially considering there are plenty of articles to be found about the indigenous history of Yosemite merely by Googling it. Here's what I found: > When the Yosemite Valley was first preserved for public use by President Lincoln in 1864 (giving the property to the state of California), much of the local indigenous community had already been devastated by a state militia group, the Mariposa Battalion, as a part of what is today known as the Mariposa War. [0] [0] https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/erasing-native-americans-from-national-parks/ https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/erasing-native-ame...
- 205guy 7y agoThank you for pointing this out, I had wanted to say the same thing. You can tell the wording is dancing around the fact ("before millions ... motoring"), but to make people think it was only inhabited by animals and leave out the idea that Native Americans lived there is a serious omission. Unfortunately, the native inhabitants are no longer around to "reclaim" their domain. Imagine if that started to happen, and I don't mean the homeless camping more openly in parks these days.