3 ms·

That post suffers from recentisim. Mass animal die off are not actually new. Unless you find data from at least 100 years ago to compare, you can not draw concl

by ars 6y ago

That post suffers from recentisim. Mass animal die off are not actually new. Unless you find data from at least 100 years ago to compare, you can not draw conclusions. > Compared to the time the grandfather post took to research, process, and write Yes, but the only data in the post is what is found online. So while that can be used to draw attention to an issue, you can not use it to describe a trend, or say that things are getting worse.

ricardobeat 6y ago
Maybe you'll trust this 2015 article by National Geographic instead, backed by studies spanning the past 70+ years: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/1/150113-mass-die-off-disease-animals-environment-science/#:~:text=Mass%20die%2Doffs%20are%20individual,offs%20are%20on%20the%20rise https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/1/150113-mass-d....
- dmix 6y ago
  The study https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/08/1414894112 https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/08/1414894112 The scale is increasing for certain species but not all: > We show that the magnitude of MMEs has been intensifying for birds, fishes, and marine invertebrates; invariant for mammals; and decreasing for reptiles and amphibians. The causes are still largely unknown but there are some patterns: > Regardless, the increase in MMEs appears to be associated with a rise in disease emergence, biotoxicity, and events produced by multiple interacting stressors, yet temporal trends in MME causes varied among taxa and may be associated with increased detectability. Either way it's a worrying sign that environmental factors will always play a role. Even if it is mostly just widespread diseases we previously didn't have the capability to detect, or simply no one was looking (as the abstract mentions about detectability) - additional environmental stresses could amplify what was otherwise pretty normal. In regards to the Elephants in Botswana this wouldn't yet meet their definition of MMEs (90% die off), or a good chunk of the other linked examples provided by OP. Additionally rates for mammals remain unchanged.

by ars 6y ago

ricardobeat 6y ago

Maybe you'll trust this 2015 article by National Geographic instead, backed by studies spanning the past 70+ years: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/1/150113-mass-die-off-disease-animals-environment-science/#:~:text=Mass%20die%2Doffs%20are%20individual,offs%20are%20on%20the%20rise https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/1/150113-mass-d....

dmix 6y ago
The study https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/08/1414894112 https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/08/1414894112 The scale is increasing for certain species but not all: > We show that the magnitude of MMEs has been intensifying for birds, fishes, and marine invertebrates; invariant for mammals; and decreasing for reptiles and amphibians. The causes are still largely unknown but there are some patterns: > Regardless, the increase in MMEs appears to be associated with a rise in disease emergence, biotoxicity, and events produced by multiple interacting stressors, yet temporal trends in MME causes varied among taxa and may be associated with increased detectability. Either way it's a worrying sign that environmental factors will always play a role. Even if it is mostly just widespread diseases we previously didn't have the capability to detect, or simply no one was looking (as the abstract mentions about detectability) - additional environmental stresses could amplify what was otherwise pretty normal. In regards to the Elephants in Botswana this wouldn't yet meet their definition of MMEs (90% die off), or a good chunk of the other linked examples provided by OP. Additionally rates for mammals remain unchanged.