5 ms·

I saw a figure[1] the other day that blew me away. If you exclude pets and livestock, then human beings comprise ~90% of all mammals (by weight). All wild whal

I saw a figure[1] the other day that blew me away. If you exclude pets and livestock, then human beings comprise ~90% of all mammals (by weight). All wild whales, bears, lions, deer, moose, mice, rabbits, wild horses, camels, beavers, buffalo, elephants, tigers, rhinos, chimpanzees, pandas, goats, etc... are in that remaining 10%. [1]: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/29/17386112/all-life-on-earth-chart-weight-plants-animals-pnas https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/29/17386112/al...

yesenadam 6y ago
A kind of similar xkcd diagram of Earth's Land Mammals by Weight https://xkcd.com/1338/ https://xkcd.com/1338/ - there's hardly any wild animals, comparatively.
- Petrova 6y ago
  I've always wondered why horses are not used as livestock since they can also produce milk and have commercial use as well such plowing fields or transportation.
  - Funes- 6y ago
    Mare milk is consumed and commercialized [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis.
  - lonelyasacloud 6y ago
    Eating horse meat has a long history and is still part of the culture in many places e.g. Mongolia, France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_mea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_mea
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
That's because we've spent several millennia figuring out how to live more and more densely and we do the same with our livestock. If beavers invented a lifestyle that enabled them to live at densities up to thousands per square mile they'd compromise a hell of a lot of biomass too. The fact that there's more humans doesn't imply anything about the other animal population (though I suspect that it's not good for the other animals though).
- michael1999 6y ago
  You need to include our food production spaces when talking about population density for that to be a fair comparison. Our urban density is mirrored (and supported) by the sparseness of our farmland.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    a) Counting areas where resources come from get complicated quick. Are you gonna count the ocean because the grizzly bear eats the salmon? Do Nile crocodiles get their population density counted based on the entire watershed they depend on? b)There are about 50 people per square kilometer of land. Even adjusted for farmland humans are still gonna blow every other large predator out of the water. Even if you include commercial fisheries that still blows every other large predator out of the water. Maybe there's a couple seasonal localized concentrations of certain predators that are higher but nothing else comes close to that number.
  - MiroF 6y ago
    Yeah but it's still clearly way better than wild animals of comparable mass
- duck 6y ago
  I recently listened to a great podcast talking about beavers and it mentioned some population stats for North America (can't recall the numbers now). Beavers are right behind humans in terms of how they have shaped the land. https://www.kuow.org/stories/the-wild-episode-4 https://www.kuow.org/stories/the-wild-episode-4
hcarvalhoalves 6y ago
Obligatory Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgS1Lwr8gq8&ab_channel=PopcornMedia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgS1Lwr8gq8&ab_channel=Popco...
- slavik81 6y ago
  Agent Smith is generally one of my favourite parts of The Matrix, but his speech is factually incorrect. Plenty of mammals will multiply until they run out of food. I worry quite a bit about the habitat distruction necessary to comfortably sustain 7–10 B people, but the comparisons to a virus and the implied moral judgment have always seemed off-base. Nature doesn't care if we destroy everything. I care.

yesenadam 6y ago

A kind of similar xkcd diagram of Earth's Land Mammals by Weight https://xkcd.com/1338/ https://xkcd.com/1338/ - there's hardly any wild animals, comparatively.

Petrova 6y ago
I've always wondered why horses are not used as livestock since they can also produce milk and have commercial use as well such plowing fields or transportation.
- Funes- 6y ago
  Mare milk is consumed and commercialized [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis.
- lonelyasacloud 6y ago
  Eating horse meat has a long history and is still part of the culture in many places e.g. Mongolia, France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_mea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_mea
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

That's because we've spent several millennia figuring out how to live more and more densely and we do the same with our livestock. If beavers invented a lifestyle that enabled them to live at densities up to thousands per square mile they'd compromise a hell of a lot of biomass too. The fact that there's more humans doesn't imply anything about the other animal population (though I suspect that it's not good for the other animals though).

michael1999 6y ago
You need to include our food production spaces when talking about population density for that to be a fair comparison. Our urban density is mirrored (and supported) by the sparseness of our farmland.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  a) Counting areas where resources come from get complicated quick. Are you gonna count the ocean because the grizzly bear eats the salmon? Do Nile crocodiles get their population density counted based on the entire watershed they depend on? b)There are about 50 people per square kilometer of land. Even adjusted for farmland humans are still gonna blow every other large predator out of the water. Even if you include commercial fisheries that still blows every other large predator out of the water. Maybe there's a couple seasonal localized concentrations of certain predators that are higher but nothing else comes close to that number.
- MiroF 6y ago
  Yeah but it's still clearly way better than wild animals of comparable mass
duck 6y ago
I recently listened to a great podcast talking about beavers and it mentioned some population stats for North America (can't recall the numbers now). Beavers are right behind humans in terms of how they have shaped the land. https://www.kuow.org/stories/the-wild-episode-4 https://www.kuow.org/stories/the-wild-episode-4

hcarvalhoalves 6y ago

Obligatory Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgS1Lwr8gq8&ab_channel=PopcornMedia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgS1Lwr8gq8&ab_channel=Popco...

slavik81 6y ago
Agent Smith is generally one of my favourite parts of The Matrix, but his speech is factually incorrect. Plenty of mammals will multiply until they run out of food. I worry quite a bit about the habitat distruction necessary to comfortably sustain 7–10 B people, but the comparisons to a virus and the implied moral judgment have always seemed off-base. Nature doesn't care if we destroy everything. I care.