5 ms·

This is awesome news. And incidentally the opposite of what Sweden is doing: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/02/hundreds-of-lynx-to-be-hunted

This is awesome news. And incidentally the opposite of what Sweden is doing: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/02/hundreds-of-lynx-to-be-hunted-in-sweden-following-biggest-ever-wolf-cull https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/02/hundreds...

thuridas 2y ago
It is much easier and cheaper to endanger a especie than to recover it. Once that you reach a point of small number of individuals the lack of genetic variability and the problems finding a matting companion makes it hard to recover
- s_dev 2y ago
  Can you breed them with other very similar cats in captivity to introduce genetic diversity, then keep breeding them with more Iberian lynxes so that they're mostly still Iberian lynxes?
  - Someone 2y ago
    Crossbreeding is necessary if you have too few specimens left to prevent inbreeding, but if you don’t, I think you’re better off using the entire population for a breeding program. If you have sufficiently many “more Iberian lynxes” to get rid of the foreign DNA in the population after mixing that in, wouldn’t you also have sufficiently many for a breeding program that doesn’t introduce foreign DNA?
  - pvaldes 2y ago
    > Can you breed them with other very similar cats in captivity to introduce genetic diversity Not. Or at least not a thing to do without a lot of previous planning and backups. Lynx hybrids can carry a sterile gen. Messing with biology is messing with millions of years of fine adjusted DNA technology. Would be like finding a marooned alien spaceship and starting to press buttons randomly. At this time we are just struggling to understand a small part of this natural technology.
mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago
Norway too. Due to a strong distortion field surrounding the rather dubious impact of large predators on the viability of livestock farming, there's a political consensus between the 3 largest parties(labour, conservatives and the agrarian party(officially the "centre party")) that the minimum viable population numbers agreed on in the Bern Convention are actually maximum limits. The resulting policy is that any population beyond that is culled every year. This is unironically referred to as "getting down to population targets". This is of course not ideal for the ecosystem. Game populations are out of control, which has lots of harmful effects on forests, etc. And though I'm not an ecologist, it seems likely to me that predator populations will eventually collapse from a lack of diversity as they're artificially kept at a bare minimum for extended periods of time.
- masklinn 2y ago
  > And though I'm not an ecologist, it seems likely to me that predator populations will eventually collapse from a lack of diversity as they're artificially kept at a bare minimum for extended periods of time. It's a complicated topic of conservation, because the reproductive strategy, genetic makeup, and history all influence the species' minimum viable population, and thus its reaction and trajectory following new genetic bottlenecks. Some species can somewhat recover from very extremely little e.g. the black robin went as low as five individuals, including only one fertile female, today there are 300; or the mauritius kestrel which was down to 5~6 known birds of which a single fertile female, for mammals the northern elephant seal went down to ~30. One of the massive risks for species surviving a genetic bottleneck is that the low genetic diversity will let diseases spread like wildfire, especially for the more social species.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  Yeah it's amazing. The Swedish narrative includes the logical somersasult that the population must be slashed in half to reduce the risk of inbreeding. Like I don't even.
  - mistrial9 2y ago
    simple - predators don't like other predators .. humans in that environment are predators, feeding and guarding their own prey stocks.
pvaldes 2y ago
My bet is that the recent stupid culling of wolves and lynxes in Nordic countries is also directly linked with appeasing people in rural communities for the next European elections. It will be an expensive mistake, as people will discover soon, but politicians are extremely concerned by the raise of the populist parties.
- mattpallissard 2y ago
  I fail to see the tie to populist parties here.
  - hjkl0 2y ago
    I think the suggestion is that the rise of populist parties is making the otherwise “responsible” politicians take more populist decisions to win back votes, especially before an election.
oefrha 2y ago
Shameful. You would expect rich assholes to gradually move away from the least sustainable form of sport, but nope, it’s actually ramping up with explicit backing from politicians. Time to build a Westworld for these rich assholes.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  The wolf cull has very little to do with hunting for sport. It's above all agricultural interests that are lobbying for this. If anything the hunters are pushing back against it, especially with regards to moose. They're in some cases straight up refusing to shoot their allotments because they can tell the population is shrinking. (The forestry industry want them gone because they're feeding on younger trees.)
  - phony-account 2y ago
    > If anything the hunters are pushing back against it, especially with regards to moose I’m not sure how you jumped to the restraint some hunters are showing when deciding not to shoot moose (älg) in Sweden - it’s totally unconnected to the gratuitous and stupid shooting of wolves and especially the endangered lynx. They’ve decided to hold back hunting moose because they’re worried about how the hunt will be in the future, not some enlightened ecological concern. I know this because it’s a common discussion topic amongst friends and relatives who hunt.
    - marginalia_nu 2y ago
      The connection was made to illustrate that the hunters aren't deciding the hunting quotas, but that the quotas are set to appease the farming and forestry industry.

thuridas 2y ago

It is much easier and cheaper to endanger a especie than to recover it. Once that you reach a point of small number of individuals the lack of genetic variability and the problems finding a matting companion makes it hard to recover

s_dev 2y ago
Can you breed them with other very similar cats in captivity to introduce genetic diversity, then keep breeding them with more Iberian lynxes so that they're mostly still Iberian lynxes?
- Someone 2y ago
  Crossbreeding is necessary if you have too few specimens left to prevent inbreeding, but if you don’t, I think you’re better off using the entire population for a breeding program. If you have sufficiently many “more Iberian lynxes” to get rid of the foreign DNA in the population after mixing that in, wouldn’t you also have sufficiently many for a breeding program that doesn’t introduce foreign DNA?
- pvaldes 2y ago
  > Can you breed them with other very similar cats in captivity to introduce genetic diversity Not. Or at least not a thing to do without a lot of previous planning and backups. Lynx hybrids can carry a sterile gen. Messing with biology is messing with millions of years of fine adjusted DNA technology. Would be like finding a marooned alien spaceship and starting to press buttons randomly. At this time we are just struggling to understand a small part of this natural technology.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago

Norway too. Due to a strong distortion field surrounding the rather dubious impact of large predators on the viability of livestock farming, there's a political consensus between the 3 largest parties(labour, conservatives and the agrarian party(officially the "centre party")) that the minimum viable population numbers agreed on in the Bern Convention are actually maximum limits. The resulting policy is that any population beyond that is culled every year. This is unironically referred to as "getting down to population targets". This is of course not ideal for the ecosystem. Game populations are out of control, which has lots of harmful effects on forests, etc. And though I'm not an ecologist, it seems likely to me that predator populations will eventually collapse from a lack of diversity as they're artificially kept at a bare minimum for extended periods of time.

masklinn 2y ago
> And though I'm not an ecologist, it seems likely to me that predator populations will eventually collapse from a lack of diversity as they're artificially kept at a bare minimum for extended periods of time. It's a complicated topic of conservation, because the reproductive strategy, genetic makeup, and history all influence the species' minimum viable population, and thus its reaction and trajectory following new genetic bottlenecks. Some species can somewhat recover from very extremely little e.g. the black robin went as low as five individuals, including only one fertile female, today there are 300; or the mauritius kestrel which was down to 5~6 known birds of which a single fertile female, for mammals the northern elephant seal went down to ~30. One of the massive risks for species surviving a genetic bottleneck is that the low genetic diversity will let diseases spread like wildfire, especially for the more social species.
marginalia_nu 2y ago
Yeah it's amazing. The Swedish narrative includes the logical somersasult that the population must be slashed in half to reduce the risk of inbreeding. Like I don't even.
- mistrial9 2y ago
  simple - predators don't like other predators .. humans in that environment are predators, feeding and guarding their own prey stocks.

pvaldes 2y ago

My bet is that the recent stupid culling of wolves and lynxes in Nordic countries is also directly linked with appeasing people in rural communities for the next European elections. It will be an expensive mistake, as people will discover soon, but politicians are extremely concerned by the raise of the populist parties.

mattpallissard 2y ago
I fail to see the tie to populist parties here.
- hjkl0 2y ago
  I think the suggestion is that the rise of populist parties is making the otherwise “responsible” politicians take more populist decisions to win back votes, especially before an election.

oefrha 2y ago

Shameful. You would expect rich assholes to gradually move away from the least sustainable form of sport, but nope, it’s actually ramping up with explicit backing from politicians. Time to build a Westworld for these rich assholes.

marginalia_nu 2y ago
The wolf cull has very little to do with hunting for sport. It's above all agricultural interests that are lobbying for this. If anything the hunters are pushing back against it, especially with regards to moose. They're in some cases straight up refusing to shoot their allotments because they can tell the population is shrinking. (The forestry industry want them gone because they're feeding on younger trees.)
- phony-account 2y ago
  > If anything the hunters are pushing back against it, especially with regards to moose I’m not sure how you jumped to the restraint some hunters are showing when deciding not to shoot moose (älg) in Sweden - it’s totally unconnected to the gratuitous and stupid shooting of wolves and especially the endangered lynx. They’ve decided to hold back hunting moose because they’re worried about how the hunt will be in the future, not some enlightened ecological concern. I know this because it’s a common discussion topic amongst friends and relatives who hunt.
  - marginalia_nu 2y ago
    The connection was made to illustrate that the hunters aren't deciding the hunting quotas, but that the quotas are set to appease the farming and forestry industry.