4 ms·

If you managed to prevent the extinction of the the African Bush Elephant, what would you do with it? Species do not need to exists for a utilitarian purpose.

by jjk166 2y ago

If you managed to prevent the extinction of the the African Bush Elephant, what would you do with it? Species do not need to exists for a utilitarian purpose. Bringing back something that once existed can be a perfectly justifiable end in itself. Preventing a species from going extinct is not particularly controversial, even reintroducing species that have not been seen in a land in many generations is widely done and celebrated. The only difference between that and reintroducing a species that went extinct globally is the technical difficulty. It's very reasonable to believe that there could be benefits to restoring ecosystems, and that might motivate some people to provide their effort and resources to the endeavor moreso than the restoration of nature, but it's perfectly fine to have multiple aligned motivations. The world is a dynamic place, the true exercise in ego is to define the world as it happened to be when you were born into it as the status quo that ought to be maintained.

parl_match 2y ago
I think there's a stark difference between an animal that evolved to live in a world that no longer exists, versus an animal that was hunted to extinction, for which there exists a plausible environment in which it can thrive.
- adastra22 2y ago
  Mammoths were hunted to extinction and would otherwise do just fine in many wild parts of the world.
  - derefr 2y ago
    The "mammoth steppe" — the biome that supported mammoths — was a place that was cold (due to a glacial maximum) but bright (due to not being very polar.) Which made for endless fields of nutrient-dense grasses to graze on. Which made for lots of crazy-big grazing animals. There is no modern-era equivalent to the mammoth steppe. Savanna biomes are too hot (thus, elephants — mammoths adapted for the heat); and tundra biomes don't get enough sun (thus only supporting very small herbivorous tundra animals, with even the apex predators of that food chain not being anything like megafauna.)
    - adastra22 2y ago
      That’s just the steppe mammoth. There were other mammoth species that lived in less frigid environments.
    - bdhcuidbebe 2y ago
      Maybe stick to your day job. Many megafauna existed outside the steppes. First example that comes to mind is the european forest elephant. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight-tusked_elephant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight-tusked_elephant
      - derefr 2y ago
        Okay? I wasn’t trying to make any claim in contravention of what you just said. My points were these: 1. the steppe mammoth specifically (i.e. the one everyone means when they reference humans hunting mammoths to extinction) existed as it did because of the mammoth steppe’s unique biome; 2. megafauna that were endemic to the mammoth steppe are not transplantable to any biome we have today, because they were adapted specifically to those conditions (thus the being-endemic, rather than ranging elsewhere), and we no longer have those conditions. (They might survive, but they would quickly adapt out of the phenotype we recognize. You’d just get another elephant.) I made no claim about the survivability of megafauna that did range outside of the steppe. Clearly, if they were out there, they were able to be out there; and we do have equivalent biomes to those today.
        Retric 2y ago
        I’m not sure the distinction you have between mammoth steppe and northwestern US wood bison habitat. Wood bison are practically identical to steppe bison so the conditions must be very similar. Elephants aren’t cold adapted running into issues well above freezing (~42f), so anyplace that gets midwestern cold like say Mongolia isn’t going to result in them evolving into something roughly equivalent to elephants.
        derefr 2y ago
nostrebored 2y ago
The idea that ecosystems haven't been in permanent flux forever is odd. Things have been going extinct for millennia with no human intervention. The idea of the butterfly effect from human intervention causing ecosystem collapse is filled with hubris. There are some things that will obviously change a landscape. If we were to completely deforest the Amazon then there could be some disastrous consequences, sure. But the Brazilian Three Eyed Skunkowl going extinct isn't likely to cause some devastating collapse outside of a poorly-done model.
- griffzhowl 2y ago
  Of course things have always been changing, but the current rate of extinction hasn't been equalled since the four or five largest mass extinction events. It's not an ordinary situation in life's history. Ultimately it depends what you care about but it's inarguable that the natural world is being greatly impoverished in ways that could take millions of years to recover from (e.g. in terms of species numbers)
  - ANewFormation 2y ago
    I think one nuance that empasizes his point is that within millions of years, and likely much sooner (as we are already rather 'overdue'), there will almost certainly be another genuine mass extinction event that will once again strip most life from this planet. The notion of rates is also quite a bit more contentious than many appreciate. The extremely high rates in modern times are based on modeling with rather debated assumptions. This is how you get claims of hundreds of extinctions per day even though there have only been about 800 'verified' extinctions in the past 400 years [1]. And, notably, a number of those verified extinct species ended up showing up elsewhere later on! [1] - https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_extinction_rates_why_do_estimates_vary_so_wildly https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_extinction_rates_why_d...
    - nostrebored 2y ago
      This is exactly what confuses me -- we're modeling both the inputs and outputs, and not with particularly robust validation or verification. Where is the utility? We've established that things are changing. Sure. But if you gave someone a 'stock predictor' of similar quality, few people would choose to trust it with money. But in reality, we dedicate billions of dollars of resources collectively to the outputs of biome modeling.

by jjk166 2y ago

parl_match 2y ago

I think there's a stark difference between an animal that evolved to live in a world that no longer exists, versus an animal that was hunted to extinction, for which there exists a plausible environment in which it can thrive.

adastra22 2y ago
Mammoths were hunted to extinction and would otherwise do just fine in many wild parts of the world.
- derefr 2y ago
  The "mammoth steppe" — the biome that supported mammoths — was a place that was cold (due to a glacial maximum) but bright (due to not being very polar.) Which made for endless fields of nutrient-dense grasses to graze on. Which made for lots of crazy-big grazing animals. There is no modern-era equivalent to the mammoth steppe. Savanna biomes are too hot (thus, elephants — mammoths adapted for the heat); and tundra biomes don't get enough sun (thus only supporting very small herbivorous tundra animals, with even the apex predators of that food chain not being anything like megafauna.)
  - adastra22 2y ago
    That’s just the steppe mammoth. There were other mammoth species that lived in less frigid environments.
  - bdhcuidbebe 2y ago
    Maybe stick to your day job. Many megafauna existed outside the steppes. First example that comes to mind is the european forest elephant. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight-tusked_elephant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight-tusked_elephant
    - derefr 2y ago
      Okay? I wasn’t trying to make any claim in contravention of what you just said. My points were these: 1. the steppe mammoth specifically (i.e. the one everyone means when they reference humans hunting mammoths to extinction) existed as it did because of the mammoth steppe’s unique biome; 2. megafauna that were endemic to the mammoth steppe are not transplantable to any biome we have today, because they were adapted specifically to those conditions (thus the being-endemic, rather than ranging elsewhere), and we no longer have those conditions. (They might survive, but they would quickly adapt out of the phenotype we recognize. You’d just get another elephant.) I made no claim about the survivability of megafauna that did range outside of the steppe. Clearly, if they were out there, they were able to be out there; and we do have equivalent biomes to those today.
      - Retric 2y ago
        I’m not sure the distinction you have between mammoth steppe and northwestern US wood bison habitat. Wood bison are practically identical to steppe bison so the conditions must be very similar. Elephants aren’t cold adapted running into issues well above freezing (~42f), so anyplace that gets midwestern cold like say Mongolia isn’t going to result in them evolving into something roughly equivalent to elephants.
        derefr 2y ago

nostrebored 2y ago

The idea that ecosystems haven't been in permanent flux forever is odd. Things have been going extinct for millennia with no human intervention. The idea of the butterfly effect from human intervention causing ecosystem collapse is filled with hubris. There are some things that will obviously change a landscape. If we were to completely deforest the Amazon then there could be some disastrous consequences, sure. But the Brazilian Three Eyed Skunkowl going extinct isn't likely to cause some devastating collapse outside of a poorly-done model.

griffzhowl 2y ago
Of course things have always been changing, but the current rate of extinction hasn't been equalled since the four or five largest mass extinction events. It's not an ordinary situation in life's history. Ultimately it depends what you care about but it's inarguable that the natural world is being greatly impoverished in ways that could take millions of years to recover from (e.g. in terms of species numbers)
- ANewFormation 2y ago
  I think one nuance that empasizes his point is that within millions of years, and likely much sooner (as we are already rather 'overdue'), there will almost certainly be another genuine mass extinction event that will once again strip most life from this planet. The notion of rates is also quite a bit more contentious than many appreciate. The extremely high rates in modern times are based on modeling with rather debated assumptions. This is how you get claims of hundreds of extinctions per day even though there have only been about 800 'verified' extinctions in the past 400 years [1]. And, notably, a number of those verified extinct species ended up showing up elsewhere later on! [1] - https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_extinction_rates_why_do_estimates_vary_so_wildly https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_extinction_rates_why_d...
  - nostrebored 2y ago
    This is exactly what confuses me -- we're modeling both the inputs and outputs, and not with particularly robust validation or verification. Where is the utility? We've established that things are changing. Sure. But if you gave someone a 'stock predictor' of similar quality, few people would choose to trust it with money. But in reality, we dedicate billions of dollars of resources collectively to the outputs of biome modeling.