[HN Gopher] A remote island's battle against seabird-killing ant...
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A remote island's battle against seabird-killing ants (2015)
Author : hycaria
Score : 100 points
Date : 2021-08-31 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.audubon.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.audubon.org)
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| Well that's horrifying.
| drdeadringer wrote:
| I agree.
|
| I also sense a desperate Hollywood clinging to this as a
| "reboot" to 'Them!'.
| dgritsko wrote:
| Time to re-read "Leiningen Versus the Ants".
| http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lvta.html
| withants wrote:
| with ants
| yardie wrote:
| Sounds like something I would have signed up for as a fresh
| college grad who wasn't quite ready to join corporate America.
| EMM_386 wrote:
| The ants arrived on driftwood, it doesn't seem like there was any
| unnatural cause.
|
| By trying to save these seabirds, they are actually messing with
| nature and the evolutionary process of the island.
| didibus wrote:
| Technically, we're part of the natural ecosystem as well...
| alangibson wrote:
| Post-Green revolution that's very debatable. We've developed
| tech to basically exempt ourselves from natural processes and
| ecosystems. For now at least...
| macintux wrote:
| But helping the overall ecosystem of the planet. We've made it
| very difficult for birds and other animals.
|
| It's ok to pick winners when you've already broken everything
| past the point where it's a healthy planet.
| blix wrote:
| I don't really feel that maintaining the bird population
| above the plutonium and chemical weapons landfill really
| moves the needle on the global ecosystem either way.
|
| This is a vanity project. If they were serious about the
| global ecosystem they wouldn't be considering insecticides.
| xoa wrote:
| > _I don 't really feel that maintaining the bird
| population above the plutonium and chemical weapons
| landfill really moves the needle on the global ecosystem
| either way._
|
| Oh, you don't _feel_ that way huh? Never mind little
| details like
|
| > _" Today more than 5,700 tropicbird pairs nest on the
| island, or nearly_ half _the estimated global population.
| "_
|
| Half the global population left! But what is that in the
| face of your _feelings_? 6 months of intense brutal lonely
| activity, volunteered in a hazardous zone with little hope
| of any outside support, that has been extremely successful,
| and it 's a "vanity project"!? _If_ they were _serious_!?!?
| Really :(? I 've volunteered for hurricane clean up in
| terrible totaled mobile parks that were some of the most
| unpleasant conditions I've ever faced in my life but they
| were a lot less harsh than this sounds. I got to go home at
| the end of the day for one. Perhaps if humans hadn't
| introduced rats and destroyed/taken over habitats for birds
| worldwide ants sometimes drifting onto an island would be a
| different thing, but as other comments have said we have.
| Your comment is upsetting and horribly uncharitable.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > Oh, you don't _feel_ that way huh?
|
| > But what is that in the face of your _feelings_?
|
| You know damn well that was a idiomatic way of saying
| "according to my not-necessarily-infalliable estimation
| of the relevant information".
|
| > Please respond to the strongest plausible
| interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one
| that's easier to criticize.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| blix wrote:
| Human activity currently puts about a million species at
| risk of extinction [1]. I don't feel picking a few,
| coincidentally aesthetically pleasing species as winners
| really moves the needle in terms of the health of the
| global ecosystem.
|
| Aggressively spraying poisons into the environment has
| decimated insect populations across the globe and,
| consequently is also thought to threaten bird populations
| which eat these insects. It is a short-sighted solution.
|
| The harshness of the conditions for the humans choosing
| to do this task really has no bearing whatsoever on the
| task's impact on the global ecosystem. For someone so
| critical of feelings, that's quite an emotional appeal
| you have going there.
|
| [1] https://www-nature-
| com.mines.idm.oclc.org/articles/d41586-01...
| abraae wrote:
| > I don't feel picking a few, coincidentally
| aesthetically pleasing species as winners really moves
| the needle in terms of the health of the global
| ecosystem.
|
| You have a point. I hate the feel good videos of people
| rescuing individual koalas from the Australian bush fires
| and putting ointment on their burns. We've fucked up
| their entire ecosystem and now we pick one of them and
| treat it to assuage the sad feelings of millions of
| humans? Give me a break.
| macintux wrote:
| It matters to this one.
| allmskio wrote:
| Some things can only be saved with insecticide in a
| remote island. That there are "millions" of other
| threatened species scattered across the globe with all
| sorts of micro/macro solutions (or lack thereof), is a
| nonsequiter.
|
| All you seem to be doing is nitpicking a specific small
| action despite its clearly defined goal and success, when
| you can't even be bothered to propose a concrete
| alternative action that would do better with the same
| resources. Just vagaries and platitudes like "insecticide
| bad in general".
| blix wrote:
| > Some things can only be saved with insecticide
|
| So you can say, with absolute confidence, that no other
| conceivable solution could ever have been effective? I
| don't know if I'm that confident about anything.
|
| I don't agree with the defined goal or the method; it's
| more than just a nitpick. My concrete alternative would
| probably be to do nothing. Or try to mitigate climate
| change. And insecticides ~are~ bad in general.
| macintux wrote:
| I think of it like chemo: sometimes you have to use
| poison to achieve a goal. Apparently this summer they
| declared victory over the ants.
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| Especially when you've unnaturally extended out the atoll
| multiple times, making it easier for the invasive ants to get
| a foothold in these endangered bird's natural habitat.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yeah but I don't give a fuck about nature doing natural things.
| I give a lot of fucks about ensuring that eco diversity is
| preserved and right now that means hill climbing. I'm okay with
| local optima because I know mankind survived in one.
| OneEyedRobot wrote:
| but birds outrank ants.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Notorious invaders likely native to West Africa or perhaps
| Asia, crazy ants cross the high seas on driftwood or as
| stowaways on vessels...
|
| It doesn't seem to mention which is the culprit in this case,
| but it may be an unnatural cause after all - especially given
| the distance to this island.
| Permit wrote:
| This article is from 2015. It looks like this year (2021) they
| announced that they have removed all of the ants from Johnston
| Atoll National Wildlife Refuge:
| https://lmtribune.com/outdoors/crazy-ant-strike-team-complet...
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! We've changed the URL to that from
| https://www.audubon.org/magazine/july-august-2015/one-
| remote....
|
| Edit: changed back since people made reasonable objections.
| geuis wrote:
| Is that really the right thing to do? The original article
| was interesting on its own merits. It's a good follow up that
| the teams have been successful, but that link probably should
| just be pinned as a top comment reply.
| jvdvegt wrote:
| The new URL is not available from Europe (http errorcode
| 451). This works though: https://archive.st/archive/2021/8/lm
| tribune.com/dxk9/lmtribu...
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