[HN Gopher] India's Tigers Bounce Back
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India's Tigers Bounce Back
Author : gumby
Score : 138 points
Date : 2023-04-09 16:40 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| jaberabdullah wrote:
| [flagged]
| jaberabdullah wrote:
| [flagged]
| darth_avocado wrote:
| It is worthwhile to say that some of the conservation efforts may
| not sit well with a lot of people, like preventing poaching by
| shooting the poachers.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-38909512.amp
| bastardoperator wrote:
| If you show up to a gunfight, expect to be shot?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I actually wonder, with no way to measure such, if a huge
| fraction of humanity would be ok with shooting poachers. It's
| sort of an interesting question, in many ways.
| firebirdn99 wrote:
| While I was in that camp for a long time. It's also somewhat
| enlightening to understand their perspectives. Some are hired
| to do the work from extremely poor backgrounds I believe.
|
| The first and foremost is to ban public trophy hunting. Many
| governments in Africa allow it as a revenue stream. But, the
| outrage needs to come from the local population there.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Canada and the US allow trophy hunting within their
| borders; there's a famous picture of "Kid Rock" and Ted
| Nugent with a killed mountain lion, ironically a true
| symbol of the americas they claim to represent. And so
| called canned hunts happen in Texas.
|
| There's a great deal of public apathy or ignorance to be
| overcome in general to excise the small fraction of
| humanity from conducting such practices.
| com2kid wrote:
| > Canada and the US allow trophy hunting within their
| borders; there's a famous picture of "Kid Rock" and Ted
| Nugent with a killed mountain lion, ironically a true
| symbol of the americas they claim to represent. And so
| called canned hunts happen in Texas.
|
| Mountain lions, also called Cougars, are the exact
| opposite of endangered.
|
| Is it stupid to go hunting one? Sure, I guess. Given that
| cougars can be found walking down the streets in suburbs
| outside of Seattle, (also I think you can find them
| walking around some of the larger parks in Seattle!) I
| would hardly be impressed if someone told me they killed
| one.
|
| "Oh wow you killed a large cat that eats small dogs and
| also drinks out my bird feeder".
| manojlds wrote:
| Are you talking about Africa or India or both?
| [deleted]
| mertd wrote:
| Trophy hunting has to be one of the most bizarre "fun"
| activities. How is ending a life fun?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Serial killers find killing people fun.
|
| Everyone's different.
|
| Luckily, a very small percentage of the population is big game
| hunters...
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| A very small percentage of the modern Western population.
| There are still populations on earth where basically every
| adult man hunts.
| david422 wrote:
| I like the idea of taking the camera and calling that the
| "hunt". Same experience, except the animal survives for the
| next hunter. I dunno, not a hunter.
| mmcdermott wrote:
| I'm not a hunter, but I imagine the challenge grabs people. If
| you've ever been riveted to a screen trying to find and fix a
| bug, it seems like you have experienced the essential draw of
| hunting.
| dangwhy wrote:
| > How is ending a life fun?
|
| Couldn't the same said about eating meat with every meal in the
| west or going to a steakhouse for 'fun'.
| jdjsiansian wrote:
| Or ending a life for trivial reasons e.g. swatting a musquito
| or fly because you find it annoying, killing a roach just
| because it happens to wander into your house. Uprooting weeds
| and killing them because you don't like the look of weeds in
| your flower garden etc etc. When is it justified, everyone
| draws their own line I suppose.
| mplewis wrote:
| Generally, people go to a steakhouse to _eat_ meat, not to
| _hunt_ it.
| whydoyoucare wrote:
| Ah, see that's how we indulge in "planet destroying"
| activities - by associating that guilt with someone else.
| :)
| robofanatic wrote:
| I guess you haven't heard about "helicopter hog hunting trips
| in Texas" https://www.helibacon.com/texas-helicopter-hog-
| hunting/
| stronglikedan wrote:
| People enjoy things for different reasons, but sometimes it's
| for the good of the ecosystem. People pay big money to hunt big
| game, which is exhilarating in itself for some, but that money
| goes towards conservation efforts, of which the necessary
| culling they participated in is just a small part. Plus, if
| things need culling for the ecosystem to thrive, it's likely
| the conservationists themselves wouldn't enjoy the culling
| part, so it allows them to outsource it to someone that would
| think it's fun and exhilarating. But poachers can go to hell in
| a handbasket.
| toss1 wrote:
| If you have an actual sound ecosystem, in a sufficiently
| large habitat area (not encroached by humans, roads, etc.),
| culling is rarely necessary.
|
| While some areas that allow trophy hunting charge steep fees
| that help conservation, I can't see that I've ever seen an
| accounting of it being at sustainable levels. And the proof
| is in the pudding, where in Africa, rhinos, elephants,
| giraffes, cheetahs, and many more are declining rapidly.
|
| I'd say that if someone really wants to hunt, they should not
| be selling licenses to hunt game, but to hunt poachers,
| something that can fight back (policies are already shoot on
| sight in many areas). Donate, get deputized, go hunting. We
| only have a few years before many key species are gone
| forever.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| > If you have an actual sound ecosystem, in a sufficiently
| large habitat area (not encroached by humans, roads, etc.),
| culling is rarely necessary.
|
| It's really a question of the extent to which humans get
| bothered when prey populations get too big and then they
| leave the preserve and start getting hit by cars. Or too
| many wolves and they start killing farmers' sheep. Culling
| helps avoid the wild swings in population.
|
| I'd also point out that even with populations that are not
| in good shape (threatened or declining), selling super
| expensive hunting licenses can still make sense. If $50,000
| = +3 rhinos, let the hunter kill the rhino. Of course there
| are perverse incentives and all sorts of practical
| difficulties, but I just want to make the point that it's
| _possible_ for that sort of thing to be in the best
| interests of the species being conserved.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I think you could probably say the same thing about a lot of
| activities: how is jumping out of a plane fun? How is sitting
| in a field waiting to take a picture of a bird fun? How is
| blindly manipulating symbols in a computer fun? You can play
| that game for anything. But for every activity someone enjoys,
| you can bet that it's not the _reductio ad absurdum_
| restatement of that activity they find fun, it 's something
| else about it.
|
| It's odd to be in the position of defending trophy hunters, so
| that's not what I'll do. There are many defensible types of
| hunting, but hunting rare or endangered animals for nothing
| else but a trophy is ethically indefensible. However, for
| people who do that, I imagine it's not the ending of the life
| that's fun, it's the challenge, and especially the bragging
| rights it gives them afterwards. Just a guess though.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Especially with modern weapons.
|
| Even before modern guns, you read about hunting parties - which
| would be dozens, even hundreds of men - ganging up on a
| solitary animal and wonder how was that ever equated with
| bravery.
| swalling wrote:
| It should not be surprising that humans find it fun to do
| something that we did for survival for most of our evolutionary
| history. The evolutionary function of play is the practice of
| adult skills.
|
| What's actually bizarre is that the billions of modern humans
| who would find it sickening to kill any animal personally have
| no issue thoughtlessly living a lifestyle whose need for ever-
| expanding consumption of living space, energy, and other
| resources is directly contributing to a human-caused mass
| extinction.
| wittycardio wrote:
| [dead]
| timellis-smith wrote:
| You do know that global land use for agriculture has peaked
| and certainly in the UK energy usage peaked in 2005.
|
| All this while the world is greening.
|
| Most of the developed world too has declining birth rates.
|
| So I would hardly call it an ever expanding consumption.
| swalling wrote:
| You're totally correct at the demographic level. Probably
| the best trend for tigers is the fact that India and China
| are getting richer and people will consequently be having
| fewer kids. It will result in less pressure on habitat and
| hopefully less demand for things like traditional Chinese
| medicine products made out of tigers.
|
| I was mostly reacting to the hypocrisy of the kind of
| Western liberal who would crucify a trophy hunter online,
| but who flies all over the world for vacation and buys
| Shein hauls to post on TikTok. The personal consumption
| choices of rich people are still driving a lot of
| environmental degradation. Hating hunters is more of a
| liberal tribal shibboleth than a meaningful way to have
| impact on global biodiversity.
| timellis-smith wrote:
| I agree with you on this. And yes, rising living
| standards will hopefully make people care more about
| their environment.
|
| I also agree with you on the individual level with
| increasingly larger cars etc..
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > It should not be surprising that humans find it fun to do
| something that we did for survival for most of our
| evolutionary history.
|
| People did not hunt tigers for "most of our evolutionary
| history". In fact, it's quite recent that people have hunted
| tigers _at all_ , and even then it's more of an outlier than
| a standard practice.
|
| Tigers are difficult and dangerous to hunt, and they're not
| healthy to eat regularly, nor is their meat particularly
| attractive (despite the named "tiger meat", which is actually
| raw beef).
|
| Furthermore, contrary to mass media depictions, tigers rarely
| attack humans unless provoked, and they avoid human
| settlements as well. So even as a matter of safety and
| defense, hunting tigers is a rarity.
|
| Until, of course, you start destroying large swaths of their
| habitat by mass-clearing old-growth rainforest in order to
| produce enough food to keep up with the usurious demands of a
| colonial occupier. At that point, yes, you do start to combat
| tigers more directly.
| swalling wrote:
| There are larger predators like lions featured heavily in
| cave paintings and other forms of the earliest human art
| for a reason. We have never hunted predators like bears and
| big cats as a primary food source, but a willingness to
| defend humans and our food with hand weapons is actually a
| skillset actively practiced until very recently in
| societies like the Maasai. The Human Planet docuseries has
| a pretty incredible scene where hunter gatherers coordinate
| to steal a kill from an entire pride of lions. It makes you
| see why people on the other side of the world in highly
| industrialized societies would find it to be an adrenaline
| rush to hunt the biggest, baddest looking animal they can
| find (not that I do this personally).
|
| You're completely right that the desire to hunt a tiger
| isn't really logical or necessary, I'm just pointing out
| that it is not psychologically aberrant that some people
| (mostly men) would find it satisfying to do things like
| that as a thrill-seeking activity.
| z3phyr wrote:
| Tigers are much larger and stronger than Lions in
| general.
| waldothedog wrote:
| > "What's actually bizarre..."
|
| It's almost like there's a difference between shooting
| something in the face, and pressing a button on my phone to
| make food appear outside my door.
|
| Not saying there aren't repugnant aspects of both, but one is
| quite a bit more visceral and direct.
| [deleted]
| haswell wrote:
| I can't help but feel that this reinforces the parent
| comment's point. As long as the only thing we have to do is
| push a button, the reality behind the food we're about to
| eat is shielded from us.
|
| Despite knowing this, we continue to behave in ways that
| run counter to a rational examination of the realities
| behind pushing that button.
|
| And we default to focusing on factors like the visceral
| nature of the experience instead of the implications of the
| choice.
|
| This is a pretty common default in our current culture, and
| so the bizarre-ness to me is more about our instincts to
| continue making the bad choice just because it's easier
| right now and we won't have to pay for the long term
| repercussions personally.
|
| It's bizarre upon closer examination because it's a self-
| harming behavior that we collectively engage in, even if it
| can be explained mechanically in terms of evolutionary
| reward systems that are in need of an upgrade.
|
| None of this is to excuse modern forms of hunting for
| sport, but we are predators, and only our continued
| evolution of consciousness/culture will move us beyond
| that. That predatory behavior continues to exist is not
| surprising, nor is our tendency to overuse food delivery
| services.
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| There's an animist tribe called Idu Mishmis in India's North East
| state of Arunachal Pradesh, Their mythology considers Tigers to
| be their elder brothers, So they venerate Tigers and are deeply
| involved in conserving their habitat leading to an unique way of
| wildlife conservation.
|
| They don't indulge in retaliatory killing of the Tiger even if it
| hunts one of their people.
|
| Subsequent Tiger census of their region have shown to have
| significant Tiger population that the Govt. now wants to
| establish a Tiger Reserve in their region, Now the Idu Mishmis
| are protesting that plan claiming that the Tigers are actually
| located in their own farm lands and not in deep forest region[1].
|
| [1] https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-
| politi...
| blueline wrote:
| for more like this, cal flyn's "islands of abandonment" is an
| interesting read featuring several surprising example of how
| ecosystems have adapted to varying levels of human destruction
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Thought this was going to be a business-related article,
| pleasantly surprised.
| User23 wrote:
| Tigers are majestic creatures that should be preserved.
|
| They are also efficient and dangerous ambush predators that will
| eat you or your children given the chance.
|
| Reminds me of that dentist that got a tag and shot "Cecil the
| Lion" and the literati in NYC engaged in the requisite
| handwringing while the Africans who actually had to live with it
| were celebrating the 50 grand payday and the elimination of a
| dangerous menace.
|
| Then again maybe reintroducing apex predators to the streets of
| San Francisco would be a net improvement. Let's restore the
| grizzly to the bay area.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| They're not dangerous to humans, we've proven that by nearly
| eliminating the entire species. Bears are no match either, that
| bear on the CA flag is also extinct. Go walk around the
| tenderloin at night, I bet you would fare better against a bear
| versus the collective denizen.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Bears are no match either_
|
| Bears will absolutely see you as a food source. Don't fuck
| with bears. Tigers, and most large cats, are more sensitive
| about risk of injury and as such spooked off more easily,
| _e.g._ by you standing up. Bears near populations aren't
| going to seek you out, but they're different from tigers.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| >They are also efficient and dangerous ambush predators that
| will eat you or your children given the chance.
|
| Lol, no tigers don't generally attack people, and will often
| run away when the human stands up. Attacks on humans are
| generally similar to Bear attacks, defensive in nature when
| people are messing with their young or getting up in their
| business. Though there have been cases of injured tigers going
| nuts and switching to attacking people.
|
| "Cecil the Lion" was not a tiger. "the elimination of a
| dangerous menace" no, he lived in a national park and was
| practically a zoo exhibit. He had a GPS tracker and all the
| safari tours in the area would go see him. His fame with
| tourist is what caused the uproar.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Cecil_the_lion
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_attack
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| as far as I'm concerned, we've encroached on their territory.
| Not the other way around.
| akudha wrote:
| There is this insane book called "Man eaters of Kumaon" by Jim
| Corbett. It is an old book, but well worth your time. If my
| memory is right, one of the tigers he goes after had killed
| hundreds of humans.
|
| Insane story
| jurassic wrote:
| +1 on this book recommendation. Insanely good.
| throwawaymeme wrote:
| [flagged]
| uptownfunk wrote:
| [flagged]
| xbar wrote:
| https://archive.ph/4s8NO
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Is safari private relay failing to load archive.ph for others?
|
| Had to disable it to access the site.
|
| I hope this isn't a sign of dns blocking in iCloud relay like the
| uk government likes to do.
|
| Weird when i go back there and libgen etc won't even resolve.
| Scaevolus wrote:
| archive.ph refuses to load unless you pass geographic eDNS
| information-- it doesn't work if you use 1.1.1.1 either.
| dang wrote:
| (We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35514082.)
| hammock wrote:
| [flagged]
| hexator wrote:
| As the article mentions, their population is threatened mostly
| by habitat loss due to human development and trophy hunting
| hammock wrote:
| NY Times 2019: Bengal Tigers May Not Survive Climate Change
| https://archive.is/Fg5OM#selection-255.0-255.44
|
| NY Times 2019: Climate change is now pushing the Bengal tiger
| closer to extinction
| https://archive.is/0qbcz#selection-553.0-559.23
|
| NY Times 2020: India Sees Coronavirus Threat to Fragile
| Population: Tigers
| https://archive.is/PnuV3#selection-441.0-441.59
|
| Human development and trophy hunting are threats, but they
| aren't the only ones.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Posting NY Times articles isn't an argument. If you believe
| climate change is the main cause here, post a legitimate
| and peer reviewed study by people on the ground. This looks
| like you're high on sensationalist doomerism.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| The articles are based on peer reviewed studies.
|
| The problem with the post is that Bengal Tiger != Indian
| Tigers. Bengal Tigers are a subspecies of tigers and not
| many of them are even in India.
|
| The issues faced by Indian tigers was loss of habitat due
| to human encroachment (which will be worsened due to
| human migration due to climate change), whereas the major
| future threat to Bengal tigers, which live primarily in
| the low lying Sunderban areas of Bangladesh, is climate
| change.
|
| So both things are true because we are talking about
| completely different groups of animals.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| >Human development and trophy hunting are threats, but they
| aren't the only ones.
|
| You are arguing against a statement that nobody made.
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| whythre wrote:
| Yeah, for shame. We can't have a single article about anything
| without banging on about climate change.
| LanceH wrote:
| Are you suggesting that climate change is bringing back tigers?
| gumby wrote:
| What is the connection between the two? I am literally working
| on climate repair and don't see a strong connection.
| firebirdn99 wrote:
| rising sea levels, may eradicate the Sunderbans, one of the
| habitats of the Bengal tigers according to one of the
| articles
| firebirdn99 wrote:
| Just watched some eps of Extrapolations this week, the Apple TV
| show about climate change. It's (a sci-fi show that shows life
| in the future ~2040-2060) very far fetched, but not so much as
| to say it's out of the question that species continue to
| eradicate due to extreme climate change when it occurs. 1 cause
| was wildfires, and we saw some terrible fires over the last few
| years, from ones in Australia, or the Amazon, to ones in
| California. Still remember those pictures of burning Koalas in
| Australia. Another is the idea of rising sea levels which could
| cause many habitat loses like the Tiger ones.
|
| But while these things may not be happening now, it does feel
| that more attention in terms of engineering efforts need to
| happen. There is a lot of hype and media outrage, but not
| seeing as much real substantive efforts. I hope we can control
| climate much better in the coming decades. Many believe Deep
| Learning will help with that. At the same time, these models
| are not as good at planning right now. So, I wonder if it will
| be as simple as that. Definitely in the realm of data
| extraction, and analysis, it will be of great help.
| firebirdn99 wrote:
| Maybe a related note to the PG tweet, about not as much
| capital invested in hardware industries, as opposed to
| software.
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