[HN Gopher] Hippo Meat Nearly Became an American Food Staple
___________________________________________________________________
Hippo Meat Nearly Became an American Food Staple
Author : nonethewiser
Score : 110 points
Date : 2023-05-15 09:54 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ripleys.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ripleys.com)
| smcl wrote:
| I can understand that this was glossed over somewhat to focus on
| the quirky and bizarre rather than the grim. But here:
|
| > Bison _had become_ nearly extinct
|
| The use of the passive "had become" in the above is hiding a
| pretty important part of this story - the snippet below from
| http://www.ozarkbisons.com/aboutbison.php explains a bit more
| about what happened.
|
| > But the fur trade and other commodities from the Bison is only
| a small part of the story. The American government encouraged
| elimination of the Plains Indians' primary food source, the
| bison. The idea was to kill off the Buffalo to starve the
| Indians, force them into relatively small areas, or north into
| Canada - make their food source either scarce or non-existent.
| The results would be starvation and high infant mortality amongst
| the Indian populations that would pave the way west for European
| settlement and the start of the western beef industry
|
| So they didn't really just "become" nearly extinct, they were
| very deliberately eliminated in a sort of genocidal effort. Not
| saying people shouldn't enjoy the story (because it _is_
| interesting after all), I just think this additional context is
| worth knowing.
| boplicity wrote:
| I found that omission distracting; it made me question the rest
| of the article, if this important piece of context was not
| included, you have to wonder what else wasn't included.
| smcl wrote:
| Yeah I think it could've easily been included (even just a
| sentence[0] and a link to something that explored it in a bit
| more detail maybe?) but I don't think there was any malice in
| its omission. Some people want to rewrite or whitewash
| history, but I don't think that was the case here.
|
| [0] - update: user jjeaff included an example of the kind of
| sentence I meant here
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35951313
| boplicity wrote:
| I think most whitewashing of history comes out of the urge
| to avoid uncomfortable topics, rather than any malice. The
| topic of genocide, for example, opens a huge can of worms.
| It's much easier to keep that can of worms out of sight.
|
| Plus, in the interest of storytelling, you often don't want
| to open up "threads" in a story that don't support the main
| plot.
|
| I've noticed this is especially true for children's books.
| They _have to_ have a happy ending. (I mean, who wants to
| read a kids book that leaves the kid depressed about
| history?) Of course, because of this, many kids grow up
| thinking that "problems" like racism are things that were
| solved in the past. And that's because those problems were
| solved in the books that have been read to them, or that
| they've read. (This is based on my experience reading many
| hundreds of books to my kids.)
|
| Anyways, that's a bit of a tangent.
| smcl wrote:
| Honestly I'm with you on everything you have said in this
| thread. I was dancing around it because I didn't want to
| be too accusatory, but I might as well say that what I
| meant is that if someone's writing little "oo what if we
| were eating hippos" pieces and the like, I would
| understand if they didn't want to become a victim of
| targeted hatred from the weird MAGA guys who can easily
| get set off by smaller things like this. It may sound
| silly but they can be dedicated, persistent and creative
| so if someone figures "it's not worth it for the $x00 I'm
| getting" then fine.
|
| Note: not accusing anyone in this thread of anything like
| that, it's pretty cordial as far as I can tell even if I
| disagree with some
| lovich wrote:
| How deep do you take that though? The reason why bison were
| gone doesn't change the fact that they were nearly were at
| the time and that the introduction of hippos were a
| replacement. If you need to have every side fact explained in
| detail, then you're going to have an extremely long, probably
| book length discussion on any given topic.
|
| I think "bison had become nearly extinct" is accurate enough
| to show why hippos as a meat source were even a topic of
| discussion
| boplicity wrote:
| > How deep do you take that though?
|
| The literal _reason_ they were even thinking about
| importing hippos was because "bison had become nearly
| extinct." It's not exactly going "deep" to spend one or two
| sentences on _why_ they 'd gone extinct.
|
| Without the genocide, this very likely wouldn't have
| happened. It's the direct cause, and not a "side fact." I'm
| confused why you would think otherwise.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I posted this article because it highlighted the
| interesting details about the plan the best, but others
| suggested meat monopolies were the actual reason. I dont
| think Bison were a staple prior to 1900 or anything.
|
| If we want to talk about a glaring omission, its that.
| boplicity wrote:
| >I dont think Bison were a staple prior to 1900 or
| anything.
|
| You've been misinformed. Bison was the "was the principal
| food source for Indigenous Peoples of the Plains.[0]"
|
| Indigenous people depended on bison for food; bison were
| slaughtered wholesale in order to make life as hard as
| possible for indigenous people to live. This was quite
| intentional, and extremely horrible. And yes, it sucks,
| and is uncomfortable to think about. Doesn't mean we
| should ignore it, though.
|
| [0] http://traditionalanimalfoods.org/mammals/hoofed/page
| .aspx?i...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| they are clearly talking about the US as a whole
|
| and the collapse of bison population was multi-causal,
| attributing it all to an effort to get rid of native
| americans is frankly ahistorical.
|
| Bison decline was already decidedly in the cards by the
| time colonizers started large-scale hunting of them, due
| to the introduction of the horse and the rifle among
| tribal communities (the popular depiction of plains
| native americans as long-term bison hunters is a western
| conjuration not based in reality). [0]
|
| there is a tendency in pop (progressive) history
| journalism to use the fact that someone said something as
| evidence that this was the primary motivator for why
| people did the things they did. (see, for instance, the
| 1492 project).
|
| [0]: https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/06/09/what-role-
| did-native...
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I think it was clearly just out of scope.
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| Now I'm imagining an alternate history where the Indians were
| forced into Canada, and came back years later riding war
| hippos.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > an alternate history where the Indians ... came back years
| later riding war hippos.
|
| You'd need more than an alternate history, actual hippos
| aren't that tractable.
| kalupa wrote:
| I came for hippo burgers but left with hippo warriors
| bequanna wrote:
| What you're saying isn't false, but I guess I don't understand
| what you're suggesting. That this article should take some
| white guilt detour to delve into this topic?
|
| I think most are growing weary of having content about how
| terrible white people are injected into every possible thing.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| I don't think the Irish government did this, nor the Germans.
| And brown Americans' government did. You're the one bringing
| up white guilt here, and glossing over atrocities can be
| called out without any need for invoking the idea of racial
| guilt.
| smcl wrote:
| I _explicitly_ said that I understood why they didn 't
| include it - the article was meant to highlight the bizarre
| idea of hippo meat being introduced in the USA. I commented
| here because I just thought some HN'ers would like to know a
| bit more - and I said that too.
|
| I'm not sure how else I could've worded my comment that
| wouldn't have triggered this kind of reaction :-/
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I don't read that as a cause for guilt as a white person. I
| wasn't there and I wouldn't currently support that kind of
| endeavour. I'd almost certainly speak up against it, and I
| don't hesitate to speak up about injustices that are still
| occurring.
|
| I read it as important history to take into account moving
| forward. There's no need for guilt over a past you didn't
| participate in. There is however a benefit from considering
| the past and how it affects the present, and an opportunity
| to be better for it. At no point does anyone need to feel
| guilty, though.
| jjeaff wrote:
| Is it really "injecting" to simply be accurate? "Had become
| extinct" is technically correct. As much as, "Jews had become
| less populous during World War II."
|
| Teaching real history is not "injecting".
|
| Bison had become nearly extinct due to extreme overhunting by
| European settlers would be fine. And if pertinent, you could
| add more reasons for the extreme overhunting.
| boplicity wrote:
| Why not just call genocide what it is -- genocide? Wouldn't
| it be far more accurate, and just as concise, to say "Bison
| had become nearly extinct due to genocide by European
| settlers"?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| "Genocide" applied to the killing of animals would be a
| very unusual usage. Something like "extermination" would
| probably be more appropriate.
| porkbeer wrote:
| No it really isnt, that is the most common usage besides
| ww2 history.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Got a source? Webster's and Dictionary.com both list a
| _single_ sense, and it 's to do with peoples and
| cultures, not any living thing. I'm sure it's been used
| that way on occasion, but I'm quite confident that's not
| a common usage, and employing it for a general audience
| would tend not to be the best choice.
|
| (as another poster noted, the extermination was _part of_
| a genocide, that 's true, but it remains weird to
| describe extermination of animals as "genocide" in this
| kind of context, where we're evidently concerned that the
| reader might not be aware of why the bison were few in
| number--it's strange to imply we committed genocide
| _against bison_. That is definitely not a normal way to
| phrase that.)
| smcl wrote:
| The genocide in question is that of the indigenous
| people, not of the Bison
| WalterBright wrote:
| The purpose was to force them onto the reservation, not
| exterminate them.
|
| See "Empire of the Summer Moon".
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Summer-Moon-Comanches-
| Powerful...
|
| An excellent read for anyone curious about the history of
| this.
| ethanbond wrote:
| I'm comfortable calling an extermination attempt the
| actions that would certainly destroy their culture and
| history and food supply and language.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| If we're adding detail to the story because we think the
| reader might not be aware of why there weren't many bison
| left, I'm not sure:
|
| > Bison had become nearly extinct due to genocide by
| European settlers
|
| is going to help. Any reader who'd benefit from
| specifying why bison had been largely wiped out, probably
| won't connect the dots here, and will instead read that
| as genocide against bison. Readers who read "genocide" as
| referring to "genocide against indigenous people, part of
| which was eradication of bison" didn't need any of this
| called out to begin with.
| smcl wrote:
| I don't think it's right to hold a comment on HN to the
| same standards as a magazine article, though. It's
| entirely possible to write that sentence you had a
| problem with in a way that describes what happened
| without any confusion.
| [deleted]
| barbazoo wrote:
| This reminds me of an English term that, to me as an ELL,
| sticks out like a sore thumb every time I see it: Landfill. It
| almost sounds like we're doing something admirable by filling
| the land where there's an emptiness rather than saying what it
| really is, a place where we dump our garbage waiting for it to
| decompose, creating a hostile environment for everyone and
| everything around.
| [deleted]
| ajb wrote:
| Yes, it probably was a euphemism originally, but negative
| connotations catch up pretty fast:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill
| callalex wrote:
| Landfill is what the government calls them. The commonly used
| term is dump.
| [deleted]
| smcl wrote:
| That's an interesting perspective, I hadn't ever broken the
| word down and thought about it like that! However from the
| perspective of a native speaker, I can't imagine anyone
| thinks there's anything admirable about a "landfill". It's
| possible that it's a euphemism preferred by the local
| authority or whoever has to handle the rubbish we generate,
| but really we all know what it is referring to.
| akiselev wrote:
| They're called landfills because of the method used to
| dispose the garbage: digging out a trench, covering the
| garbage with dirt, and compacting it to prevent rodents [1].
| The land is literally "filled in" with garbage.
|
| Before that trash was either incinerated, which caused lots
| of air pollution, or just dumped in large piles that created
| all kinds of sanitation issues, especially in urban areas. As
| unsavory as it is to think about, landfills were an actual
| innovation in waste disposal that exploded in the post war
| boom, not just a euphemism for a dump.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno_Municipal_Sanitary_L
| and...
| smcl wrote:
| It's still incinerated plenty of places, iirc Japan does it
| and I know that at least some of it here is:
| https://www.teplarny.cz/cs/spolecenska-odpovednost
|
| > Vyuzivame spalovani odpadu. V lete je spalovna hlavnim
| zdrojem teple vody pro mesto. Vyrabime soucasne elektrinu.
|
| ~= "We are using incinerated waste. In summer the
| incinerator is the main source of hot water for the city.
| At the same time we're producing electricity."
|
| They do have a couple of charging ports at the _teplarny_
| near me, but I don 't know how much electricity they
| produce.
| akiselev wrote:
| Yeah modern incineration is a totally different beast
| with flue gas cleaning systems [1].
|
| Before wet scrubbers [2] and some other clean air
| technology reached mass production - largely in the 70s
| iirc, because of EPA & California Air Resources Board
| pressure on coal power plants - incineration was a much
| dirtier way of disposing of trash.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incineration#Flue-
| gas_cleaning
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_scrubber
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Thats a good observation, I never thought of it like that. Im
| not sure where you are, but its also called a dump in the US.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The collapse of bison population was multi-causal, attributing
| it all to an effort to get rid of native americans is frankly
| ahistorical.
|
| Bison decline was already decidedly in the cards by the time
| colonizers started large-scale hunting of them, due to the
| introduction of the horse and the rifle among tribal
| communities (the popular depiction of plains native americans
| as long-term bison hunters is a western conjuration not based
| in reality). [0]
|
| there is a tendency in pop (progressive) history journalism to
| use the fact that someone said something as evidence that this
| was the primary motivator for why people did the things they
| did. (see, for instance, the 1492 project).
|
| The tendency to valorize Native Americans as somehow above
| material trends, not prone to waste, etc. etc. is a cultural
| invention of the latter 20th century and the counterculture
| movement.
|
| [0]: https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/06/09/what-role-did-
| native...
| emodendroket wrote:
| > The tendency to valorize Native Americans as somehow above
| material trends, not prone to waste, etc. etc. is a cultural
| invention of the latter 20th century and the counterculture
| movement.
|
| It is hard to see why this is relevant to bring up except as
| a way of excusing the historical incident at hand.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > excusing the historical incident at hand.
|
| If the 'historical incident' is the extinction of the
| bison, then I bring it up because it is directly relevant
| to our views on the extinction of the bison?
| emodendroket wrote:
| The post you're replying to attributes the dwindling
| bison population to a real, documented effort to starve
| Amerindians and your response is to say there were other
| causes besides that and anyway the Indians had their own
| problems. Both claims may be true but I don't see what it
| changes.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > dwindling bison population to a real, documented effort
| to starve Amerindians
|
| It's a discussion about the cause of bison elimination
| and I am discussing large proximate causes of bison death
| in the 19th century. Not sure why this is out of left
| field for you.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Because I think that even if they had the wind at their
| backs, so to speak, and don't deserve full "credit," your
| post reads like an attempt to minimize what would
| otherwise read as a shocking act of violence, especially
| with a coda that seems to serve no real purpose but to
| denigrate the victims of it.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > especially with a coda that seems to serve no real
| purpose but to denigrate the victims of it.
|
| I'm not denigrating Native Americans by rejecting the
| racist trope that they were too simplistic and culturally
| at peace with nature to ever destabilize the environment
| they were in.
|
| I think there is a big gulf between how we are
| interpreting this thread that I can't bridge. European
| colonization of the Americas was marked by many, many
| acts of horrific violence, regardless of whether they
| were the sole cause of bison extinction.
| wahern wrote:
| > The tendency to valorize Native Americans as somehow above
| material trends, not prone to waste, etc. etc. is a cultural
| invention of the latter 20th century and the counterculture
| movement.
|
| Perceiving peoples living outside industrialized society (or
| whatever is perceived as locally modern) this way is
| definitely not an invention of the latter 20th century. The
| flip side to being "less civilized" is having access to
| ancient concepts and norms that are more "natural" and
| "wholistic", and Native Americans and others were absolutely
| described in this ostensibly positive light just as much as
| they were in a negative, derogatory light. All peoples have
| done this throughout time; pick any cultural group anywhere
| and at any time and you'll also find another group who were
| the objective of such perceptions and ideas.
|
| If latter 20th century and 21st century leftist thinkers
| wonder how or why such reductive, dehumanizing thinking could
| become ingrained in a culture, or if they wonder if the
| people who promoted these reductive identities had ill or
| good intentions, they need only reflect upon their own
| narratives.
| smcl wrote:
| I feel like the issue of whether he left are the real
| racists (as you seem to be implying) or whether they
| infantilise indigineous people is a separate one
| wahern wrote:
| I didn't say the left are the real racists. Racism comes
| in many shapes and forms, some more obvious than others.
| (FWIW, I grew up one town away from an infamous "sundown
| town", where people didn't feel the need to use dog
| whistles, innuendo, or even bother justifying facially
| racist ideas and behaviors. I've seen what that sort of
| racism looks like, watched it morph, and haven't lost
| track of its whereabouts.) Contemporary criticisms by the
| left have many salient and important things to say.
| Separating the constructive criticisms from the intrinsic
| infirmities isn't easy, however. (Some people, like
| Tucker Carlson, are better at it than others, and use
| their skill to loathsome ends.) But one way to start is
| to identify the problematic threads which their proposed
| solutions actually share with the harmful dynamics they
| claim to address.
|
| The left ultimately embraced identity politics because
| identities can be _empowering_ , culturally and of course
| politically. But identities are fundamentally and
| necessarily reductive, from which derives both its
| empowering capacity, but also derives the ability to
| readily label people and easily attach presumptions about
| how certain groups of people behave or should be treated,
| and to do so systematically and comprehensively. Such
| labels may seem positive one day, but can easily--perhaps
| even invariably--evolve into negative stereotypes as
| culture shifts. Moreover, identities invite one group to
| project their beliefs about themselves onto other groups,
| so they can be just as if not more empowering to
| entrenched powers as they are to the disenfranchised.
|
| Thus, for example, the classic example of the Noble
| Savage, where Europeans projected their own criticisms
| about their rapidly changing, industrializing societies
| onto native peoples in what at face value was often a
| positive light (and often sincerely intended by some as
| positive), but which nonetheless furthered deeply harmful
| stereotypes and presumptions about the cultural,
| political, and moral capacity of those groups and
| individuals. The parallels between Noble Savage
| narratives and today are crystal clear, IMO. It's how you
| get leftist defenses of "colored people's time" and
| similar stereotypes (e.g. as in the infamous Smithsonian
| Poster) as testifying to a true and inherent trait of
| some racial groups; it can be understood as a positive
| trait by upper middle class professionals who bemoan the
| stressful demands of their occupations and wish for a
| more "relaxed" culture, but that positively bent
| characterization is fleeting, and its fundamentally
| controlled by the professional class and subject to their
| whims, not the disenfranchised to whom it may be intended
| to defend.
| [deleted]
| ben7799 wrote:
| "Nearly" seems to be a big stretch.. journalists assuming 99% of
| the work is the idea and getting it cleared from a regulatory
| perspective.
|
| Implementation is always so much harder once you have to actually
| do it then when you just have to talk about it or write articles
| about it.
| sf_rob wrote:
| Even post-implementation, even in a poorer era, dietary
| preferences are sticky. There are fads in farming, for instance
| my distant family got into the emu hype of the late 90s and
| lost a decent chunk of money because there was only a small
| specialty market that never grew. There's also been bison and
| alpacas.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| It's easy you just pick the right framework, then domesticate
| the hippos, then monetize hippos as a monthly service.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| FYI, this a bad idea because Hippos are not cute placid animals.
| They are deadly dangerous. They may be herbivorous, but a Hippo
| is two tons of bad-tempered "aggressive and territorial" bastard,
| and they can move faster than you can, on land or in the water.
|
| "the hippopotamus is the world's deadliest large land mammal,
| killing an estimated 500 people per year
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-36320744
| fencepost wrote:
| So it'd be just like herds of cattle except all of them with
| the gentle demeanor of uncut bulls in close proximity to other
| uncut bulls.
|
| Eeeeeeasy! For someone else to do.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Cattle are equally, if not more, dangerous, and also kill over
| 500 people a year in the US
| stephenhuey wrote:
| There are a little over 100,000 hippos in the world and
| almost 100 million cattle in the USA, so on a per capita
| basis it's not even close! My grandfather raised cattle in
| Texas and we had to be aware at times, but the level of
| caution was nowhere near the extent needed when my brother
| and friends went fishing for giwan ruwa ("river elephant" aka
| Nile perch) in a remote part of Nigeria, because hippos were
| nearby! And when my friends took a 3-day canoe trip down the
| Zambezi River, the guides were vigilant about hippos more
| than anything else, because they are very aggressive when
| they feel threatened and they can bite a crocodile in half.
| Cattle are domesticated animals, but hippos are wild!
| iancmceachern wrote:
| True, but comparing a domesticated animal in a feed lot to
| wild animals doesn't really track.
|
| Comparing hippo deaths in captive populations, like in
| zoos, ate more comparable to domesticated farm animals.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Cattle are equally, if not more, dangerous, and also kill
| over 500 people a year in the US
|
| According to the CDC, it's closer to 25/year[0] (108 over 4
| years). And that's just raw totals, not accounting for
| populations size or the relative likelihood of encounters.
|
| People underestimate how dangerous cows are, but hippos are
| _way_ more aggressive and dangerous.
|
| [0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5829a2.htm
| bombcar wrote:
| Also I've seen cows alongside the road many times (as
| required by international law, you have to moo at them) -
| but I've never seen a hippo except in a zoo.
| munificent wrote:
| > the hippopotamus
|
| Jesus Christ, they should find that hippo and take the fucker
| out before it kills us all.
| dangus wrote:
| Which is why "nearly became a food staple" is not a very honest
| headline.
|
| Nobody would have succeeded at this endeavor, so the idea that
| this "almost" happened is ludicrous.
|
| You might as well say that Star Trek almost invented warp
| drive.
| Aissen wrote:
| Mankind has transformed deadly predators (wolves) into
| routine companions (dogs); and over centuries created
| multiple species specifically for food consumption (many
| plants, but also modern cows, sheep, etc.). I think hippos
| would have been possible; albeit probably not desirable.
| justinator wrote:
| I think there are many theories that say that the dog had
| some say in the matter of being domesticated. Could have
| actually been there idea to start!
|
| It's a wonder how few truly domesticated animals there are
| which may lead one to believe that it's not so easy or
| natural. I guess we could give each hippo a lobotomy but
| that really wouldn't go over well with the PETA crowd and
| I'm not shy to say I'd probably side with them on this
| matter.
| bigyikes wrote:
| > "the hippopotamus is the world's deadliest large land mammal,
| killing an estimated 500 people per year"
|
| ah yes, the humble hippopotamus, my favorite LLM (sorry
| llamas!) :)
| qup wrote:
| They rejected the RLHF, no doubt
| dmm wrote:
| reinforcement learning from human fatalities
| kerkeslager wrote:
| This would have been a pretty bad AI (animal invasion).
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > the hippopotamus is the world's deadliest large land mammal,
| killing an estimated 500 people per year
|
| I'm pretty sure that excessive consumption of beef and pork
| kills a lot more than 500 people per year.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that excessive consumption of sugar kills a
| lot more than 5 million people per year.
| timeon wrote:
| How is this relevant?
| rmdashrfstar wrote:
| The largest and strongest animals are herbivores and yet
| people are obsessed with eating flesh because "protein", lol
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Hippos have to graze up to 16 hours a day. Meat is a
| shortcut that enabled our species to put time into other
| things that made us the dominant species on the planet.
| timeon wrote:
| So is wheat/gluten.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| I don't have a rumen or an abomasum.
|
| If you want to be large and strong, the science is
| irrefutable... eating meat is essential. Nothing
| substitutes.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| How is it possible that meat is "essential" for size or
| strength, when there are plenty of professional athletes
| who eat vegan?
|
| This guy weighs 263 pounds, squats > 650, and eats vegan.
| https://www.openpowerlifting.org/u/ryanjstills
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| How is it possible that it's essential, when a 22 yr old
| juicing to the gills can look like a bodybuilder carved
| out of marble?
|
| Well, when you're not a 1-in-a-million athlete. That's
| how it's possible.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Who are you talking about? What juiced-to-the-gills 22
| year old?
|
| More importantly, what's the science backing your claim
| that eating meat is essential to becoming big and strong?
| [deleted]
| porkbeer wrote:
| Vegan athletes are a rounding error, and most suppliment
| with things you would not typically consider vegan, much
| less nagural.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| The claim is that meat is "essential" to become big and
| strong. Which nutrients in meat are "essential" for this
| but not in a vegan's diet, so that they have to fill the
| gap with supplements to be competitive in sports?
|
| For what one anecdote is worth, I'm friends with a former
| professional athlete who tried a vegan diet after after
| retiring - and years on he is still as freakishly strong
| and agile as ever. Many well-known pro athletes have gone
| vegan during their careers as well: Chris Paul, Venus
| Williams, Carl Lewis, among others.
|
| https://health.clevelandclinic.org/yes-can-vegetarian-
| athlet...
|
| https://www.gq.com/story/real-life-diet-chris-paul
| grumple wrote:
| Herbivores have digestive tracks that are better at
| breaking down plant matter than ours [1]. They also spend
| far more time eating [2]. Obviously these are not huge
| problems these days, since we can grow plants that give us
| more protein and calories, while being easier to digest.
| But to say "hippo get strong from eating plant, you get
| strong from eating plant" is pretty silly. If you spend 5-6
| hours a day eating grass like a hippo, you will die from
| starvation.
|
| 1. https://stluciasouthafrica.com/hippo-facts/hippo-
| digestive-s...
|
| 2. https://ielc.libguides.com/sdzg/factsheets/hippopotamus/
| diet....
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Yes, that's right, those large and strong herbivores are a
| great source of protein.
| pawelmurias wrote:
| You should eat only grass for a year and report back how
| you feel about this.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Does wheat-based cereal count?
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| Presumably a few generations of selective breeding could get us
| some nice docile hippos
| justrealist wrote:
| Un-castrated bulls are also deadly dangerous. We just have a
| lot of infrastructure around keeping them away from people (and
| minimizing the number that remain intact).
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Un-castrated bulls are also deadly dangerous.
|
| Yes, but nowhere near as dangerous or as aggressive as hippos
| are.
|
| Cows are domesticated. There's a reason that all attempts to
| domesticate hippos have failed.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Dairy bulls are the worst. It might be wrong to say that
| they are effectively domesticated... the genes for high
| milk production are tangled up with those for
| aggressiveness (I hesitate here, "hostility" might be a
| better word) in males.
| BigCryo wrote:
| Hey, pigs can be very dangerous too.. many a lad has been treed
| in rural America in decades past by a herd of feral hogs.. go
| read the book Old yeller or even watch the movie if books are
| not your thing
| whizzter wrote:
| """Legit question for rural Americans - How do I kill the
| 30-50 feral hippos that run into my yard within 3-5 mins
| while my small kids play?"""
| moron4hire wrote:
| I'm assuming you mean pigs, not hippos.
|
| My understanding (and you'll have to check your local laws)
| is that there is no "hunting season" for wild pigs because
| they are considered a pest species and thus they can be
| culled at anytime, with no restriction on type of weapon.
|
| So basically, this is one case where an AR-15 would
| actually be a decent weapon for civilian use. Most places
| won't let you use a high-capacity, auto-loading rifle for
| hunting, but wild-pig-pest-control isn't hunting.
|
| On the other hand, AR-15s are kinda 'spensive, so an AK-47
| pattern rifle in 7.62x39mm might be a better choice (and
| surplus ammo is plentiful). The AK-74 pattern rifles in
| 5.45x39mm that I've seen have tended to be almost as
| expensive as a "cheap" AR-15, so at that point I don't know
| why you wouldn't just get an AR-15 for the more common ammo
| type.
|
| If price is _especially_ a problem, then a Hi Point carbine
| in 40S &W or 45ACP won't break the bank and should have
| enough stopping power. Plus, they usually come with some
| cheap optics that are more than adequate for the effective
| range of the rifle, which basically makes the thing almost
| as easy to shoot as a video game. But they are quite, erhm,
| ugly (mushy trigger pull, bad ergonomics), so if you can
| swing a more expensive rifle, that'd be preferable.
| zrail wrote:
| Imma let you finish but 30-50 feral hogs is a meme. See
| sibling comment.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Hrm. Well, I guess I "touch grass" too often to have run
| across that one before.
| [deleted]
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| While that used to be true, AK-47/AK-74/etc. types of
| rifles are typically multiple times more expensive than
| AR-15s these days.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Whoa, yeah, just checked. AR-15 prices have really
| crashed. Glad I talked my dad out of using them as an
| "investment".
| porkbeer wrote:
| Investment quality ars are still holding value fine. The
| cheap ar rifles are... well, cheaply made. Not my
| favorite feature of a firearm that rests next to your
| face while use.
| aperson_hello wrote:
| Clearly the answer is a personal Predator drone fleet
| carrying hellfire missiles. As is my God-given right to own
| and use as a red-blooded American.
| jwilk wrote:
| For the uninitiated:
|
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/30-50-feral-hogs
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| I love that a few people familiar with guns and hunting
| here just went into a clinical analysis of the
| feasibility of killing 50 hippos in your yard
| bombcar wrote:
| A good SRE doesn't only prepare for the obvious failure
| modes, but also considers other possible avenues
| (especially since if it works for 50 hippos it will
| _probably_ help against 50 elephants, maybe).
| bluGill wrote:
| Rural Americans have a .30-06 (or similar rifle) and know
| how to use it, and they often have access to more powerful
| guns. The question is can you hit a moving target without
| hitting the kids in the yard - unlikely no matter how much
| you train.
|
| .30 caliber is a little light for this job, but it will
| work if you aim well. Generally you would want a more
| powerful gun.
| skymast wrote:
| Placement takes precedence over caliber size.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| I don't think that still holds true at the extremes.
| These extremes include
|
| 1) very small calibre
|
| 2) high stress situation where quick reaction is needed,
| very precise placement such as the eye is nigh
| impossible. "head" is a good as you'll realistically get.
|
| 3) very large animal with a thick skull.
|
| "charging Hippo" is 2 & 3.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > How do I kill the 30-50 feral hippos that run into my
| yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play?
|
| 1. This[1] page suggests:
|
| > The minimum suggested caliber for hunting hippo is a 375
| and up, using solid bullets.
|
| I assume that means .375 H&H magnum.
|
| If you're actually going to try to kill Hippos, you're
| going to want to study their anatomy carefully. From what I
| understand, most hunters take headshots because Hippos are
| typically mostly submerged. But for most large game, a
| heart shot is seen as less risky since the brain is
| surprisingly small and well protected, which is an option
| unless your yard is deeply submurged.
|
| 2. 30-50 is almost certainly impossible in 3-5 minutes.
| Even with extensive practice.
|
| Almost all rifles that shoot such high powered ammunition
| have an integral magazine, which means you'd have to load
| each bullet individually. And shooting that many targets at
| speed virtually guarantees that you'll miss their vitals
| somewhat regularly.
|
| Also, 40-80 rounds of .375 H&H magnum would be extremely
| physically punishing to shoot.
|
| ---
|
| 1. https://somerbysafaris.com/species/hunting-hippo-in-
| south-af...
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > From what I understand, most hunters take headshots
| because Hippos are typically mostly submerged.
|
| If it's active defence against a Hippo charging at you,
| "running into your yard" then the Hippo is not mostly
| submerged.
|
| If you need to clear the swamp of those pesky Hippos
| before they kill again, then sure.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| I know that the intention is somewhat humorous here,
| but...
|
| A lot of caliber recommendations out there are
| significant overkill, based on limited data. In cases
| where we _do_ have data, calibers signicantly less
| powerful than recommendations often prove surprisingly
| effective.
|
| For example, in a survey of 104 grizzly and polar bear
| attacks _with handgun calibers_ , there were only 3
| failures, all of which involved firing after the bear had
| already caused damage (an automatic failure) or
| completely missing[1]. You'll often see guys carrying 44
| magnums in grizzly country, but the evidence seems to
| suggest that common 9mm rounds are effective enough. Even
| the lowly 22 rimfire is represented in the data with
| success against black bears (but not polar bears). I
| don't know anyone who would recommend 22 rimfire for
| _deer_ let alone bears.
|
| Given this, I think it's reasonable to select the
| venerable 7.62x39. This is a common chambering for semi-
| automatic and even automatic rifles with high-capacity
| magazines, which would obviate the need to load each
| bullet individually. It also is easy to obtain armor-
| piercing rounds in this caliber if penetration is your
| concern. This is still a punishing round to fire a lot
| of, but with a modern recoil management system it's
| manageable.
|
| Additionally, the heart is a small target as well, but
| luckily most hunters' experience is that larger target
| including the lung and liver can provide reasonably
| ethical kills (i.e. the animal dies quickly without a
| prolonged tracking during which the animal suffers). For
| most animals striking the scapula proves disabling,
| allowing for an easier follow-up. So just aiming slightly
| forward of center of mass should be sufficient--no
| detailed knowledge of anatomy or high-speed, high-
| precision shooting needed.
|
| All this is to say that with a different approach,
| killing what can only be described as a stampede of 30-50
| hippos in 3-5 minutes isn't as implausible as a more
| conservative approach might make it seem.
|
| [1] https://www.ammoland.com/2021/06/handgun-or-pistol-
| against-b...
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| If they're charging at you, it seems most effective to
| aim for the brain, that's the target (1). I would prefer
| the armour-piercing rounds, to get through the thick
| skull.
|
| At that angle, the other vital organs are also well-
| shielded, by bulk if not by skull.
|
| 1) https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/hippopotamus-
| running-in-th...
| wcarron wrote:
| > You'll often see guys carrying 44 magnums in grizzly
| country, but the evidence seems to suggest that common
| 9mm rounds are effective enough. Even the lowly 22
| rimfire is represented in the data with success against
| black bears (but not polar bears). I don't know anyone
| who would recommend 22 rimfire for deer let alone bears.
|
| > Given this, I think it's reasonable to select the
| venerable 7.62x39. This is a common chambering for semi-
| automatic and even automatic rifles with high-capacity
| magazines, which would obviate the need to load each
| bullet individually. It also is easy to obtain armor-
| piercing rounds in this caliber if penetration is your
| concern. This is still a punishing round to fire a lot
| of, but with a modern recoil management system it's
| manageable.
|
| So, the .308 is extremely common in the US and is
| somewhat similar to the 7.62x39. A .308 fires a typical
| round with, oh about 2500 ft-lbs of muzzle energy.
| Meanwhile a 44mag has maybe 1000 ft-lbs of muzzle energy.
| An Ak-47 is also 7.62x39 and has ~ 1500 ft-lbs of energy.
| That's a hell of a lot more grunt than a 44 magnum, any
| way you dice it.
|
| At that point, skip the armor-piercing or FMJ and go
| hollow point. There's more than enough power in that
| round and the larger wound channel is probably a plus.
| FredPret wrote:
| If you're hunting in the African bush (not the scenario
| described, I know) I'd want to carry the largest possible
| caliber. These animals are big and _fast_ - you get one
| shot if you are lucky.
|
| There are also other animals that share an environment
| with the hippo that are very well-armoured and hard to
| kill with one shot, like elephants, Cape buffalo, etc.
| bombcar wrote:
| The caliber stuff isn't about the "bear" minimum, it's
| about overkill because it not working can be an issue.
|
| Reference that Tokyo Joe article posted here a few days
| ago where the dude took some number of .22 shells direct
| to the skull _and lived_.
|
| I have read that _too_ high powered a rifle can also be
| an issue, as the bullet just punches through the animal
| leaving a small entry wound and a relatively small exit
| wound, allowing the animal some significant time before
| it bleeds out.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > I have read that too high powered a rifle can also be
| an issue, as the bullet just punches through the animal
| leaving a small entry wound and a relatively small exit
| wound, allowing the animal some significant time before
| it bleeds out.
|
| It's not.
|
| "Solid bullet" typically means hard cast lead; it's a
| non-deforming bullet. The name of the game when it comes
| to the "big 5" is penetration. If you hit the brain or
| heart, it's dead quickly. If not, it'll probably shrug
| off the wound.
|
| These are animals that fight lions and crocodiles, not to
| mention other hippos. Their bodies can take pretty
| massive damage (compared to humans anyhow) and just keep
| trucking.
| bombcar wrote:
| To be fair most game hunting is (at least arguably) for
| meat or trophy, weaponry that completely turns your hippo
| into a thin red mist works for hippo control but is hard
| to mount on your wall, so your CSAM would probably work -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heLuUd0VK2s
| RetpolineDrama wrote:
| Yeah, 30-50 feral hippos in 3-5 minutes is well past "man
| portable weapon" territory. You're going to need a 40mm
| autocannon. Preferably on an Apache
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| A big gun, .40 calibre or more, elephant gun if you have
| it. Aim for the brain.
|
| If your kids are in the way, it would be very hard to get
| there in time.
|
| https://www.quora.com/What-should-I-use-to-take-down-a-
| hippo...
|
| https://www.discountafricanhunts.com/africananimals/hippo.h
| t...
| justinator wrote:
| Would you rather fight 10 pig sized hippos or one hippo sized
| pig?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Or choice #3 - 4 hungry hippos!
| jokowueu wrote:
| Technically speaking , arnt humans the most dangerous land
| mammal ?
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Yes, but you can't eat them, silly. (All kidding aside, I
| hear hippo taste like chicken.)
| jylam wrote:
| "large land mammal"
| nkozyra wrote:
| I think humans fit that description, though.
| euroderf wrote:
| Talkin'bout mud flaps, my hippo's got'em.
| jimmytucson wrote:
| There's no reason to think this would have worked. To quote Jared
| Diamond, only 14 of 148 large herbivorous mammals have ever been
| domesticated because they need very specific traits to be
| domesticable - pleasant disposition being one of them that hippos
| lack.
|
| Is there any evidence that humans have ever succeeded in
| domesticating hippos?
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Domesticated? They planned on releasing them in Lousiana.
|
| Which -- to be clear -- would be WAY worse!
| byyyyy wrote:
| [dead]
| nonethewiser wrote:
| The most interesting detail of this story IMO is that they may
| have been released into the Louisiana bayou. Imagine these
| creatures wild in the swamps!
| euroderf wrote:
| They are killers. BAD idea.
| gadders wrote:
| Probably a bit like this: https://www.dw.com/en/colombia-pablo-
| escobars-hippo-populati...
| nbardy wrote:
| > Since Pepe, authorities have been trying, unsuccessfully,
| to limit hippos' numbers by chemically sterilizing them or
| castrating them. This is a hard task given their immense
| size, aggression and internal testicles.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Anyone watching Mrs. Davis on Peacock? The Resistance lives in an
| old Hippo Meat Factory known as the Hippo Campus.
| [deleted]
| throwawaydc223 wrote:
| An excellent long-read of this topic can be found at
| https://magazine.atavist.com/american-hippopotamus/.
|
| It's one of my favorite pieces of online journalism and goes deep
| into the unique lives involved and prevailing culture of the
| team.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Thanks you for sharing this. The ripleys article highlighted
| some interesting points so I chose that, but I was hoping to
| find a better account. Like the one you shared.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| How can it be a good article if the word "bison" cant even be
| found in it?
|
| /s
| karaterobot wrote:
| Ha, I came here to link the same article. It's really
| fantastic.
| kernal wrote:
| It's surprising that the most obvious question hasn't been
| answered. So what does Hippo meat taste like?
|
| The taste is mild, less than lamb and more than beef, slightly
| more marbled than usual venison.
| porkbeer wrote:
| Came here wondering exactly this.
| BigCryo wrote:
| Our meat Staples here in America are very unhealthy.. we really
| should be aqua farming cetaceans and walruses and seals and
| stuff. Loaded with healthy fats... Eskimos eat pure meat and fat
| from these animals and they never get heart disease.. something
| to think about..... PostScript... Some would say we should not
| aquafarm cetaceans, but surely there are dumb cetaceans...
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The Eskimos surviving after thousands of years in the arctic
| have evolved to thrive with the available diet.
|
| That very likely does not apply to the rest of us.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| There's no evolutionary pressure to not die from a stroke at
| 50 because you subsist on that sort of diet. Rates of stroke
| mortality are higher among Alaskan natives than other US
| ethnic groups, for example[1].
|
| [1] https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2
| 008...
| causi wrote:
| Different human ethnic groups have different dietary needs.
| Eating like a traditional Inuit would not go as well for, say,
| a Frankish man.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/europeans-evolved-to...
| tpush wrote:
| > Eskimos eat pure meat and fat from these animals and they
| never get heart disease..
|
| That is probably more of a myth than anything [0].
|
| "The evidence for a low mortality from IHD among the Inuit is
| fragile and rests on unreliable mortality statistics. Mortality
| from stroke, however, is higher among the Inuit than among
| other western populations."
|
| [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12535749/
| itamarst wrote:
| There's a fun pair of alternate history novellas based on this:
| https://publishing.tor.com/americanhippo-sarahgailey/9781250...
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Clicked into this thread to ensure their work was mentioned!
|
| Those stories are fun.
| soegaard wrote:
| Meanwhile in Floria:
|
| I Cooked A Whole Alligator ft. Guga - Joshua Weissman
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v__SIw48G-I
| danparsonson wrote:
| What a great story!
|
| > The New York Times coined the phrase "lake cow bacon,"
|
| Seems like a wasted opportunity not to go for the portmanteau and
| call it Lakon
| Dalewyn wrote:
| The Lakon Type-10 Defender: Built like a steakhouse, handles
| like a bistro.
| weard_beard wrote:
| 07
|
| (this is a requisite greeting among enthusiasts of the game
| the parent comment is referencing - elite dangerous. Captains
| salute each other upon a random meeting in the millions and
| millions of space stations in the galaxy.)
| rythmshifter wrote:
| I think this was first used in EVE online but I could be
| wrong
| MadsRC wrote:
| I remember this from EVE online vividly. Sometime around
| 2004-2006 I believe
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Futurama. This is clearly the work of the greatest poet
| yet to be born, Zapp Brannigan!
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| This is a Futurama reference, no?
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uFNN5Qf2AR4
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| Looks like a combo reference.
| mzpmzpmzp wrote:
| Makes me think of that Bong Joon Ho movie, Okja!
| citizenkeen wrote:
| This is fascinating, because the current TV show _Mrs. Davis_ has
| references to hippo meat which I think really cements that it's a
| parallel universe.
| Chazprime wrote:
| Sounds a bit like Okja!
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(page generated 2023-05-15 23:01 UTC)