[HN Gopher] Feral desert donkeys are digging wells, giving water...
___________________________________________________________________
Feral desert donkeys are digging wells, giving water to parched
wildlife (2021)
Author : tambourine_man
Score : 182 points
Date : 2023-08-11 11:06 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theconversation.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theconversation.com)
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Despite these ecological benefits in desert environments, feral
| animals have long been denied the care, curiosity and respect
| native species deservedly receive...
|
| > However, there are signs of change. New fields such as
| compassionate conservation and multispecies justice are expanding
| conservation's moral world, and challenging the idea that only
| native species matter.
|
| I never heard anyone make the argument that "only native species
| matter", that sounds like a framing. The issue with feral species
| is that in many cases they drive out native species and have a
| destructive impact on the ecology in a way that is hard to
| mitigate. I hope that these compassionate conservationists are
| also big picture conservationists who evaluate the system as a
| whole.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I read this as "monkeys" several times trying to digest the
| headline. I scroll down and see donkeys. Brow furrows, continue
| to sip coffee.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| I read it as "federal donkeys" at first when I woke up.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| >Ass holes in Australia
|
| lol
| m3kw9 wrote:
| That's a good Ass
| Jedd wrote:
| > Our research didn't evaluate the impact of donkey-dug wells in
| arid Australia. But Australia is home to most of the world's
| feral donkeys, and it's likely their wells support wildlife in
| similar ways.
|
| Definitely possible, but not sure on likelihood - the water table
| in the arid parts of Australia is going to be pretty deep. TFA
| cited 4m deep holes made by modern wombats - but the holes they
| dig tend to be narrow, as their burrows are defensive - so the
| claim made:
|
| > In Australia, for example, a pair of common wombats were
| recently documented digging a 4m-deep well, which was used by
| numerous species, such as wallabies, emus, goannas and various
| birds, during a severe drought.
|
| ... is hard to reconcile.
|
| A 4 metre deep standing water table would mean most deep-rooted
| trees, and many tougher smaller plants (eg comfrey, vetiver,
| maybe grasses like lucerne/alfalfa) would sustain through
| drought, and that's clearly not the case.
|
| I'm sure there's some benefit to native wildlife to have these
| introduced animals dig and expose water, but I'm sure the damage
| they cause outweighs it.
| dizhn wrote:
| The section you quoted at the top just isn't the same without
| it's title.
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| justrealist wrote:
| It's about digging in intermittently wet streambeds (where the
| water is likely very close to the surface for a long time after
| the stream dries), not the middle of the desert.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| I think the whole article is biased and far too targeted to
| trying to make a case not to cull invasive species,
| particularly in Australia.
|
| Kangaroos dig wells. The arguments made here that somehow with
| a very long bow you could justify some benefits from these non-
| native species but they have to pretend that those benefits
| don't already exist from native species to do this.
| rhyme-boss wrote:
| Imagine being super thirsty and having to dig, with hooves,
| through hot desert sands for a sip of water.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| The burros are burrowing?
| mikhailfranco wrote:
| Herbivores that cut plants when they bite are far more benign
| than those that pull up the whole plant and eat the roots.
|
| For example, camels have evolved to coexist with the plants that
| briefly flourish in the desert after rains. Goats just consume
| everything and will die in a second season.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Donkeys and horses should be managed like every other wildlife
| under the North American model of wildlife conservation.
| myshpa wrote:
| "Despite these ecological benefits in desert environments, feral
| animals have long been denied the care, curiosity and respect
| native species deservedly receive. Instead, these animals are
| targeted by culling programs for conservation and the meat
| industry."
|
| "However, there are signs of change. New fields such as
| compassionate conservation and multispecies justice are expanding
| conservation's moral world, and challenging the idea that only
| native species matter."
|
| We should be kind to all kinds.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Has me thinking just how invasive of a species we humans are.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| we are the ultimate invasive predatory species, there is no
| doubt about that outside of the possibility of some awful
| multispecies viral/bacterial threat; nothing else comes close
| to be as destructive as humans to ecosystems.
| jezzamon wrote:
| I think there's an argument that if an animal is having a
| negative effect on the ecosystem (having a negative effort on
| other animals) removing it can be a net good.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Humans then?
| ornornor wrote:
| Well no, we're special and the universe exists for our
| pleasure.
| civilitty wrote:
| It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the big
| bang again.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Sure? I mean, we obviously don't want to eliminate humans,
| but it would probably be nice to have fewer of them. The
| ZPG movement isn't terribly controversial.
| mecsred wrote:
| We're working on it!
| myshpa wrote:
| Not humans, but farming practices and human diets. We have
| to reform agriculture to stop and reverse biodiversity
| loss.
|
| Deforestation and farming practices (incl.
| pesticides/herbicides, pollution) are the main drivers of
| biodiversity loss.
|
| https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/our-
| glob...
|
| Our global food system is the primary driver of
| biodiversity loss
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/
|
| Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat
| consumption
|
| https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22287498/meat-wildlife-
| bi...
|
| The way we eat could lead to habitat loss for 17,000
| species by 2050
|
| Two recent studies underscore the danger the meat
| production system poses for biodiversity.
| pif wrote:
| > We have to reform agriculture to stop and reverse
| biodiversity loss.
|
| Sure! Do you have a proposal to make agriculture more
| eco-friendly _without_ impacting quantity, quality and
| cost of the food produced?
|
| > The key is reducing meat consumption
|
| No! If you _really_ want to achieve something, rather
| than just talking ecology, the key is not to try and
| force change on the general population.
| myshpa wrote:
| > Do you have a proposal to make agriculture more eco-
| friendly without impacting quantity, quality and cost of
| the food produced?
|
| Sure.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
|
| If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce
| global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
|
| https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471
|
| Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits
| may be achievable
|
| A global shift towards healthy and more plant-based
| diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming
| practices and technologies are required to feed 10
| billion people sustainably by 2050, a new study finds.
|
| https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/21/14449
|
| How Compatible Are Western European Dietary Patterns to
| Climate Targets? Accounting for Uncertainty of Life Cycle
| Assessments by Applying a Probabilistic Approach
|
| https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/15/4110/htm
|
| Which Diet Has the Least Environmental Impact on Our
| Planet? A Systematic Review of Vegan, Vegetarian and
| Omnivorous Diets
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00795-w
|
| Vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters in the
| UK show discrepant environmental impacts
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoid
| ing...
|
| Avoiding meat and dairy is 'single biggest way' to reduce
| your impact on Earth
|
| > If you really want to achieve something, rather than
| just talking ecology, the key is not to try and force
| change on the general population
|
| The change is absolutely needed.
|
| https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/sustainabil
| ity...
|
| One study estimates it would take just over 5 Earths to
| support the human population if everyone's consumption
| patterns were similar to the average American.
|
| We don't have those extra Earths, and won't anytime soon.
|
| > the key is not to try and force change on the general
| population
|
| Sure, solve the biggest problem we've ever faced, but
| don't change a thing.
| JamesDeansSon wrote:
| [dead]
| eulgro wrote:
| How exactly does the system makes humans more worthy than
| other animals?
| adversaryIdiot wrote:
| It doesnt. He hasnt controlled his human ego
| callalex wrote:
| >Everyone has agreed on this except for Satanists
|
| You have a dangerous lack of fundamental understanding of
| the topic to which you speak. I suggest you start your
| learning journey here:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
| 9dev wrote:
| That is such a clear example of Chesterton's fence, it makes
| me mad people can't see it.
|
| Not by any means do we understand enough about ecosystems to
| justify the hubris to declare any animal as a net negative
| effect to the environment.
|
| In western Europe, hunters argue they need to cull deer, for
| example, to keep the forest in balance. That is only true
| because a) they make an effort to _feed_ the animals during
| the winter, helping more to survive than otherwise would, and
| b) because natural predators have been eradicated in the
| previous centuries.
|
| Don't ever trust someone that attempts to justify culling a
| species for the greater good.
| benj111 wrote:
| It isn't Chesterton's fence though. We removed the fence
| (wolves in your example) and have now discovered why the
| fence was there, and have now stepped in to build a new
| fence.
|
| Also removing native species and sending the balance out of
| whack is different to removing a non native species that
| has sent the balance out of whack.
| 9dev wrote:
| > We removed the fence (wolves in your example) and have
| now discovered why the fence was there, and have now
| stepped in to build a new fence.
|
| This isn't quite accurate, though. Between removing the
| fence and getting fence construction inclinations, a lot
| of time has passed, and in the meantime, nature did lots
| of stuff we hardly understand.
|
| Assuming otherwise is just repeating the same mistake
| again. Feral donkeys might be part of a new ecosystem
| now.
| ehnto wrote:
| I don't disagree that our hubris gets us in trouble, but we
| do have eyes, some animals when introduced cause very quick
| changes to ecosystems and I don't think it's hubris to say
| "oh fuck, we goofed". I don't condone cullings specifically
| but I think conservation absolutely requires controlling
| non-native species in certain circumstances. New Zealand
| has had enumerable species go extinct thanks to introduced
| species.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The obvious one is usually feral cats, which end up
| killing birds in large numbers if they haven't dealt with
| cats before. And a lot of those tend to be escaped house
| pets.
| myshpa wrote:
| > feral cats, which end up killing birds in large numbers
| ... escaped house pets
|
| I'd argue that it's also a problem of biodiversity (at
| least in the U.S., don't know about New Zealand). If we
| hadn't eradicated almost all wolves, coyotes, foxes,
| birds of prey, weasels, and I don't know what else,
| nature would have solved the problem already.
| eitally wrote:
| The counterpoint to this is the real issue overpopulation
| of whitetail deer has caused in the eastern US over the
| past 30 years or so.
|
| I grew up in Virginia so here's one specific example:
| https://dwr.virginia.gov/wildlife/deer/deer-management-
| progr...
| myshpa wrote:
| > b) because natural predators have been eradicated in
| the previous centuries.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > I think there's an argument that if an animal is having a
| negative effect on the ecosystem (having a negative effort on
| other animals) removing it can be a net good.
|
| Are you suggesting Genocide? /s
| gottorf wrote:
| We should be, but we end up treating cats and dogs differently
| than we do rats and centipedes.
| myshpa wrote:
| Because we're not quite there yet.
|
| And "pests" are pests usually due to human-caused imbalances
| in ecosystems. Addressing the root of the issue, such as
| biodiversity loss, would solve a lot.
| edgyquant wrote:
| I do not understand the fetishization of "biodiversity." If
| an animal removes all others it will quickly begin
| competing with its own, evolving into new species. We all
| come from the LUCA after all.
| rurp wrote:
| Scale matters. Species are currently going extinct at a
| rate orders magnitude greater than the historical
| average, due to humans. This breaks normal feedback loops
| and is absolutely something to be concerned about, even
| if you value all non-human intelligent life at zero.
| ornornor wrote:
| Wonder why you're greyed out. It's not something we want
| to hear but it's happening regardless.
| gottorf wrote:
| > Species are currently going extinct at a rate orders
| magnitude greater than the historical average
|
| Nobody has a good idea how many species there are
| currently, let alone how many there were in the past and
| how many of them went extinct. Estimates for the current
| species count are from 3 to 100 million[0], which is a
| range too wide to be useful in this context.
|
| Of the mass extinction events in Earth's history, we may
| be peeking above the baseline rate[1]; the most severe
| statement we can make is that vertebrate mammals don't
| appear to be doing very well in recent times, which
| stands to reason, considering that Homo sapiens is by far
| the most competitive vertebrate mammal, doing a good job
| of crowding others out. But there's a lot of life and
| biodiversity outside of vertebrate mammals.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160336/
|
| [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/mass-extinctions
|
| [2]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1400253
| munificent wrote:
| Think of biodiversity as the entropy source for all of
| the random number generators that drive biological
| innovation.
|
| When biodiversity goes down, there are fewer potential
| biological resources that can be tapped to solve new
| problems.
|
| You are correct that biodiversity has a natural upwards
| component from speciation. But the timescale (which you
| describe as "quickly") is many orders of magnitude slower
| than the timescale of the downwards component that
| extinction has. A species that took literally tens of
| millions of years to speciate and evolve can be wiped out
| in months.
| gottorf wrote:
| That's quite the romantic view of nature. My view is that
| nature is indeed red in tooth and claw, and that almost
| every species regard almost every other species as pests.
|
| Homes, human or otherwise, are virtually defined by the
| absence of undesirable critters. If cows could be rid of
| flies buzzing about, they would. Increasing biodiversity
| would most likely also mean increased diversity of pests.
| Would we not be bothered by mosquitoes, if we had a lighter
| footstep on the environment? I'm sure cavemen also got bit
| and stung.
| myshpa wrote:
| > Increasing biodiversity would most likely also mean
| increased diversity of pests
|
| The exact opposite is true.
|
| https://www.caryinstitute.org/science/research-
| projects/biod...
|
| In ecosystems where predators are removed, the population
| of their prey, in this case, mice, often increases due to
| a lack of natural control. This process can lead to an
| increase in the tick population, as ticks often feed on
| mice. This is especially true for the white-footed mouse,
| which is a common host for ticks in the eastern and
| central United States. When the mouse population
| increases, ticks have a higher chance of obtaining their
| first blood meal from a mouse, which often carry the
| bacterium that causes Lyme disease. (less predators =>
| more mice => more ticks)
|
| https://theconversation.com/as-biodiversity-declines-on-
| corn...
|
| As biodiversity declines on corn farms, pest problems
| grow
|
| "We found that communities with stronger networks - that
| is, more linked species - had fewer pests. Not only this,
| but network centrality was important; communities with
| several groups of highly linked species, including
| insects that prey on others, don't have the pest problems
| that loosely linked networks have. Thus, in addition to
| species diversity, the strength of interactions among
| species within a community seem to be related to when and
| where pest outbreaks occur. This research suggests that
| practices that reduce diversity in cornfields will
| aggravate pest problems over time."
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4646789/
|
| Decisions that reduce insect diversity and decrease the
| network strength in insect communities result in higher
| pest abundance.
|
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821039116
|
| Tree diversity regulates forest pest invasion
|
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/97811182
| 318...
|
| Biodiversity offers great potential for managing insect
| pests. It provides resistance genes and anti-insect
| compounds; a huge range of predatory and parasitic
| natural enemies of pests; and community ecology-level
| effects operating at the local and landscape scales to
| check pest build-up.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > Increasing biodiversity would most likely also mean
| increased diversity of pests
|
| It's not the opposite that is true but that the net
| effect is not that negative.
|
| Anecdotally, from my backyard food growing experience,
| biodiversity increase means more pests, but once more
| species come in, there comes a balance that exists in
| nature. Year 1 of my backyard farming, I had plentiful
| bounty. All my crops did extremely well, and I thought I
| was some kind of genius that disproved the decades of
| agricultural progress re:chemicals in farming. Year 2,
| was my biggest and most ambitious growing season and I
| could barely get anything out of it. The pests came, from
| insects to rodents and nothing survived. Year 3 and year
| 4 were my learning days. I introduced more plants to my
| garden, native plants, plants that provided food in late
| summers to next spring for the fauna, more varieties of
| food crops, etc. I welcomed everything in my garden,
| including pests. Eventually I hit a balance. Aphids
| suddenly affecting plants? The wasps are here. Rats and
| squirrels eating my strawberries? The owls and crows came
| to rescue. Slug problem? The neighborhood possum took
| care of it (though I had to put up a fence around some of
| my veggies for the possum). Overall I think with the
| constraints of the size of my backyard, I still need some
| proactive measures of pest control, but most of the time
| nature takes care of it and makes sure the problem is
| only temporary.
| myshpa wrote:
| > most of the time nature takes care of it and makes sure
| the problem is only temporary
|
| Absolutely, good point, thank you.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| Funny enough that's exactly what happens here in Oregon.
| Most of the wetlands were drained for farming, or just
| because we could. Turns out our selfish human geo-
| engineering had benefits to humans.
|
| Whenever we restore a wetlands, the area goes from
| "surprisingly low amounts of mosquitoes most of the time"
| back to "fuck I can't go outside"
|
| https://www.opb.org/news/article/restored-marsh-breeds-
| swarm...
|
| There are ways to somewhat mitigate this through more
| intelligent wetland design methods, but ultimately no way
| to even mostly resolve the problem without more intensive
| control methods, which sometimes end up being pesticides.
| myshpa wrote:
| > Whenever we restore a wetlands, the area goes from
| "surprisingly low amounts of mosquitoes most of the time"
| back to "fuck I can't go outside"
|
| You haven't restored biodiversity; you've simply flooded
| an area. You need to wait for all the animals to return
| and propagate.
|
| > without more intensive control methods, which sometimes
| end up being pesticides
|
| Yep, that'd be the opposite of intelligent solution.
| primroot wrote:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-47444297 "Villagers have been
| whipped with belts, attacked with machetes, beaten unconscious
| with bamboo sticks, sexually assaulted, shot, and murdered by
| WWF-supported anti-poaching units, according to reports and
| documents obtained by BuzzFeed News."
| nkrisc wrote:
| Animals migrate and habitat new areas over time, as well. Many
| "native" animals were once "invasive".
|
| Yes, suddenly introducing a new species can be disruptive, but
| it can also not be disruptive.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| The definition of a native species is one that arrived
| without human intervention. You are correct that animals
| migraine all the time.
|
| Insects can travel accross oceans under certain favorable
| wind conditions. I live in an island nation, New Zealand, and
| insects from Australia show up every so often after getting
| blown here. They usually don't establish themselves as the
| conditions are not right for them to thrive.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| There's a Beavis and Butthead joke, in there, somewhere...
|
| I guess not all ass holes are bad...
| fakedang wrote:
| I need a teepee for my ass hole.
|
| Hehehehehe (snorts)
| defrost wrote:
| It's a serious and sorely needed comparative study of
| Australian and American ass holes.
| mojomark wrote:
| I heard that in the American desert plain, shielded by
| Pacific Coast mountains, the lack of wind leads to a reduced
| sand movement and ultimately sun-bleaching of our holes. This
| discoloration confuses local fauna.
| laputan_machine wrote:
| > However, as we show in a new research paper in Science, these
| animals do something amazing that has long been overlooked: they
| dig wells -- or "ass holes".
|
| Unnecessarily childish
| cpursley wrote:
| Life is short, a little laughter and humor make it more
| bearable.
| veave wrote:
| I agree with you in principle, but nowadays, every newspaper
| seems to try hard to cram as many puns as possible in every
| article and it gets boring fast.
| mc32 wrote:
| Indeed. I was liking the article but then it included the
| opportunistic "ass holes" and "mass shootings" where what they
| refer to already has a specific term "culling". It's the
| journalist version of "your momma so..."
| macinjosh wrote:
| I saw the feral desert donkey headline and was wondering my ex
| was in the news.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| This reminds me of the Schizophrenic public policy with respect
| to invasive horses in the US south west.
|
| We simultaneously engage in publically funded programs to feed
| them during the winter, and programs to control the population in
| the summer.
|
| Conflicting interest groups want differnt things.
| Environmentalists want to protect native habitiat and animals,
| while horse enthsiasts can't stand to let them suffer the
| hardships of a wild life.
| indus wrote:
| I am liking them ass holes.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| What a bittersweet article. It's amazing to see how these feral
| horses and donkeys are making the ecosystem friendlier for the
| native wildlife but it's damn depressing to realize that our
| massacre of megafauna didn't just end with the extinction of
| various great species but contributed to the overall decline of
| the ecosystem and probably the extinction or extirpation of
| hundreds of other, indirectly influenced flora and fauna.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| That humans killed all megafauna is still very much a
| hypothesis and not the only theory out there, so take it with a
| grain of salt.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| On a similar note: George Monbiot once wrote an article (don't
| have the time to spend a half hour searching it) where he
| laments that most conservation societies are basically just a
| bunch of local volunteers trying to preserve nature as they
| remember it from their childhood... not realizing that that
| ecology was _already_ incredibly impoverished.
|
| Which then results in sad scenarios where, say, a local forest
| is left alone and starts to recover, and starts to show signs
| of ecological succession[0], _which is then stopped by these
| conservation societies_. Because that usually implies new
| species of trees and shrubs that weren 't in the version of
| nature they remember, and are therefore deemed "invasive".
|
| Nature conservation is full of good intentions hampered by a
| lack of ecological understanding.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession
| bombcar wrote:
| It might be https://www.monbiot.com/2013/07/16/the-
| naturalists-who-are-t... or similar.
|
| Strange to see how different Britain is from the USA, maybe
| because the USA is slightly bigger. Around here there's any
| number of conservation/wildlife preserves and they literally
| buy land, maybe put a trail through it and a dinky dirt
| parking lot at the trailhead, and then just leave it alone.
|
| As in literally don't do anything.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| I doubt size has as much to do with it as the fact that
| Europe didn't have a "great dying" of its native peoples,
| followed by colonization. And it's agricultural and
| industrial history is also very different so the natural
| landscape was vastly different to begin with.
|
| Not bringing that up as an "America bad" comment, just
| pointing out that the way people in either country look at
| "their" land is different.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| It wasn't clear to me whether 'around here' from your
| comment refers to Britain or the USA.
| bombcar wrote:
| I meant the USA, especially the huge swaths of BLM land,
| but also all the wildlife conservatories I've ever seen.
|
| What the article I linked is talking about would be
| called a "farm preservation society" around here, and
| some do exist, but it's rare.
| tpoacher wrote:
| This entire article was a pretext for that "Ass Holes" pun in the
| middle, wasn't it. xD
| thih9 wrote:
| Yes it was. For those that didn't see it, in the middle there
| is a headline:
|
| > Ass holes in Australia
| kevinlinxc wrote:
| I came to the comments just to make this pun
| keiferwiseman wrote:
| I love donkeys. IMO they are the most underrated animal in terms
| of cuteness, They are easily S-tier. My dream is to run a Free-
| Open-Source-Software incubator/commune that also has donkeys.
| bombcar wrote:
| I've had a fond spot for the Onager for many years.
| undersuit wrote:
| Burros would wander into the outdoor theater I'd go to as a kid
| and a stage worker would have to walk over to them and try to
| quietly shoo them out. Raucous bunch sometimes.
| dreen wrote:
| FYI the most expensive cheese in the world comes from a certain
| kind of donkey. I only know this because I am a moose
| enthusiast, their cheese being the second most expensive.
| kirubakaran wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pule_cheese
| whycome wrote:
| I never really thought about all the cheese that could be
| made. The logical end question then is, can you make cheese
| with human milk? dog milk? rodent milk? is the only thing
| preventing this just the ick/cultural factors?
|
| What does moose milk taste like? Are there potential for
| different varieties?
| myshpa wrote:
| > What does moose milk taste like
|
| Like fat and salt. Same as plant based cheese ;)
|
| Adult humans don't need milk of other species.
|
| Not you mother, not your milk.
|
| > is the only thing preventing this just the ick/cultural
| factors
|
| Cruelty? Environmental impacts? Health concerns? Antibiotic
| and hormone use? Food inefficiency?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcN7SGGoCNI
| Banyonite wrote:
| A moose once bit my sister... No realli!
| ornornor wrote:
| Anyone remembers the eMule and eDonkey projects?
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I love them as well, ever since I read about the feral donkeys
| on the Big Island of Hawaii and couldn't stop laughing to
| myself about the "trouble" they were getting into, braying all
| night and annoying the humans. Do you want a friendly animal
| who will also guard your flock of sheep? Get a "guard donkey,"
| the only downside being they hate dogs and will stomp them
| given the chance.
|
| My son and I are watching YouTube videos about donkeys right
| now. Lovable creatures. If you start and incubator that also
| has Donkeys please look me up.
| bashmelek wrote:
| Count me in! I've been doing a lot of donkey-related reading
| lately and would certainly be interested in a donkey startup!
| What fascinated me was how important they were in the past, I
| never realized.
| a2tech wrote:
| My grandmother had them when I was growing up. Their adorable
| assholes. Like fat dogs. They love attention and are very
| stubborn and patient when it comes to getting their way. Our
| English mastiff had a lot of donkey tendency--heavy, loved pets
| and treats, would do the heavy lean on you when they wanted
| attention.
|
| Better than a horse in every way.
| retrac wrote:
| As terrible as the consequences of humanity will be for
| biodiversity and life on Earth, there is a strange silver lining.
| We seem to be one of the most intense, unprecedented, sudden, and
| multifaceted selection pressures life has ever experienced on
| Earth. We affect everything from the DNA and biochemistry to
| continent-wide land use. We are creating weird, new, toxic
| environments all over the planet, to which existing life must
| adapt. We're going to see all sorts of weird and wonderful novel
| behaviours evolve in basically every form of remaining life over
| the next few millennia, assuming we're still here to see it.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Yeah this. Humans aren't destroying life on earth they're
| changing it and forcing new species to evolve. Who knows how
| weird the world will be in a million years: what creatures will
| evolve to feed on humans.
|
| Terrible is not an objective measure either. Oxygen and
| asteroids destroyed most life on earth but neither was
| terrible, they just were. The only reason people think we're
| doing terrible things is because we've convinced ourselves we
| aren't a natural part of the biosphere that adapted to what
| we're doing now.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > Yeah this. Humans aren't destroying life on earth they're
| changing it and forcing new species to evolve. Who knows how
| weird the world will be in a million years: what creatures
| will evolve to feed on humans.
|
| Is this even remotely likely given how much control we have
| over our environment? It surely wouldn't be any other
| predatory animal, we wouldn't let it come to that. Microbes,
| viruses, bacteria something like that maybe but those aren't
| "feeding" on humans in the common sense of the word.
| ornornor wrote:
| Isn't it about control? An asteroid coming down is random as
| in no one caused it. What we're doing is different: it's a
| conscious choice and course of action (collectively). We
| didn't really know in the beginning but we've knows for
| decades and collectively chose to continue mostly unabated.
| By that token we as a species are fully responsible for
| what's happening in my opinion.
| gen220 wrote:
| Here's hoping 2200 will be the century of the Polymerphage
| (some bacterium whose favorite food is polymers, i.e.
| plastics).
|
| It'll be interesting to see what effect it has on the whole
| food supply chain, as we're pretty dependent on the idea of
| polymers "keeping out" the things that normally eat our food
| before we'd get the chance to.
|
| Maybe we'll go back to only eating crazy fermented and spicy
| things.
| kilolima wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_Found_in_a_Bathtub
|
| Related, great Stanislaw Lem novel about the "Great
| Decomposition" of paper.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Why would you _hope_ that wide-spread polymer-munching
| bacteria becomes a reality? Polymers have been terrifically
| important in more applications than I could list, and
| whilst we could go back to 'only eating crazy fermented
| and spicy things' (or risk dying if we don't), there are
| plenty of useful things that cannot be that: cheap and
| widely-available medicines exist partly because of the ease
| of constructing sterile packaging for them. Distributing
| pills in glass tubes would be considerably more expensive
| than using plastic containers, and I am sure that there are
| some substances for which polymers are the only viable
| storage material.
|
| It feels to me like the mistake is abusing plastics, which
| are some of the longest living, most resilient materials,
| for disposable products. Bacteria that eats polymers might
| clean up our mess, but it will also destroy one of the key
| foundations of modern industry, and I don't think the world
| will just sit back and become pre-industrial again - we'll
| be back with something worse.
| gen220 wrote:
| It was more tongue-in-cheek, but I'm not sure it would
| (on net, and a long enough time horizon) be a bad thing
| if we had to go back to some combination of paper and
| glass - like you said, we mainly use polymers because
| they're cheap, not because they're the best material when
| you consider all the negative externalities.
|
| Plus, I guess I'm imagining the polymerphages would
| probably be more interested in soft plastics - grocery
| bags, styrofoam. The kind of stuff that already
| disintegrates pretty easily.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Thank you for the clarification. I agree that paper and
| glass are excellent materials in their own right.
|
| When you go back to books from the 60s, they make bold
| statements about hard plastics would be everlasting
| materials, immune to rotting, rusting or shattering - and
| for the most part, they were right! But for some bizarre
| reason people chose this 'everlasting' material to make
| disposable items, and once they realised that it was
| cheaper than materials that actually do degrade the cat
| was out of the (polyethylene) bag.
|
| I'm hoping that we can rapidly phase out our use of
| disposable polymers before these polymerphages start
| chomping through our indestructible wondermaterials like
| butter. We can keep the hard plastics for truly long-
| lived things like car bumpers... and try to stop
| automotive manufactures from making those disposable,
| too!
|
| Here's an idea to accelerate this:
|
| "Require by law standard glass bottle designs for all
| drinks of a certain class, like four or five types of
| wine bottle and likewise for soft drinks and spirits.
| Ensure that those designs are public domain. Delegate
| responsibility of defining the standards to an
| international organisation like ISO to encourage
| international adoption. The only losers would be a
| handful of companies with 'distinctive' or 'iconic'
| branded bottles (and realistically, people aren't going
| to stop buying Pepsi because it's in the wrong shape
| bottle), but the winners would be all manner of
| industrial bottle-washing and reuse firms, bottle-
| handling machinery makers and of course consumers getting
| lower prices. End result: widespread reuse of glass
| bottles, replacing one-use plastic bottles."
|
| What do you think? I think it's pretty uncontroversial,
| which is the only thing that seems likely to be passed
| within a premier's term and thus survive the path to the
| statute books in liberal democracies!
| gen220 wrote:
| Yea, we should probably adopt these rules regardless of
| how close to the horizon polymerphages are. Until there's
| some crisis, though, I'm not very confident in a change.
|
| IMO, we should tax plastics manufacturers in proportion
| to the product of their biodegradability half-life and
| known toxicity. Alas, a pipe dream.
| lukas099 wrote:
| The world will eventually recover from an extinction event
| probably, but it will be terrible for us humans.
| psychphysic wrote:
| Only really toxic for us. The rest of the world doesn't care as
| we're the only beings capable of understanding the misery we
| are inflicting.
| Apofis wrote:
| Humanity is the ultimate invasive species, destroying and
| killing all in its wake without second thought. Overall,
| everything but other humans is an afterthought, and even that
| not always so.
| lurknot wrote:
| This isn't really how evolution works; this is just
| brainwashing optimism at best. Sure, there's epigenetic memory
| which buys life time to adapt during outlier times. But
| evolution itself is a function of time[generations of mutations
| * recombination]. Thousands of branches of the tree of life are
| burning that have persisted since the beginning of life on
| earth.
|
| The bacteria on the other hand, reproduce rapidly relative to
| the nice plants and birds and critters you're thinking of. They
| will be fine.
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