posted
The point being that in some cases, capturing an endangered animal and placing it in a zoo might actually be beneficial to the survival / reintroduction of the species at some point.
I'm thinking about the California Condor. Wasn't the breeding program that saved them carried out entirely in captivity? In zoos?
Maybe an American zoo (where poaching, IIRC, is not likely) is a better habitat for the Endangered... Hairy-footed Underhill... than a country in which it's likely to be poached.
So the trade in LIVE animals, in any case, might not be so bad.
The hunting, however, seems a tad counterproductive, but I don't know enough about the situations and precedents to make the sort of knee-jerk conclusions I see here.
Remember, the people protesting this are the same people who told us that the oil drilling in Alaska (Not ANWR, the stuff that's been operating for decades now) would wipe out the Caribou population - which promptly tripled.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Let me get this straight, Fo2: Are you seriously suggesting that by killing more of these endangered animals (or effectively reducing their numbers by placing them into captivity) we might allow more of them to survive? I just want to make sure I've got your logic right. Removing them, to save them, right?
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
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posted
Try reading my post again, after the knees stop jerking, and your mind doesn't make ludicrous Vietnam analogies.
Killing? No, I don't have enough information to draw a conclusion on that point. Frankly, at first glance I think the killing part is probably a bad idea. Probably. The thing is, I like to get past first glances when it comes to issues like this. Sometimes, wildlife management requires just that. Management.
As for the placing of such animals in zoos... can you provide data that proves that such animals in captivity always decline further? I reiterate, do you have a counterexample to the California condor?
Captive animals sometimes fare badly, if they're overcrowded or put into improper environments.
Other times, they outlast their "free" brethren because of the environmental control, lack of predation by natural or human enemies, and medical care that zoos provide that the Wild does not.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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No, but seriously think about what you are defending. I admit that sometimes limited population control is a good idea in wildlife management, particularly in situations where the natural predators have been eliminated (generally via human intervention) and the resultant population explosion is beyond the region's capacity to support it. But that's not at all the situation what they are talking about here. They are talking about reducing the numbers of certain species whose populations are already so critically low so as to be near extinction. I ask you how will removing even more of them help even in the slightest? And I'm sorry but the belief that this money would go to future protection is such complete Bull-pucky that even you must see that? And putting them into over-crowded, under-funded zoos so they can putter away their free brains dwindling with regular feeding and inept attempts at forced breeding? Do you think that will balloon their populations? When is that going to happen? At some glimmering point in the dim and distant future where all Republicans seems to believe everything will be put to rights? At which point you will of course be miserably dead because we spent your Social Security procurring several Texan billionaires' oil interests and your raggedy grand-children are scraping around asphalt horizons desperately trying to make ends meet while Chinese wagon-wheel space stations cartwheel overhead and no ghost of any endagered species ever need fret because they were sacrificed for the good of industry.
What you have is a trophy hunter with political connections who wants to shoot (presumbably with some absurdly high-powered assault rifle) a goat with straight horns instead of curly ones.
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
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-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I'll agree that zoos can do some fine work when it comes to endangered species, however, I have to think that the preservation of natural habitat must be stressed somewhere in the process.
Bear in mind to that according to the article, in the area of the "capture the animal to save it" were not just talking touchy-feely zoos, but the ever benevolent circus and pet industries as well.
And calling the potential hunting and the trade in endangered animal parts a "tad counterproductive" is rhetoric that belies the serious nature of this proposal and what could happen if the United States gives sanction to such trade.
Once again, we get to see first hand how incredibally short sighted and downright anti-environment / conservation the Bush administration really is.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
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posted
It does seem anti-environmental. To me it seems insane. I mean this is far more than just short-sighted or merely environmentally oblivious. This seems like a deliberate attempt (i.e. going out of their way) to ensure that endangered and fragile species the world over would have even less protection than they do now. The only benefactors of this policy would seem to be: A) the poachers and trappers and B) the people who have a strong urge to have something rare and dead on their wall, floor or possibly in their tea. These would seems to constitute a EXTREMELY small portion of the population and the will thereof. Who is a part of this group? Why the fuck should we be catering to them?
Perhaps I'm missing something here, Rob, but this seems to be an entirely indefensible position. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think your heart is really in trying to defend this ludicrous and dangerous re-imagining. At times I can see the logic of your arguments on other issues, but on this one I'm at a loss. I understand not wanting people to simply have a knee-jerk response, but this really is a matter of common-sense. If these species die off, they are gone for good. So if we're going to let that happen, I think we'd better have a pretty fucking good reason to do so. Irresponsible doesn't cover it. Reckless doesn't cover it. This is actively supporting and encouraging the extinction of a variety of endagered species around the globe. Tell me what general good can possibly come of this.
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
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quote: WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is proposing far-reaching changes to conservation policies that would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries. Giving Americans access to endangered animals, officials said, would both feed the gigantic U.S. demand for live animals, skins, parts and trophies, and generate profits that would allow poor nations to pay for conservation of the remaining animals and their habitats.
This says it would allow people to kill animals on the brink of exinction. And that doing so would not only feed the US demand for skins, parts, and trophies, but apparently encourage poor nations to pay for conserving their animals.
So--we want to start killing endangered animals in order to encourage people to save them. That's EXACTLY like the Vietnam analogy! Destroying something to save it.
And you say you don't agree with killing the animals--that's why we're so furious. Going out to find endangered animals for zoos is not as ludicrous as going out just to kill them to feed our demand for skins and trophies.
Cartman
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posted
"feed the gigantic U.S. demand"... there isn't a word strong enough to express my disgust at that fucking unscrupulous self-centered exploitation of the Earth's natural treasures.
-------------------- ".mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN" - TEH PNIK FLAMIGNO
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
"Trophy hunters" should be mounted on the wall rather than their prey.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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Direct democracy this ain't, but I can tell my representatives this is stupid.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Of couse, bearing in mind the average IQ of any elected representative, they'd probably say that something being stupid isn't necessarily bad...
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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Or they are going to try and provide a line of logic, double talk, and misinterpetted misguided information on why this is such a good thing..... and the republicans will talk even more shit.....
FUBAR and the Vietnam anology are correct....
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
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