Ethics of genetically engineered octopuses....

[Cairnos]

Unfortunately ferrets, stoats and weasels were intentionally introduced into NZ to eradicate mice, rats and rabbits. Instead half of NZ's native bird species are now locally extinct, including some endemics.

Oh for a time machine:

"What are you THINKING! [Slap!]"

And there are still people who don't understand why others here look down on keeping the furry little bandsaws as cute pets

 

[Jean]

Jean,
You directly mentioned the Koi escaping from pet keeping humans. Are any of the others of this nature? My point was not that we have not all introduced species without understanding the complexity of native habitat (either by intent or by trading contamination) but that creatures created as pets are far less likely to be environmental problems.

Ferrets, dogs, cats, Rainbow Lorrikeets, rabbits, rats (yes really, some were taken from university undergrad labs as pets and then released) are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

J

 

[Bob the kracken]

obviously you don't understand the resilience of the environment. if a new predator arrives, eventually the predator will consume too much and soon starve, and it's population will dwindle, this will give the victims enough time to recuperate, and develope a new defence. it happens all the time. when a new predator evolves, or arrives. the prey will evolve to match the preadator.

and who cares if a few birds go extinct. animals and environmental forces drive other animals to extinction all the time. this time it happens to be man. thats what bugs me about environmentalists saying we can't drill in certain places because they contain the only spieceis of lizard with 22 spots. or that the bufalo there are 5 inches shorter than regular buffalo and are therefore somehow worthy of conservation.

funny side note, supposedly (and i don't know if its true) some scientists were experimenting with cockroaches and seeing how they could withstand radiation, when some of them escaped. their offspring were also radioactive, so now we have a bunch of radioactive cockroaches running around

 

[sorseress]

Obviously you don't understand what happens when the new predator causes the extinction of it's chosen prey!

 

[Jean]

obviously you don't understand the resilience of the environment. if a new predator arrives, eventually the predator will consume too much and soon starve, and it's population will dwindle, this will give the victims enough time to recuperate, and develope a new defence. it happens all the time. when a new predator evolves, or arrives. the prey will evolve to match the preadator.

and who cares if a few birds go extinct. animals drive other animals to extinction all the time. this time it happens to be man. thats what bugs me about environmentalists saying we can't drill in certain places because they contain the only spieceis of lizard with 22 spots. or that the bufalo there are 5 inches shorter than regular buffalo and are therefore somehow worthy of conservation.

ouch! Your view is a tad too simplistic. Predators can wipe out species and then switch prey so they survive. It is especially difficult in a situation where the natives have been isolated a very long time. Take NZ birds for example, the majority are flightless, they CANNOT develop predator escape responses because they HAVE NO WINGS (eg Kiwi). They nest on the ground, predators such as weasels, stoats, ferrets, rats, cats and even hedgehogs can get into their ground nests killing the chicks and eggs, all of them (except hedgehogs) can climb too so there is no escape for the likes of the Kakapo which can climb a little. In NZ we're not talking about the destruction of single species, but entire ECOSYSTEMS and I'm sure there are other examples from around the world (Madagascar, Mauritius and the Galapagos spring to mind).

The environment is not that resilient, there was a time (not so very many years ago) in your country when buffalo herds covered the prairies as far as the eye could see, and passenger pidgeon flocks took hours to pass overhead. Then Europeans arrived ...........................!

As for your extinction "theory" it's not so much that man drives species to extinction, it's HOW MANY we drive to extinction in a very short period of time. You don't see any other animal wreaking the kind of carnage we do. We are about the only species on the planet that eats from EVERY LEVEL of the food chain and one of the few that habitually takes more than we need.

J

 

[sorseress]

Kudos, Jean.

 

[Bob the kracken]

ouch! Your view is a tad too simplistic. Predators can wipe out species and then switch prey so they survive. It is especially difficult in a situation where the natives have been isolated a very long time. Take NZ birds for example, the majority are flightless, they CANNOT develop predator escape responses because they HAVE NO WINGS (eg Kiwi). They nest on the ground, predators such as weasels, stoats, ferrets, rats, cats and even hedgehogs can get into their ground nests killing the chicks and eggs, all of them (except hedgehogs) can climb too so there is no escape for the likes of the Kakapo which can climb a little. In NZ we're not talking about the destruction of single species, but entire ECOSYSTEMS and I'm sure there are other examples from around the world (Madagascar, Mauritius and the Galapagos spring to mind).

The environment is not that resilient, there was a time (not so very many years ago) in your country when buffalo herds covered the prairies as far as the eye could see, and passenger pidgeon flocks took hours to pass overhead. Then Europeans arrived ...........................!

As for your extinction "theory" it's not so much that man drives species to extinction, it's HOW MANY we drive to extinction in a very short period of time. You don't see any other animal wreaking the kind of carnage we do. We are about the only species on the planet that eats from EVERY LEVEL of the food chain and one of the few that habitually takes more than we need.

J

so essentially you see the white man as a cancer on society. do you realize that before the dinosaurs there was an asteroid that wiped out most of the life on earth? and yet look where we are now. life can never be exstiquished. even entire ecosystems can regenerate like an octo's arm. it takes a long time but the effects of even the worst catastrophy AREN'T PERMANANT. many of the speicies that man has supposedly made endangered actually were doomed by the ice age. the cheetah for example, has a 50% sperm count, not because of polution but because of the cold period that was the ice age. they were forced to inbreed, and if it weren't for man they would all be dead now.

we don't take more than we need, and one example i can think of right now is oil. because of the greens we are actually taking less than we need. we are a large speicies and we need alot to function. certainly more than the greens would allot us.

I am also convinced that global warming is a scam. and if you don't beleive me i reccomend the Politicaly Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism.

 

[Jean]

so essentially you see the white man as a cancer on society.

No but there is no doubt we are doing immense damage.

do you realize that before the dinosaurs there was an asteroid that wiped out most of the life on earth?

Not proven, although 1 out of 10 mass extinctions MAY have been caused by an asteroid hit (there have been 50 impacts of larges asteroids [although producing craters less than 100km wide] which did not cause mass extinctions.

and yet look where we are now. life can never be exstiquished. even entire ecosystems can regenerate like an octo's arm. it takes a long time but the effects of even the worst catastrophy AREN'T PERMANANT. many of the speicies that man has supposedly made endangered actually were doomed by the ice age. the cheetah for example, has a 50% sperm count, not because of polution but because of the cold period that was the ice age. they were forced to inbreed, and if it weren't for man they would all be dead now.

And of course hunting, inbreeding (so we can use them as hunting animals), habitat degredation played no part in that what so ever!

we don't take more than we need, and one example i can think of right now is oil. because of the greens we are actually taking less than we need. we are a large speicies and we need alot to function. certainly more than the greens would allot us.

Of course we do! Oil reserves are in decline, the most optimistic estimate of our fisheries resources is that they will be wiped out by 2040 at our current rate of fishing, deep sea environments are being destoyed every day, before we even know what's there. We don't even know what we're destroying. Orangutan habitat is being destroyed by illegal logging (in reserves) at the rate of 137ha a day. The list goes on

I am also convinced that global warming is a scam. and if you don't beleive me i reccomend the Politicaly Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism.

The juries still out on that one........there is evidence to suggest that such climactic perturbations have been occuring for millenia, but we are accelerating them.

No life can't be extinguished, but personally I'd like to see a little more variation in species than just us, the plants and animals that are useful to us and those we magnanimously allow to exist.

At this point I'm not going to reply any more to this thread. It's getting a bit heated (& before you say anything, no I'm not scared by alternative opinions!) but I don't want this to end up nasty. I would respectfully suggest however, that you do some reading on human impacts, look up orange roughy, pollution, dodo, passenger pigeon, stephens island wren, tasmanian tiger etc



J

 

[sorseress]

Also, read "The Weathermakers" by Tim Flanagan.

 

[Bob the kracken]

the tasmainian tiger may still exist.

 

[cthulhu77]

Silliness. If you honestly can look in the mirror, and insist that we are having a positive impact on this planet, there are some mental issues about.

I think this thread has gone off tangent enough, when I first read it, I took it as a joke (it couldn't be anything else), but it is degrading rapidly into something bizarre.

 

[Taollan]

Not so much a joke as a mental exploration of the extremes of what we could do, and perhaps shouldn't...

 

[Tintenfisch]

Hi Bob,

Many of the people here have studied the environment in some way (whether formally or simply informing themselves as responsible citizens of this planet), and all of the people here are ceph enthusiasts, like yourself. As such, statements like 'obviously you don't understand the resilience of the environment' and 'who cares if a few birds go extinct' will not be taken well - after all, who cares if a few cephs go extinct? We do. What if we lose the Giant Squid? Or Mimic, or Wunderpus? Those would be tragedies to us. And although terrestrial extinctions have had many diverse causes including ice ages and more recently many man-made problems, the oceans have managed to come through until recently with a lot more relatively unchanged species (although there have also been considerable marine extinctions). One of the reasons we have to care about our effects on the planet is that those effects are now everywhere, from highly visible on land to remote abyssal marine ecosystems we have never seen and may never see. And I hope we can all agree that it's not right to be destroying ecosystems so far removed from ourselves.
But even if we can't agree, this site aims to provide information and help for all types of ceph enthusiast, as well as healthy and respectful discussions. As someone who is currently looking for a lot of information on how to keep cephs, I suggest you voice your opinions in a less confrontational way - after all, if you alienate the staff who are otherwise willing to help you, your own future cephs may suffer.

Cheers
Kat

 

[Bob the kracken]

I see your point, but if the people on this site choose to hold grudges I can always go somewhere else

 

[Cairnos]

HI Bob, a point that I think should be mentioned here is that quite a few of us are from New Zealand where the effects are a trifle more dramatic than in many other places.

I won't go on at length but you'll note that noone said anything about white man being a cancer on society. I just wish my ancestors hadn't brought ferrets, etc here and released them.