African animals to roam Australia ? 311
Invurt writes: "In a strange twist to the traditional conservation story, Media Magnate Kerry Packer has announced that he is planning to open a huge African game reserve, for reasons of conservation and endangered species breeding in Australia. This would basically replicate Africa in the Australian continent, on a huge scale. They are not sure if they'd leave the kangaroos there or not - always wondered what it'd be like with kangaroos roaming the plains with lions."
Won't work (Score:5, Funny)
And besides, we all have seen "Jurassic Park", didn't we?
Re:Won't work (Score:1)
Re:Won't work (Score:2)
watched the Discovery channel knows lions aren't exactly adverse to ganging up
on their prey. On the other hand, while I don't think this is a good idea, it
would be interesting to see how both Austrialian and African fauna change their
tactics to adjust for different predator/prey relationships.
SealBeater
Re:Won't work (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, how are they going to contain the area? Even if you put high fences, they'll be eventually destroyed by rabbits or kangaroos, possibly resulting in yet_another_ecological_disaster. Australia has no natural predators for intruders, any introduction of a foreign animal has huge consequences (see rabbits).
The idea's nice on a species conservation point of view, but one has to make sure they don't ruin the host ecosystem.
/max
There's already 2 huge open plane zoos in Oz (Score:2)
Re:Won't work (Score:3, Informative)
Not for commercialising the last big game animals on earth but just for being such a wanker.
Cases of animal introduction gone wrong:
1).http://www.fdrproject.org/pages/TDprogress.htm Cane Toads
2).http://www.american.edu/ted/Rabbit.htm Rascally Rabbits
3).http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec
4).http://www.ea.gov.au/biodiversity/invasive/p
Not unlike or own Kerry Packer.
The list goes on.
Not to say that the big fence wouldn't work http://sa.democrats.org.au/parlt/p2/981104_b.htm
PS: Use l337Z0R cut and paste methods on these links
Re:Won't work (Score:5, Informative)
basically, over a century ago wealthy englishmen brought rabbits to AUS so that they might hunt them. eventually the rabbit population boomed to well over 200 million, becoming more than a nuisance, rather an extremely ferocious natural disaster. they brought in a virus (myxo) to kill the rabbits, and it almost worked, but eventually the rabbits became resistant.
and this is where it gets almost too weird to believe.
they bring in ferrets to hunt the rabbits down. however, the ferrets are found to be carrying bovine tuberculoses. so they release a different strain of myxo to get rid of the ferrets.
so finally they are researching a new virus to kill the rabbits, but the virus escapes the labs and spreads through australia and new zealand. so they come up with a vaccine...
and the saga continues.
on a more USian note, how about introducing a few hundred wolves back into the ecosystem to at least nibble at the incredible deer population? what's a few small children, anyway?
-sam
Re:Won't work (Score:2)
Re:Won't work (Score:2)
That's American...
That's why we have deer hunters. If the population gets out of hand, you simply increase the number of deer per license; if it gets too low, you decrease the number of tags. Simplicity itself.
The advantage is that deer hunters kill far fewer humans than do wolves/bobcats/bears/other predators. The disadvantage is that said nasty maneating evil killing machines die out. Or perhaps that's another advantage...
Intentionally spread in .nz (Score:2)
The story hints that the virus was accidentally spread around New Zealand.
Not the case.
There were ideas of importing it and releasing it, but there were also fears that immunity would be quick in appearing. They wanted to do tests to check that the virus would be effective before releasing it.
However some eager, peed off with the rabbits, can't wait for the silly Government, types from the upper South Island got a hold of some "Rabbit Calitrivirus" and let it loose.
Big stink in the papers at the time.
Re:Deer problems in US (Score:4, Funny)
-sam
Re:Deer problems in US (Score:2)
Deer tidbits (Score:3, Insightful)
"Sport hunting" is a legal term, which includes all legal hunting other than "market hunting" (i.e. hunting to sell the carcas or its parts). While it does include those hunters who hunt "for the fun of it" or for the trophy, most hunters are hunting to put a seasonal meat on the table. Most "trophy hunters" use the meat also - or donate it to some feed-the-hungry program. (Hunters consider anyone who "wastes the meat" of a non-vermin animal to be scum.)
(Unfortunately, many "food banks" won't accept hunted meat - out of political correctness rather than any practical reason. The sickos would rather let the meat rot and the poor starve than do anything that might be mistaken for "encouraging hunting".)
Being shot by a firearm is about the easiest death available for a deer. A good life, a sudden pain, typically dead of blood loss before the shock wears off. Indians switched from bows to firearms because they considered them less cruel - dying from an arrow generally takes longer. But both are much more humane than the "natural" way of death for a deer: Being eaten alive over hours by peredators, painful starvation over several months, disease over weeks, infection from wounds incurred in deer-deer battles or escape from peredators.
Re:Deer tidbits (Score:2)
Re:Won't work (Score:2)
Well, from that description, it sounds like they tried it, and it turned out to be cursed. ("Sent in some rabbits...")
Re:Won't work (Score:2)
my comment pisses you off? your comment makes me sad
as to not knowing anything about the subject, you probably have me there. grew up on a farm where deer which deer tried to overrun, had formal training in deer hunting, yup, i have absolutely no idea what i am talking about.
-sam
Re:Won't work (Score:2)
Damnit! Wolves don't eat children!
Yes they do [pitt.edu].
Re:Won't work (Score:4, Interesting)
My initial reaction was the same, but if you really think about it, as long as they only introduce K-strategist species such as the big mammals tourists are most interested in seeing, they shouldn't be too hard to contain. If the elephant species gets out of control, we can wipe them out easily, as we've seen all too well.
Rabbits reproduce quickly and don't have body parts that sell for 50,000 each.
Re:Won't work (Score:2)
Seriously, small fast-breeding mammals such as rabbits are uncontrollable if they can out-compete the native wild-life. Big slow-breeding ones are easily controlled. They're quite conspicuous, and you've got a year or more to hunt them down before they can breed and raise their off-spring to live on their own.
I would be concerned that the imports be very thoroughly doese, purged, and checked to ensure that they aren't bringing in smaller passengers -- parasites, diseases, or even foreign plant seeds in the elephant plop could be trouble. This adds to the already considerable cost of this enterprise, and maybe there are only a few species that would work. Elephants are fine; we already know how to transport them all over the world without infecting other species, and they do just fine eating hay and grain from Iowa so I don't think native Aussie fodder would be a problem. Rhinos and hippos might be as easy. On the other hand, would whatever is in Aussie treetops be a decent substitute for a giraffe's natural food? Lions might be a quite bad idea, except on a permanently human-fed basis; I suspect that for lions to be truly wild, you'd have to import some of the smaller African prey animals, and the plants the prey eats, etc., and something would go out of control...
Pretty obviously, to make this go at all will require special permits for importing exotic animals. I hope the regulatory agency makes sure all the questions are answered, and that the importers live up to their commitments. The species finally allowed in should not be enough to make even the beginnings of an African savannah ecology, and the expected tourism might never materialize.
Personally, if I was going to give away that much cash to protect African endangered species, I'd be really tempted to use it to clean out the _real_ dangers from one piece of Africa -- wipe out the government and other bandits -- then set up a well-protected game reserve/tourist area.
Re:Won't work (Score:3, Informative)
For those of you that don't know, cane toads were introduced in
Re:Won't work (Score:2, Informative)
-dair
Re:Won't work (Score:2)
They eat anything else they can get their mouths around, though, and they reach a HUGE size.
Florida's freshwater ecosystem is probably one of the most screwed-up in the world. (mostly) Unintentional escapees from tropical fish farms and intentional bass and other game fish introductions have thoroughly disrupted things.
Then there's the havoc wreaked by carp in much of the West
Scotch broom. Starlings. Purple loosestrife. Kudzu.
The list goes on. Most attempts to introduce alien species fail, some result in no great harm (chukar almost exclusively eat cheatgrass, which is itself a noxious introduced weed that's vastly changed sage steppe ecosystems in the arid west, for instance; pheasants are largely dependent on agricultural), some are beneficial (cinnabar moth used to control introduced tansy ragwort).
But those that go bad
And Australia itself has a long list of endemic species in peril, really more so than Africa in terms of a percentage of endemics that are in trouble. Seems like the wrong place to try this experiment.
Re:Won't work (Score:2, Insightful)
For starters, I think the environment/climate would be very different. Even though at first glance Australia appears similar to Africa in that it's hot with large planes and fields of dry grassy areas, Africa is much more moist than the harsh, dry Australian desert.
There's no way a Hippo could survive in oz, for example.
Re:Won't work (Score:3, Funny)
Ferrel elphant plague strikes Australia!!
The inhabitants of a Canberra suburb were fled in panic as the city was overrun by a herd of thousands of Ferrel elephants that had escaped form a reserve for endangered African animals. The elephants have adapted to their new enviroment admirably and have begun to travel in herds of thousands. Just last week an infestation of ferrel Elephants levelled an entire district of the city of Sydney and then went on to ravage a large peanut factory...........
Re:Won't work (Score:2)
(Score:-1, Flamebait)
Much as I find the New York Times' registration scheme and their editorial bias annoying, I doubt they'd print a headline with a misspelling like "Ferrel [dictionary.com]"
Re:Won't work - kinda (Score:4, Informative)
He got put in jail. Why? He killed all the Cats, Dogs and Toads on his land. This is against the law as its 'cruel'. The law has since softened - but technically it is still against the law to protect native species to the detriment of introduced ones.
He has been succesful in setting u a number of reserves though - everywhere he has killed Cats the native marsupials etc have thrived. Often coming back from just a few hundred specimens to many thousands.
He sells shares in his reserves to people, to fund purchasing of more land, and maintenence of the existing land. From memory he aims to have 10% of australia set aside as native only reserves within 10 years.
This project should happen in Africa - not Austalia. Its not as if African land is expensive. I'm sure old megabucks Bill Gates could buy the Congo and ship out everything that threatens the wildlife if he wanted to. Those gorillas are so cool!
Lions aren't rabbits (Score:2)
The rabbit, like the rat and the cockroach, is pretty much unexterminable. The large mammals this would be about, OTOH, are already threatened and by definition easy to exterminate, should the need arise.
There may be problems with the plan, but the chance that the introduced species will overrun the local fauna and be impossible to control isn't one of them.
Re:is it a good idea? (Score:2, Interesting)
Given this, you have to assume that introducing some species of mammals will have a negative impact on the local populations. Larger animals such as lions, elephants etc may not have much of an effect by themseleves but what happens if you start to introduce dung bettles etc? If you dont you'll be neck deep in elephant crap within a couple of years as its unlikely that there will be any local species designed to break it down. How will the smaller creatures which bred very fast going to react? Look at the rabbits - only 6 were initially released and not there are millions of the damned things, not even myxamatosis has an effect on them anymore. So what would insects be like?
The sad fact is that ecosystems are far too complex for us to recreate properly at the minute and introducing african specials to australian will simply result in a new hybrid which adapts to the local environment and not what you started with.
My vote goes for keeping the local species in place and finding ways of minimising their impact of african farmers and ensuring a decent revenue stream to make it worthwhile for the African governments to keep them alive. ----- Before speaking first engage brain. Then stop and think again.
Re:is it a good idea? (Score:2)
The rest of the world's mammal population are largely placentals. The American opossum is a marsupial, the only one I know of outside of the greater Dan Unda region.
To address the story, I'm stunned that this idea is being taken seriously. All parts of the world have seen ecodisasters caused by what "seemed like a good idea at the time". Look at the introduction of kudzu to the Southeastern US as an example. Australia, though, has been especially hammered. Cats, rats, rabbits, cats, dogs, pigs, you name it. Given the unique ecosystem of Australia, the world should support them in their efforts to protect and preserve what they still have. So maybe the marsupial isn't an evolutionary ideal -- the rise of placentals pretty well shows that -- but so what? Can't we protect something just because we want to? What makes the endangered lion and elephant so precious that we risk eliminating koalas or wombats or wallabys to protect the African critters?
Hmm. (Score:1)
Re:Hmm. (Score:2, Insightful)
We only have to be cautious.. because our own dominance might kill us. We might someday make globalwide disaster, which will make roaches a dominant species...
Really? (Score:4, Funny)
Have you? Really? Or are you Lion?
Roos and Lions? (Score:5, Funny)
Short. And messy ;-)
cmclean
Re:Roos and Lions? (Score:2)
Re:Roos and Lions? (Score:2)
Now I understand why this is happening in Australia - Rupert Murdoch is behind it so he can get exclusive rights to the footage which he'll use for a new Fox show to be called "When Lions Attack Kangaroos."
Re:Roos and Lions? (Score:2)
Re:Roos and Lions? (Score:2)
Lions are like wolves, they are pack hunters. That kangaroo would have a
problem with more than one, also that sounds more like a fight, not a hunt.
Lions typically hunt by having the male roar, making the prey run towards where
the females are laying in wait, hidden. That kangaroo and indeed, pretty much
any animal would have a problem with 4 lions jumping out at him out of nowhere.
SealBeater
Saving one species at the cost of others? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Saving one species at the cost of others? (Score:2)
I think a three-way death match with lions, crocodiles and humans would make good television. This guy is a media magnate, right?
Dangerous (Score:1)
Great Idea, Kerry! (Score:5, Funny)
"Kerry, you are a fucking idiot!"
Everything he touches turns to shit, whether it's TV networks, airlines, or now the whole fucking ecosystem.
Australia could be a kewl place (Score:2, Troll)
I guess calling the place Oz was a nice bit of foresight.
What it would be like with Lions and Kangaroos (Score:1, Redundant)
Killer Bees (Score:1, Insightful)
I wouldn't wish anything like that on the australians.
Re:Killer Bees (Score:2)
I guess we'll have to find some other way to pay them back for unleashing Rupert Murdoch on us...
This is insane (Score:1, Informative)
In Europe, escaped kangaroos became a menace in the mid-1800s in southern Germany. Eventually, after years of hunting, all kangaroos wre wiped out.
Australia still suffers from European species introduced there.
Please, don't introduce African game... No one knows what will happen.
GPL? (Score:3, Offtopic)
From the article:
Wait a minute, the source code for a hippo is available? How come I've never seen this here [freshmeat.net]?
Re:GPL? (Score:2, Funny)
Damn, I spoke too soon. Here it is [freshmeat.net] after all.
Re:GPL? (Score:2)
Yup. Go here [cam.ac.uk] to contact Dada Gottelli, who can get you the source. Unfortunatly, it can't be sent over the internet, but there are many mirror sites around the world. And yes, the source for hippos, or at least the species Choeropsis liberiensis, is available.
(For those who don't know, zoos around the world are preserving tissue samples and sperm and eggs from a wide variety of species. Useless (other than for research) now, but possibly vital at some time in the future... and they share back and forth to mirror each other's efforts (so the loss of a single facility won't affect the project... where is SourceForge's mirror?)
--
Evan
Why fight nature (Score:2, Interesting)
Not really (Score:2)
Really this is just going to be like Dubbo's open plane zoo [nsw.gov.au], but on a grander scale
Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
However what this nutcase is proposing here is nothing short of ecological genocide. If large predators escape from this "park" you can kiss goodbye all of the rare and beautiful marsupial animals that inhabit his "home". If he really wants to preserve african wildlife, he can do it much more easily by offering to fund the anti poaching forces in tanzania and kenya, as well as solving rural african poverty that means many in poorer outlying areas must hunt for bushmeat which goes for a high price in Nairobi. Perhaps a biology and a reality lesson is in order Mr. Packer?
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Or he could surround the core conservation area with a hunting area, leading to the best of both worlds: Claim to be conserving foreign wildlife in the core area, and helping to conserve indigenous wildlife outside of the core area, while also pleasing Neanderthals who maintain the urge to kill anything that moves.
Haven't we learned anything? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, the preservation of wildlife. A noble cause in itself, noble indeed. But to introduce African wildlife into Australia? That is pathetic.
Let's start with the famous rabbits, foxes, cane toads etc which roam the Australian country side. It's not a pretty sight, with all the introduced animals, having perhaps few predators and therefore outbreeding the local fauna.
There may also be the small problem of germs brought into Australia by the animals. Ever been to Oz? Ever try to bring something even remotely animal-sourced material into the country? Even the soil under your shoes has to be cleaned, for fear of foreign infection due to the relative isolation of the continent.
And also, if they plan to put a big fence around the property, they also need to maintain the damn thing, which, due to the size of it, should mean a constant monitoring of the thing and watching for any escaping animals (which would bring us back to point 1).
In short, any "let's bring in species X into that continent" has, up to now, caused so many unforeseen side effects this should not be done without a proper scientific ground, and even with that, it should not be done lightly. And certainly not on the whim of an insecure rich man like Kerry Packer.
Conspiracy theories..? (Score:5, Funny)
Consolidated already has secured a land swap deal with the WA Government to free up property north of Kununurra for the reserve.
What do you reckon is on this land then..? I think the hippos are just something to hide behind.. the lions are to keep people from snooping. He's building a secret shuttle launching facility? Nuclear weapons experiments? There are opals there? Perhaps it *is* Jurrasic Park?
Why not have a reserve in Africa? (Score:2, Insightful)
Surely it would be smarter (and cheaper) to put a reserve in Africa and just keep the bloody poachers out.
Don't play dice with two distinct ecosystems. (Score:4, Interesting)
Southern Africa has already implemented plans to create the world's biggest game reserve that spans three countries - Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe - and which will ultimately be 38,600 square kilometres in size. Within this game reserve, animals will be free to roam, the way they were able to in deepest, darkest Africa of the past before colonisation/civilisation. Due to the success of game parks, the wildlife population is springing back despite problems such as poaching and overcrowding. So while there is always a problem associated with "threat of eventual extinction of species", Africa is already doing the best it can to preserve its species. Australia should take care of its own problems first.
Visitors to game parks in southern Africa are very lucky if they get to spot "the Big Five" in the same day - that is, lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino, leopard; and when they do, it is at a very respectful distance, and always with an armed game ranger. These are not the tame and cuddly animals you see in zoos or sanitised environments like Disney's animal park.
What I'm saying here is that African wildlife is dangerous. Beautiful to look at, but dangerous. Forget Rudyard Kipling's stories about the lion being the king of the jungle (Africa isn't even a jungle, it's more of an arid savannah!) - here, each animal knows its place in the hierarchy.
Ignoring for the moment that there has to be a reason (whatever it may be) why kangaroos are not found in Africa, and the Big Five are not found in Australia, I'm very much afraid that in a pissing match between the two continents, the Australian wildlife will lose.
Kerry Packer's billions would be better spent at creating more game reserves in Africa, but bearing in mind the cliche "charity begins at home"....
It's been done... (Score:2)
Admittedly, it's prolly not as big as the one Kerry's planning.
Lucrative big game. (Score:2)
When the lions/hyenas get loose, and start eating all the indigenous Australian wildlife like <strike>camels</strike> kangaroos, they'll be an ecological menace right? We'll have to track them down and kill them, right? And if we're going to have to do that, wellll, we'll have to do it as an organised, controlled hunt - the lions still belong to the reserve, so we can't have any old Bruce Stockman just thinking he can shoot them, right? And while we're doing that, we might as well charge concerned individuals a fat free for the priviledge of helping out? All funds to go back into the reserve, of course...
Am I being overly cynical here? I really don't know if I'm joking. At the least, if they get the ecosystem wrong within the park, they'll have to cull the big predators anyway, and if they're going to have to do that, they might as well make some money off it (and so on).
Amazing. (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a food chain and an ecosystem. Mr Packer wants to isolate an ecosystem with some sort of fence. The food chain goes down to tiny organisms which can easily pass through his fence. Either the food chain will have significant gaps which cause this idea not to work, or there will be some mixing between ecosystems.
If the ecosystems mix, then he risks unbalancing nature's balance within the Australian ecosystem. If he leaves gaps in the food chain, then it's possible that Australian organisms may fill them but then how does Mr Packer expect to contain birds with his fence?!? What about plant life? It's part of the ecosystem too... birds can spread plant seeds and plants can probably spread through Mr Packer's fence.
I don't take biology as a subject but there are problems preventing this from being feasible that are incredibly obvious. Has Mr Packer thought about this idea at all? It seems as if he had the dream last night and started working on the press release just after he woke up.
ecosystem survivor (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:ecosystem survivor (Score:2)
Hey, this is Oz. It has to be flying monkeys.
I'll get you, my pretty... And you little 'roo, too!
you know (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a huge difference between inadvertently introducing small species such as rats and rabbits across the country (well, starting at coastal shipping ports), and introducing large mammals into a controlled region. Large mammals such as elephants and hippos are much easier to track, and more importantly will typically have offspring every few years (about every two years for hippos and rhinos, four years or more for elephants, and two years for lions, though the latter usually have a few cubs per litter), while rabbits breed like well, rabbits.
Personally I think he'll have a very hard time of doing this succesfully; it's not easy to create an African savannah ecosystem from an Australian outback, and megafauna are notoriously slow at increasing population (thats one of the reasons we need reserves in the first place).
Lions v Roos (Score:3, Funny)
hmm... (Score:3, Informative)
But! A game reserve for ENDANGERED species might be ok, because that would be things like rhinos and giraffes and primates. There's a reason that they're all endangered, and part of it is because humans can kick the ass of any natural population with ease (compared to rabbits, which breed like rabbits, and thus are not endangered).
So for these species it would be less risky. On the other hand, a reserve in Africa would be ideal, and it is possible to have a reserve without major problems from poachers if the location is right.
Fix the problem instead (Score:5, Insightful)
I would love to hear what Steve "the Crocodile Hunter" would say about this. Sure the guy is the goofiest person I've seen from
Re:Fix the problem instead (Score:2)
Re:Fix the problem instead (Score:2)
Africa without the africans (Score:3, Insightful)
Wouldn't this just be a dream come true for the big white safari hunters (and watchers) of the world; exciting African wildlife without the pesky african people to spoil the scenery.
As pointed out by many already, the conservation aspect of this plan is trite. Look at the actual percentage of conservation land in Africa (especially S. Africa, Zambia Kenya, Botswana, Zimbabwe and increasingly Mozambique) - its far higher than any western country. All of these places have viable stocks of elephant, rhino etc. The dangers of poaching are usually specific to an area (ie Reduced elephant population in Tsavo in Kenya). Having elephants in Australia is hardly going to solve this.
There are vastly more important conservation projects going on in Africa that make this look ridiculous - particularly the peace parks mentioned in another post.
If he wants to do something stupid like this - fine; but not by claiming some kind of moral imperative about saving African wildlife from the predatorial, poaching africans.
Matthew
P.S.Apologies for the invective; my currency (the South African rand has just fallen even further into the mire based, as far as I can see, on similar self-fulfilling racist (or more likely, cynical) fantasies of those that control the money markets.
I thought of this first! (Score:2)
Danny.
That is the stupidest idea i've ever heard. (Score:2, Interesting)
Everyone knows the effect of inserting foreign species in a balance eco-system and that already happened in Australia during the colonial days. These species are now making it harder for the native Australian fauna. ( That happened with rabbits, dogs,
Those who watch the croc guy on discovery know what i'm talking about, and i would certainly like to hear from Steve about this idea.
Sometimes, i just want to hit people with a buick! I don't know why, don't ask.
Hmmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Crocodille Hunter ... (Score:4, Funny)
"...and here we are in my native Australia, home to the koala, the kangaroo, and
It has already started... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, there is an ecological theory called "the tens rule", stating that approximately 1 out of ten imported species escapes and becomes introduced to the local flora and fauna. In the next step 1 out of 10 introduced species manages to maintain self-sustaining populations. And in the final step, 1 out of 10 established species becomes a pest.
So, if statistics are true even down under, there is a slight risk that the Australians will end up with pest elephants roaming the countryside and eating peoples grapes (they produce much but wine there, do they?).
Furthermore, even though insects are not the most important savannal grazers, they are still numerous enough to be of ecological significance. So they'll probably have to import them as well.
Ehh, not to mention the savanna itself of course.
:o)
Parasites? (Score:3, Interesting)
Exptic animals have exotic diseases... BSE (Score:3, Interesting)
This type of thing is still going on. There is a plausible theory that BSE did not suddenly jump from sheep to cow but was introduced by a particular wilderbeast at a safari park that died with BSE type symptoms and whose body was sold for rendering. Wilderbeast in their natural habbitat are subject to a prion type disease similar to BSE.
The theory is still controvertial, the MAAF are ridiculing it. Unfortunately they have little credibility after it was discovered that three years of research into 'sheep brain' turned out to have been examining cow. The MAAF theory was used to reassure the public that BSE was the bovine form of scrapie, a disease of sheep that people have been eating for centuries without contracting CJD, the human form. However people have been contracting CJD so the 'scrapie' theory requires the emergence of a new form of scrapie prion while the wilderbeast theory does not.
Whether or not the 'wilderbeast' theory is true the risk of introducing exotic diseases is significant.
Move Civilization Out (Score:2)
- G.K. O'Neill to his students in 1969
I don't think so [geocities.com].
It's quite common -- don't worry about playing god (Score:2)
I had to take readings every five minutes and record their actions, and I had several interactions with squirrels and the like. Really pretty interesting to see two disparate species like this have face-to-face "showdowns". There's no real worry that these guys are going to transmit anything.
The point, in brief, is this: Zoos do this all the time in the US, from San Diego to Asheboro, North Carolina. Believe me, they keep a very close eye on the animals. The biggest hurdle for many zoos is finding a climate that suits the animals. Australia fits the bill for many African hoofed mammals almost to a T, I'd bet. The only real concern is what happens if a large habitat is cleared of rare indigenous animals to make room -- that could potentially have some obviously bad repercussions.
This isn't a case of kudzu, African "killer" bees coming up from Mexico, or rabbits running rampant around Australia. In this case, hopefully, the goal is to breed rare animals in a land well suited to the task (stable government and good climate). The whole purpose is to breed animals that have a hard time making more, not to give range to wascally wabbits. Assuming the intentions are sound, good luck to them, and don't worry about us playing god.
One final point -- if you're worried about this guy making money, don't be unless animals are being hurt or exploited. We won't have conservation without placing worth on healthy animals, and, for better or worse, money is the way we seem to measure worth in this "first world".
Interesting scenario (Score:2)
I don't imagine that the lions will have much of a chance against the kangaroos. Besides their superior speed, kangaroos can also kill predators with a single kick.
Though, I wonder how the cheatahs will fare.
Personally, I think that this won't solve the problem. Species will become extinct, period, in one fashion or another. When there isn't sufficient habitat, species suffer. The only one that doesn't seem to suffer is the human species. We seem to be able to sufficiently adapt and destroy whatever environment we're put in.
Ah, human nature.
Re:Not sure if this is a good idea or not (Score:2)
//rdj
Re:Not sure if this is a good idea or not (Score:2)
So we taxpayers pay to have them rounded up, the small percentage that are young enough and in good health to be attractive to potential owners are adopted out, while the majority are penned in huge yards in places like Texas. Fed and watered again, at taxpayer expense, because people so love horses that they can't bear to seem them killed even in areas where they're a unmitigated pest and negatively impact our public lands.
Of course even I'd choose a horse over a cow on the range, and admittedly some (not all) of BLM's control efforts are to maximize forage for cattle, not wildlife. The BLM's bent priorities are no excuse for being stupid about feral horses, though.
Its no big deal (Score:2)
Your priorities are fuckup (Score:4, Insightful)
The 4 most important things on this planet are:-
Air
Water
Topsoil
Biodiversity
Really humity doesn't rate - we are dependent on all of them, they are not dependent on us.
In actually fact we have become a cancer to our host -in a biological very short time we've gone from being in Balance with the enviroment, say up to half a million years ago, to the point where we are breeding out of control & poisoning our host with our bi-products - we are no longer a balance part of our hosts eco-system, just like cancers are to the body - its gotten to the point there's an extra billion of us every decade (the last billion took 12 years, the next billion will take 8 years).
The fact is that we are causing extinctions a 1000 times faster than these species could evolve naturally to adapt to us (evolution is a very slow process)
You know there's only less than 20 Sumatran Tigers left, which means if I had the choice of saving one Sumatran Tiger & saving all the Americans on the planet, I pick the Tiger without hesitation, because 250M/6B is 1/24, so really then 1 Sumatran Tiger is worth more than 250m Americans (1/20 is bigger than 1/24)
I wonder if the rapid domination of the planet by humans started with a mutation, just like the way cancers start? & you know how cancers end? With the destruction of their own host, unless they are halted in time.
Re:Your priorities are fuckup (Score:2)
So why don't you do your part and off yourself?
You humans are a disease. (Score:2)
A virus. You humans are a disease, a cancer on the planet. And we? We are the cure.
Good for you (Score:2)
Re:Your priorities are fuckup (Score:2)
Well in evolutionary time we've barely even arrived - we've been here for a measly 5 million years or so, vs hundreds of millions for successful species.
I think the jury's still out on whether humans are a viable species or whether we do indeed contain the seeds of our own destruction.
Maybe Kerry Packer should spend his cash on creating a Martian atmosphere and sending a Noah's ark of animal species (minus humans) up there - then they may just have a chance at surviving, and we can stay here and kill ourselves with bioweapons or whatever we're going to do.
Re:Your priorities are fuckup (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Your priorities are fuckup (Score:2)
Honest question here. Why should I care? I'm really curiouse why you think this is important. Clue us all in.
Re:Your priorities are fuckup (Score:2, Insightful)
Air
Water
Topsoil
Biodiversity
Really humity (sic) doesn't rate... really then 1 Sumatran Tiger is worth more than 250m Americans etc.
Why are those 4 things "important"? Why is any species or all species collectively "important"? Why are reproducing complex organic chemical compounds "important"?
Nature certainly doesn't "care." It has no "moral" qualms about destroying a particular variation of life or of destroying all life everywhere. There have been plenty of so called "disasters" resulting in massive extinctions of vast numbers of species before the "disaster" of mankind. Comet strikes, climactic changes, new species, etc. have resulted in mass extinctions long before mankind. Mass extinction and the eventual extinction of all life on earth is inevitable. The variables that make earth habitable by life are not constants. The atmosphere will change as the core cools and there is less and less volcanic and plate tectonic activity. As the sun ages the "habitable zone" where there can be liquid water will change. Eventually the earth will outside that zone. If those changes fail to cleans the earth of it's contamination by reproducing complex organic chemical compounds the sun going nova will certainly do it.
The only reason to attach any importance to the continued survival of Sumatran Tigers or of any species is human morality. While human morality creates the concept of "value" which it then applies to Sumatran Tigers it is also (except by you) universally recognized to apply that concept of value even more generously to humans. So no, 250m Americans (or Arabs, or Germans, or Chinese) is of far greater value than that Sumatran Tiger.
The really interesting question is: does that morality have any objective reality independant from human thought? If it does, and the lives of Sumatran Tigers and of humans are in fact important for some reason other than we decided that they are - Who is it important to?
Please, be consistent. (Score:2, Interesting)
The main difference between us and lions is that we're prolific enough for our conflicts to take place over large areas, not just an African plain, and we've developed weapons that are far more effective than a lion's claw and tooth.
However, I suspect that you are really calling humanity a cancer due to our seeming disregard for the ecosystem. We take advantage of our ecosystems; we don't merely co-exist with it. But such is the nature of being the 800 lb. gorilla. Our decision is whether to be a benevolent caretaker and to manage our resources in a way where every species benefits, or to be ruthless about it and horde resources for ourselves. In either case, you can rest assured that humanity's collective decision to this dilemma will be resolved by what benefits us the most at the time. It won't be because there are only 20 cats left in the world somewhere. The only reason we would save those tigers is so we can lock them up in a zoo so people can pay money to look at it.
Personally, I think we should be more responsible about how we treat our natural environment and resources - but only because we will be royally screwed if we don't.
My only problem with your argument about saving tigers versus saving all of America is this: you only want to save the cute animals. But you don't seem to have the first bit of sympathy for cancer cells. No... viruses, mold, mildew, maggots, fungus, weeds, e coli, bacteria, the crabs... none of those would make your list of the top 20 things to save. But then again, you wouldn't want any of those as pets.
I can sympathize with your conservationist leanings, but when your examples lean towards the cute, I have to wonder just how sincere you are.
Its just commonsence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Australian Camels (Score:2)
Re:But this wont solve the question... (Score:2)
Re:Why not invest on Africa? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why not invest on Africa? (Score:2)
That's supposed to read "could be very different than what animals need." of course.
Re:Kerry Packer, a "real Ozzie man" (Score:2)
//rdj
Re:Kerry Packer, a "real Ozzie man" (Score:2, Insightful)
If you really want to breed African animals, do it in Africa! The only reason Kerry Packer wants to do it in Oz is to manage his media image, "as caring about Oz as your man next door". But it shows how little he thought this one through and in his desire to bolster his image, he will end up hurting the Australian flora and fauna much more than he will benefit it.
Re:Kerry Packer, a "real Ozzie man" (Score:2)
//rdj
Re:Isn't Africa Larger (Score:3, Insightful)
only mild offence taken.
I couldn't work out exactly what the proposed size of this would be, but even at say 100 000 hectares, this would still be tiny compared to the completely safe environment of SA's Kruger park (+- 2million hectares) a superbly managed wildlife park that has a surfeit of elephants every year. Not to mention Botaswna's Okavango, Moremi and Chobe, Namibia's Etosha, Zambia's South Luangwa, and even Zimbabwes Hwange is not seriously at risk despite the political situation there.
Similar places exist in other countries. A crude assesment that Africa's wildlife is at risk in untenable. Specific habitats, and particular fragile ecosystems are at risk, but a wildlife park in Austalia is hardly going to save a Rwandan rainforest is it - no matter how many elephants are in the outback.
It would NOT be better for such animals to be in Australia. It would be worse for african wildlife in general if people visited this la-la land because they have irrational attitudes about to going to see the real thing.
Matthew