Hunting in Africa

[Racer x]

Once they kill all the big preditors. And they will. They will be left with jackal , hyena and dogs. When the wild African dog is the top of the food chain. People will not be able to go outside. Imagine 600000 wild dogs in packs of ten to one hundred roming the savanna? I have an African dog. Nothing not even a lion is a match for them. And they live on trash dumps and have large litters multiple times a year.

[cbinker]

Yes the ****ing lion story is that tactic that you fell for. Congrats you follow CNN, the typical news station that bends the truth. and no i don't watch any major news network they are all full of **** and run the diversion tactics to keep politicians in control. nice try.

[allanoue]

Originally Posted by cbinker

Are you this upset about the murder of 4 service man in Chattanooga? and the possible prosecution of the 5th Military member that returned fire? if not you are what is wrong with this country!

What does that have to do with the price of tea in china?

[cbinker]

Originally Posted by allanoue

What does that have to do with the price of tea in china?

it is the typical US media, distract the citizens with stories like this one to avoid what is going on inside our own boarders.

[Jono]

Jimmy said it best here... at 2:52

Link to original page on YouTube.

[Racer x]

The Media is not responsible for this one. They are days behind the story and don't know what to do with it. Yes ,now they are using it as a distraction. But it is from genuine disgust at the poaching of the lion.

The media is worthless no question

[Ninjinsky]

Extinctions in the last 100 years
Includes many big cats and the Barbary lion

http://www.pixable.com/article/heres...s-photos-67674

[Racer x]

Since 2000 60 % of the wildlife in Zimbabwe has been poached.

[allanoue]

Originally Posted by Ninjinsky

Extinctions in the last 100 years
Includes many big cats and the Barbary lion

http://www.pixable.com/article/heres...s-photos-67674

Poachers, do not care about pushing animals into extinction.

This is why that dentist is a piece of ****.

[FrugalNinja250]

Originally Posted by Racer x

Once they kill all the big preditors. And they will. They will be left with jackal , hyena and dogs. When the wild African dog is the top of the food chain. People will not be able to go outside. Imagine 600000 wild dogs in packs of ten to one hundred roming the savanna? I have an African dog. Nothing not even a lion is a match for them. And they live on trash dumps and have large litters multiple times a year.

Look up "bush meat". The population in most of sub-Saharan Africa is eating all the species in the food chain. Almost all species are experiencing rapidly declining numbers. Most of the money flowing into Africa from resource extraction (including hunting big game) and charity work is going to warlords and corrupt governments, not into developing sustainable food production and population growth management. You can thank big oil for the former and religious conservatism around the world for the latter.

[Whiskey]

Originally Posted by FrugalNinja250

These concepts sound good on paper, but they don't matter when the gene pool is declining due to population loss. Also, genetic selection for stronger population survival characteristics only works when the environmental factors stressing the population can be adapted to by genetic variation. These would include things like climate change, disease, food availability and types. Genetic selection doesn't work against bullets, arrows, and machetes. AFAIK, no lifeform on earth has evolved kevlar or steel plate integuments.

Variation in a small gene pool is even more critical than in a large one.

I'm not talking pure darwinism, I'm talking about the problems that arise from inbreeding, which can be an issue if a dominant male sires the vast majority of offspring in an area for a significant amount of time. That can lead to it's offspring breeding in a consanguineous manner, with the deformaties, poor immune function, decreased fertility & other issues

There's a difference.


yes genetic variation helps with survival of the fittest, but specific selection pressures can lead to the establishment of mutations that are advantageous in hetrozygous cases but deleterious in homozygous cases, these can be disasterous if inbreeding occurs.
For example;

DelF508 in the CFTR gene aids in survival during Cholera outbreaks by reducing the loss of fluids, but causes Cystic Fibrosis if both copies have the deletion.

People with a hetrozygous c.7 A>T mutation in the B-Globin gene have an increased resistance to malaria, but homozygous mutation causes Sickle Cell Anaemia, increasing the risk of stroke.



Spiders, Scorpions, Crabs, Armadilloes, alligators... it's not steel or kevlar, but Chitin is pretty hard

[csmith12]

Originally Posted by FrugalNinja250

Genetic selection doesn't work against bullets, arrows, and machetes. AFAIK, no lifeform on earth has evolved kevlar or steel plate integuments.

You sure? It's getting closer every day.

http://news.yahoo.com/texas-man-shoo...214656503.html

[allanoue]

Originally Posted by Whiskey

Variation in a small gene pool is even more critical than in a large one.

I'm not talking pure darwinism, I'm talking about the problems that arise from inbreeding, which can be an issue if a dominant male sires the vast majority of offspring in an area for a significant amount of time. That can lead to it's offspring breeding in a consanguineous manner, with the deformaties, poor immune function, decreased fertility & other issues

There's a difference.


yes genetic variation helps with survival of the fittest, but specific selection pressures can lead to the establishment of mutations that are advantageous in hetrozygous cases but deleterious in homozygous cases, these can be disasterous if inbreeding occurs.
For example;

DelF508 in the CFTR gene aids in survival during Cholera outbreaks by reducing the loss of fluids, but causes Cystic Fibrosis if both copies have the deletion.

People with a hetrozygous c.7 A>T mutation in the B-Globin gene have an increased resistance to malaria, but homozygous mutation causes Sickle Cell Anaemia, increasing the risk of stroke.



Spiders, Scorpions, Crabs, Armadilloes, alligators... it's not steel or kevlar, but Chitin is pretty hard

This is a specific case and you have no idea if what you are saying applies in this case. The scientist from Oxford who had been studying this lion for years would disagree.

[Panda]

What the article should read is "Texan with poor aim shoots rock in the general vicinity of an armadillo and bullet ricochets back into his face."

[Whiskey]

Originally Posted by allanoue

This is a specific case and you have no idea if what you are saying applies in this case. The scientist from Oxford who had been studying this lion for years would disagree.

I've already said that pack dynamics make Lions & Wolves are a special case, and that I'm talking in more general terms.

Fair enough it's gone on a slight tangent with that, but what I've said is valid for the majority of animal populations.

How much time effort & money do zoos spend on their breeding programmes, getting the right animals paired up to avoid inbreeding, if what I was saying was bollox as frugal is claiming they could just throw any male into a group of females & have healthy offspring









If I was horiffically cynical I could argue that the scientist from Oxford would obviously argue against his test subject being shot... there goes his main source of data, funding & any chance of getting paper in a higher impact journal

Just to restate I don't agree with shooting lions (or anything endangered, unless there's a very good reason), go hunt copious prey animals & eat what you shoot...

[allanoue]

My point is this was an illegal poaching so your argument is not germane to the discussion.

I do understand your concern for inbreeding, but given the small population it would be much smarter to do as the zoos do and simply trade male lions with other reserves.

[Whiskey]

Originally Posted by allanoue

My point is this was an illegal poaching so your argument is not germane to the discussion.

I do understand your concern for inbreeding, but given the small population it would be much smarter to do as the zoos do and simply trade male lions with other reserves.

Where they would kill all cubs in the new pride to bring the females back into heat, kinda defeats the purpose

There's no real winning scenario, maybe more photo safari trips, use the funds from that to conserve areas, employ rangers to deter poachers, try to engineer a landscape that will support more of the prey animals to reduce the size of the area needed to support a pride & see if you can release some more bred in semi captivity. But that's pretty much what the game reserve ranchers are doing, they're just tracking and shooting some of them.

[csmith12]

Lol, I see my armadillo joke was a flop.

[spooph]

Interesting now reading this thread 2 weeks later...

What really gets under my skin are all these people who are up in arms all of a sudden. This argument died within 2 days. Does anybody still remember Cecil?

It's a shallow FOMO culture we live where people who don't know squat about an issue have an opinion and decide to subscribe to the collective cyber bullying...

It doesn't matter to me which side of the issue you are on, if you're not still giving to the WWF and IAPF or it's equivalents, you have no business having an opinion on it.

http://www.iapf.org/

Please keep in mind I grew up in South Africa. I've been very close to this issue since childhood. My mom, bless her soul taught me to respect all animals and such from a very young age, and poaching reports were in our newspapers on a weekly basis.

And lest we forget, an animal doesn't have to be endangered to be of value to the world. There are plenty of rescues and shelters who need money and volunteers. No matter how holy you might seem, or how logical your arguments might be, or how cool you might feel jumping in on the cyber bullying gang back, if you don't support the cause, you're part of the problem.

Don't get me started on hot dogs and Whole Foods.

[csmith12]

Originally Posted by LittleRedNinjette

The instinct is there but because of domestication they don't know how to finish the kill or that they should eat it. the mother would normally teach that to the young. I'm with Joe here.

My cats killed the mother of the baby squirrels (from another thread) yesterday, they ate everything but the face and hind end + tail. I guess because they are "domesticated", it wasn't kosher enough. But, I would chalk it up in the "finish the kill" column imho. I think she was sick or something. I have no evidence or anything, but I think the babies were meant to be given away because she couldn't take care of them for some reason. I think squirrels are waaaayyyyy smarter than most other common animals.

On a happier note... her 3 babies are doing just fine with bottle feeding. Little rascals are noisy as hell, climbing my window curtains and generally wreaking havoc in the dogs lives, but the kids laugh their arses off at them. I will see if I can snap a pic or vid of them if I am fast enough.

I am told I need to build an 8ft tall cage with a loft at the top and some branches that lead up to the loft. So they learn to climb, I chuckled at this advice knowing that these little devils can climb anything right now. Little turds were up on top my fridge when I was trying to make dinner the other night howling and growling. I feel if I can't get them back in the wild soon, I will have 3 more pets.

[capt_bugaloo]

Venison and moose are good eatin'... Mountain goat, not so much.

I think hunting is fine, but if you kill it you should eat it.