No.

The rhino is not going extinct because it is being outcompeted by a fitter species. Humans are not in competition with them for resources. There are no new species coming in to fill the ecological niches vacated by endangered species. Not in my lifetime or yours, or those of this generation's great-great-grandchildren.

We are in the process of a global decrease in biodiversity, which could take hundreds of thousands of years to be reversed. Once it's gone, it's gone for good, we won't even realise much of what is lost. We are the cause, and we need to take responsibility for it, show some stewardship for the planet and not just trash the place.

In the case of the rhino, that's something we are exterminating out of pure stupidity and mistaken beliefs. That's not "nature's way". That's not "the circle of life". It's ignorance, it's negligence, it's something we can prevent.

 

Actually, there's numerous examples of where conscious efforts on the part of humans, often to address situations tied back to human causes, have helped species that were on a path to extinction.

 

Sad, but life goes on, as they say.

I mean, yeah it sucks, but I'm not the type of person to look at my fellow humans and say "You let this happen" or "This is all our fault"

Do I think its sad? Yeah.

But humanity has helped plenty of species not go extinct, so that's great. True, we've also damned other species to extinction, but when your family is starving you start to care less and less about a certain type of Northern Rhino.

Or we seduce them with our united sexiness.

In all seriousness, I'd never wish for the death of humanity. Death of myself, sure, but not death of our entire species.

 

Another meat I will never get to taste...

My bet is that it would taste like water buffalo.

The tuna situation alone may affect all of us in a blink of an eye. Then again most of the successful examples of human intervention are in the fishing industry.

 

Imo there are several issues to these things.

1: Poverty, what are you going to to when your family starves and you have no money. But to go out and shoot a few rhinos gives you food for a few months. This is a policital problem so I will end the discussion here on this point.

2: White man hunting, rich white ppl (generally speaking) wanting to hunt animals for sport. I understand those who hunt wildboar, deer, moose etc etc that there are plenty of and a certain ammount is legal to shoot. But to hunt just for the fun of it, its disgusting, it shows a lack of emphaty to other living things and I would not even toss them a glass of water if I saw then burn alive. The girl who poses with dead animals she shoot is one of them.

3: Eating certain animals. There are some part of this world were ppl eat everything. Heck they even eat endagerd spedcies and pay money to do so. Not a single thought about the animal or the species come to their mind.

4: A lack of respect for out planet and wild life in general. Like ppl ordering shark fin soupe at a restaurant are disgusting and it takes a bit of restraint not to go up to them when I see them and give them a few selected words. There are many other aspects to but ti would take to long to go thorugh them all.


I could go on and on but I wont, but you get the idea. Point is, we have one planet to live on, we need to take care of it and all those who inhabit it, humans and animals.

just my 2 cents.

 

I saw that episode. Was pretty good. Regardless, I'm not going to paint an entire people/nation with the same brush. The main driving force is still economic. If the demand wasn't so great (especially from the class of rich arseholes with the money to burn on the stuff), it wouldn't be an issue.

Things are starting to change with governmental factors discouraging/limiting cultural/societal traditions like having shark fin soup at business outings or weddings, for example. Probably too late to save this particular subspecies of rhino, sad to say.

 

No. It really, really isn't. Believe me, I study it for a living. There's a reason evolutionary biologists are in support for reduced human interference.

Darwinian evolution is an adaptive process. It is reactive. Selective pressures encourage the survival of genepools which have features best sutied to the current habitat. Once the habitat changes, these once "fit" species are no longer as well adapted and may die out. That is darwinian. External pressures leading to internal changes, so to speak. Human led extinction is the exact opposite. It is a short-term proactive event which is 100% preventable. Internal pressures (desire, land, greed, economics, food et) leading to external change (extinction).

Survival of the fittest is an oft trotted out and misunderstood phrase.

Animals become extinct. but the anthropomorphic extinction event is the first in history that is both preventable and conscious. this is not environmental change or migratory populations etc. This is a species which has the capicity to actively decide NOT to do something that instead. Humans are not outside nature but we are the first species with the capacity to work within the confines of natural limits to ensure a natural end for a species. Slaughtering animals for one body part to be sold at an asian market is not a natural end

I have often wondered if through conservation we're fighting the natural flood, so to speak. I'm really not sure we'd have the sense to let a species go if we found it undergoing a normal extinction event. We'd get in the way and that is not right imo. But here we've done things hugely outside the norm, subjected animals to artifical selective pressures over a time period most species can't HOPE to adapt in. And we do it for financial gain at best and our egos at worst. My local town at home just had a case of rhino horn being trafficked. My town. In rural Ireland.

This isn't evolution. It's a detached economic policy.

Also, the comment was made about the poachers. Many are good people desperate to feed their families. I honestly don't think you can say it is the Africans fault. It's the fault of those countries purchasing the horns and tusks and what have you. No demand, no supply.



Sad times. Sad sad times

 

It isn't political it's a fact it's cheaper to sell the horn than work an honest job.

I hate to tell you but the people that are killing these off are native Africans.

It's not any one factor that contributed to this there are several factors involved hunting, low birth rates, habitat loss, crooked rangers that help the poachers because it's also easier to be a lazy ranger making nothing and getting a cut of the horn money.

One of the things I don't understand that people seem to think is a good idea is burning the horn or destroying it, if it's already been taken and the animals are dead it makes more sense that they would sell it to use the money for conservation efforts, clearly the industry isn't stopping so there is no reason to waste the profit.

I also hate the reasoning people have that if we stop the demand the poaching industry will just go fade away, poverty stricken guy in Africa is going to keep killing rhino for the horn because they have been doing it for years he isn't going to get the memo if it becomes not popular anymore some one some where will buy it.

I had been watching MacGyver on Netflix and they had a rhino horn episode so clearly the efforts to get rid of poaching isn't working.

 

Y'know, even for the poachers, you'd think they would be all over the preservation of these animals since their existence is their livelihood. Why over hunt and use up the very resource that is making you money and is, with restraint and moderation, replenishable in time? What good is the demand if you have no supply?

Why don't they just do what their Asain customers do to the rest of the world and go grind up the horns of some abundant animal and try to pass it off as rhino. China pulls that crap all the time and it only stops once someone notices or dies (tainted dog food, poisonous baby formula) from their careless, heartless cost cutting and harmful fillers.

 

I think this is right, the best way to prevent poaching is to destroy the demand. You could spend tens of thousands on round-the-clock armed protection for just one animal. The poachers only have to get lucky once.

How do you go about destroying, or at least reducing demand? Propaganda would be my guess. There needs to be some sort of organised information campaign to discredit bogus medicine derived from endangered animals. And perhaps as a parallel strategy, offer affordable pharmaceutical alternatives where available.

 

Yeah, my original post was in reply to someone saying that China was the main country that was the one buying up all the Rhino horn. Didn't mean to paint Vietnam as being all bad, I googled "who buys rhino horn" and most articles that came up said that only 2% of the population of Vietnam have ever bought or used it. That figure has dropped by 38% over the last year.

https://www.thedodo.com/vietnam-rhino-horn-usage-767817268.html

 

These customs are deeply engrained into these people they aren't going to stop anytime soon because some one hands out a pamphlet.

They have medicine in these places and the people that afford this can afford medicine there will never be a lack of demand.

It's like saying stopping the demand for drugs will stop the production of them, it's just not true, the only way they can stop the demand is to destroy the supply.

Even that still wouldn't work people somewhere have it squirreled away waiting for them to become extinct so they can sell it for many times more than it's ever been worth.

It's a lost cause.

 

Hannibal Chau's got a point. You need to keep making sure you got a supply for the long run.

 

'Deeply engrained' customs are lost with each passing generation. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. It is happening all the time. Ask your grandparents.

You can't compare the demand for folk remedy placebos with the demand for narcotics. Even that is a dynamic world with new concoctions replacing the old.

It only becomes a lost cause if people assume that sense of hopeless inevitability that you are bringing to the discussion.

 

This 100%. There are bigger economic (and socio-cultural) factors at play here that go beyond just poaching. Where is the demand coming from? Who is supplying this demand with illegal traffic of goods?

It's not just African poachers. It's not just the Asian buyers grinding this stuff up for whatever medicinal purposes they happen to erroneously believe in. There's a huge market in between involving lots of other hands. The United States is among the top five countries on that list.

A case can be made that it mostly involves "old ivory" (supply that's been in existence before international trade bans) but apparently there are shady efforts to alter/dress up new ivory in order to pass it off as old ivory simply by classifying it as "antique ivory".

But agreed, it's not just Asian countries who are at fault here. The West bears a lot of the responsibility as well.

You speak as if "China" is one giant monolithic entity that can ensure 100% quality and control. Who distributes these tainted goods even despite knowing the quality might be suspect? Are Nestle Purina and Del Monte Corp both Chinese companies (look up Waggin’ Train Jerky and Milo’s Kitchen Home-Style Dog Treats)? Look at the bigger picture, is what I'm saying. There's plenty of blame and culpability to go around. It's way too easy and convenient to simply point at China and go, "Yup, it's all their fault!" Western companies bear a lot of the responsibility too.

Selling illegal goods is a bad idea despite any good intentions with using the money gained from its sale. Aside from flaunting international trade bans, you'd just be fueling demand. It's the same reason that drug enforcement agencies are supposed to destroy seized drugs rather than sell it and use the proceeds for any good intentions (which would be pointless considering the damage done by fueling demand and thus in turn fueling a vicious cycle). Blood money is blood money.

Agreed. When I was younger, I liked shark fin soup and it was a pretty common thing to order in Chinese restaurants in the US. My folks and their parents before them made it a big deal as it was considered a delicacy reserved for special occasions (graduations, weddings, promotions, etc.). These days, ordering the dish is discouraged by authorities and it's become less and less of a norm from what I've seen. The practice of finning has garnered lots of negative press and attention (and rightly so) and I can see future (younger) generations eschewing the practice. The going will be slow, and the momentum of government crackdowns and negative media press must be continual for the effect to last, but I'm optimistic that change can be made for the better.

Similarly, when I was stationed in Korea a few years back, I was initially gung-ho about trying keigogi (dog meat). But after reading about the subject, watching some (gruesome) videos, listening to some testimonials from military folks who had tried it themselves (it's apparently gristly, and doesn't have too strong a flavor much like shark fin soup), and hearing firsthand myself the barking and crying of the animals coming from the various dog farms just outside the base fences, I changed my mind and decided against trying the dish. I'm not going to push my viewpoints on anyone else, but I ultimately decided that it wasn't for me and just left it at that. Besides, I can't look at my own dog and not think family member rather than food source, though I'm not going to get up in other people's faces about their cultural dining traditions.