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call to action posted:This is total nonsense, there is a huge amount of value to well-established ecosystems. And please don't bother me with the "wellll really there's no such thing as good or bad when you think about it, maaan" moral relativism idiocy. lol, dude, don't throw a big tantrum just because you don't understand what we're talking about. The guy's question was over which state of an ecosystem to preserve. The answer is that it doesn't matter outside of our own wants and capabilities. The island in question has gotten along fine with both wolves and lynxes as apex predators. Restoring one over the other is entirely subjective. boo hoo
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Aug 4, 2017 04:02
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Biodiversity is intrinsically good and it's also good for humans because we learn more about life itself and we benefit from the knowledge attained from studying other life forms. Only exception is those pandas that struggle so much to gently caress. They need to die.
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Aug 4, 2017 04:30
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call to action posted:This is total nonsense, there is a huge amount of value to well-established ecosystems. And please don't bother me with the "wellll really there's no such thing as good or bad when you think about it, maaan" moral relativism idiocy. I am trying to see what type of imperialist would need to insist that not having non-native wolves living on Isle Royale is a necessity to empire. Somehow if the island falls to the lynx instead of the wolves, global capitalism is saved from the inevitable march of history. Like, maybe if I am the Elerian Empire and I need to form an alliance with either the Mrrshan or the Bulrathi?
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Aug 4, 2017 04:45
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glowing-fish posted:Just from a biological point of view, it doesn't seem to be a good idea. From my wide research on the matter (reading a wikipedia article), it seems that wolves are not native to the island and it is too small to contain a stable population of an apex predator. Someone who knows more about this might be able to comment better, but it seems that apex predators have a non-linear relationship to population size. You might be able to sustain a pack of 40 wolves on an island twice the size of Isle Royale, but the genetic bottleneck gets too small on Isle Royale. One of the main reasons for preserving wilderness is that solid chunks of undisturbed habitat seem to be necessary as a core for some animals to breed and maintain their populations. Even when they can go and live in semi-wilderness areas, they need wilderness to replenish their populations. The small population isn't a big deal if you can maintain connectivity, if ice bridges are no longer reliable it can just be done manually. One of the big issues in conservation is that we are basically doing triage. We can't save all species everywhere, so where do we allocate our resources? In the United States endemic and threatened species are concentrated in the southeast, but most conservation funding is spent in the West in large wilderness areas that mostly protect widely distributed and common species, excepting a few charismatic macrovertebrates. It's a conflict of priorities, one large wilderness area in Montana might get you a sustainable grey wolf population, or for the same expenditure you could get four small wildlife preserves in the Ozarks that could save a dozen or more species of crayfish, freshwater mussel, and mountain orchid. Solid chunks of habitat are nice, but if you could break them into long sinuous corridors crossing multiple ecoregions they might be even more useful for wildlife. Even if they no longer meet your strict definition of wilderness.
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Aug 4, 2017 05:03
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Biodiversity is a liberal conspiracy designed to deny honest sportsmen the right to enjoy our natural wilderness and cut folks off from the land so their fat cat donors can clear cut and mine all they want.
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Aug 4, 2017 21:52
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Arglebargle III posted:Biodiversity is a liberal conspiracy designed to deny honest sportsmen the right to enjoy our natural wilderness and cut folks off from the land so their fat cat donors can clear cut and mine all they want. It's also a liberal conspiracy to destroy industry and impoverish hard working folks so hippies smoking the devil's lettuce can hug some stupid trees and block access to our God-given fossil fuels.
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Aug 5, 2017 09:21
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This might be a bit tangential, but I've read before that most of the national parks and other protected areas in the United States are in the North West-ish (i.e. Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier Ntl. parks, as well as huge parts of Alaska), which kind of makes sense from a pragmatic point of view since states like Wyoming and Montana have a much shorter history of intensive settlement and farming, still have very small populations that reduces pressure on the land, and of course the landscapes are breathtaking compared to most of the rest of the country (and these parks were as much set up to preserve such vistas as well as the wildlife). However I've heard from a lot of environmentalists and biologists that if the aim of national parks should be to protect unique biodiversity then the current distribution of parks in America is extremely lopsided, the areas that have the massive parks aren't terribly bio-diverse and if that's a primary concern then the its actually mostly in the southeast of the country, what I guess might be called the 'Deep South', that large areas should be set aside, but as luck would have it the South is one of the least protected parts of the country. Have their been many recent initiatives to create more national parks in the South or other ways to preserve its biodiversity and unique environments in light of this?
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Aug 5, 2017 16:12
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Fitzy Fitz posted:lol, dude, don't throw a big tantrum just because you don't understand what we're talking about. Except for that the island might be too small to support a sustainable wolf population, whereas Lynx seem to fit into the environment better.
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Aug 5, 2017 16:49
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khwarezm posted:This might be a bit tangential, but I've read before that most of the national parks and other protected areas in the United States are in the North West-ish (i.e. Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier Ntl. parks, as well as huge parts of Alaska), which kind of makes sense from a pragmatic point of view since states like Wyoming and Montana have a much shorter history of intensive settlement and farming, still have very small populations that reduces pressure on the land, and of course the landscapes are breathtaking compared to most of the rest of the country (and these parks were as much set up to preserve such vistas as well as the wildlife). However I've heard from a lot of environmentalists and biologists that if the aim of national parks should be to protect unique biodiversity then the current distribution of parks in America is extremely lopsided, the areas that have the massive parks aren't terribly bio-diverse and if that's a primary concern then the its actually mostly in the southeast of the country, what I guess might be called the 'Deep South', that large areas should be set aside, but as luck would have it the South is one of the least protected parts of the country. Your impression is correct, however as other posters have pointed out there are more priorities to consider here than just biodiversity. There is a real strain of thought that elevates wilderness to a kind of mystical place where the romantic explorer can travel in the footsteps of John Muir to experience the sublime. This kind of imaginary has value, but it is difficult to implement in areas that are already heavily developed. In the southeast there's not much wilderness, however there is still a lot of nature. It's just that that that nature is valued primarily as a productive resource rather than for mystical reasons. Therefore in order to preserve biodiversity the focus is on finding ways to keep ecosystems intact while still keeping them productive. It is a tricky balancing act but there have been successes. For example in the last 20 years the army corp has worked hard to increase in the area of seasonal wetlands in the Mississippi floodplain, which is good for all species. The reason? improved flood control and game bird habitat.
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Aug 5, 2017 16:58
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CountFosco posted:Except for that the island might be too small to support a sustainable wolf population, whereas Lynx seem to fit into the environment better. On the other hand, the wolf population has been a great subject for research. Again, there are multiple things that can be managed for on any given piece of land.
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Aug 8, 2017 14:54
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On the way to work this AM I saw 2 separate overnight roadkills of mule deer fawns. It really angers me as it is a really small town and this was on a far side of the enclosed valley. There is really only one small subdivision out this end (basically there is nothing east of it beyond national forest lands) and I suspect the same yahoos each time. The overwhelming % of people that would be out here are locals who should know better. I eat meat and I hunt (not for trophies), but this really bugs me.
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Aug 25, 2017 21:23
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As the flood waters of Harvey start to recede, and the damage starts to be calculated, the topic of wilderness becomes more relevant. Earlier on in this thread, someone said that most wilderness areas in the United States are in the Western mountains and basins, which are not actually that biodiverse, and that protecting the southeastern ecosystems is more important. This is also probably true from the viewpoint of environmental and natural disaster protection. Between Brownsville Texas and New Orleans, there is only one wilderness area: in the Lacassine Wildlife Refuge near Lake Charles, Louisiana. None of the Texas coast is in wilderness areas. Upstream from Houston, there are no real wilderness areas, although there is a national forest that is not wilderness (lots of roads and buildings in it). It might seem like a silly thing to argue about the need to preserve pristine wilderness in light of such a terrible disaster, but it shows why a seemingly abstract subject is very important: Wilderness areas on the coast catch waves. They help stop the storm surge. Wilderness areas inland catch rainwater and prevent the most disastrous flooding. Its true that places don't need to be total wilderness to do this: its not like putting a single lane gravel road on a barrier island is going to ruin its ability to block waves. But development in coastal areas and inland encourages more development, which leads to erosion. Every road or campground built in a forest takes away the ability of the ground to catch and hold water. As well as, more obviously, people living in barrier islands are putting themselves more directly in the path of danger, and when settlements in barrier islands get destroyed, it can leave a lot of environmental damage. Would it be politically feasible and environmentally beneficial to return gulf coast barrier islands to a wilderness state?
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Sep 1, 2017 17:28
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https://twitter.com/JeffLindner1/status/903687392544083968 close to a 500yr flood one year and a 40000 yr flood the next. Talk about loading the climate dice. Hard to back out of climate change now but harder to argue that it's not too late.
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Sep 1, 2017 19:37
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