• masquenox@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    tl;dr: a Reindeer herd

    So your eco-fash hottake can literally be disproven by the fact that elephants exist, yet you are so desperate to cling onto it that you try to peddle forcing deer into becoming an invasive species on an island they have never adapted to as proof?

    • Cethin
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      15 hours ago

      They addressed the elephant issue in their comment. I recommend you read it again. The summary is elephants evolved without predation, so they don’t bread in large numbers. Prey animals breed with the assumption a not-insignificant portion of their population will die prematurely due to predation. If this doesn’t happen then their population balloons until it consumes all available resources, then it collapses.

      This happens fairly frequently where we’ve removed predators from the ecosystem. Its why we promote deer hunting, for example. We’ve removed their natural predators, and if they aren’t culled then they will grow until they collapse. This is well understood and not controversial.

      I guess we could engineer the planet until this isn’t an issue, but that’ll take a few millenia and probably isn’t the best idea. Let nature be natural. It’d be fascist to assume it’s our domain to conquer and dominate into submission.

      • masquenox@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        elephants evolved without predation

        Really? They just jumped from rabbit-sized mammals to elephant-size with zero predation?

        Prey animals breed with the assumption

        This is the first time I’ve heard of a deer “assuming” anything.

        If this doesn’t happen then their population balloons until it consumes all available resources, then it collapses.

        Evolution doesn’t stop simply because predation stops. Yes, deer population will expand if predation stops, but that expansion will not result in some “Reindeer Apocalypse” as the colonialist brain-trust on here is trying to pretend it would. No, it will not result in the consumption of all available resources, as reindeer’s natural environment is vast frikken northern hemisphere continents. If that could be possible, you might as well try to prove that bison hoovered up all the world’s grasslands before humans even managed to become humans.

        Let nature be natural.

        We closed that door permanently about two centuries ago. We did…

        We’ve removed their natural predators,

        …this, remember?

        It’d be fascist to assume it’s our domain to conquer and dominate into submission.

        I’d say it’s pretty eco-fash to assume that this isn’t the exact thing we’ve already done.

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          23 hours ago

          So because Elephants exist, Reindeer can go on without Predators? Dude, this is the most uncontaversial take in conservation. Predators are a necessary part of the cycle. That had nothing to do with how human society should run.

          • masquenox@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            Dude, this is the most uncontaversial take in conservation.

            So, again. Your Malthusian eco-fash hottake can literally be disproven by the simple fact that elephants exist. Animals can and will evolve to live within the means of their environments. Even humans have been thoroughly documented to be capable of such. So your pretensions that a “Reindeer Apocalypse” is imminent is… what, exactly?