I read a story last year about one of the big reserves in central Africa, where they were developing an anti-poaching force. Basically they hired SAS and SF types to train former local soldiers on LRP and seek-and-destroy tactics, and then these squads of men patrolled the reserve looking for poachers and killing them. Now that’s an anti-poaching program.
Film that – turn it into a reality TV show. Use the profits to buy up and guard the habitats. It’s a little bit…
… but I’m half serious.
Ideally, we’d just re-introduce wolves and eliminate that issue (mostly joking…but not entirely).
The show Meat Eater is actually pretty good, and a few seasons are on Netflix. I find that Steven Rinella, the host and lead of the show, is respectful of both the animals and regulations in hunting them. Recommended and a bit of a counterpoint to those that think hunting is always morally wrong.
Part of me thinks that in hunting is morally superior to grocery store meat - it’s actually pretty gross how we treat our domesticated meat animals (though it doesn’t really stop me either). But I also know a lot of hunting is unfair to the animals too.
I made the mistake once of watching a short clip on industrialized meat, ah, harvesting. Didn’t eat any meat for a while after that, it’s horrifying.
I do sometimes wonder what a world would be like if all living beings used chlorophyll for energy (IOW nothing ate anything else.)
Real hunters go after bigger game.
I spent a fair bit of time in poultry and beef plants early in my career (consulting). They’re awful. I didn’t stop eating meat, but I do look for products that are pasture raised/ grass fed etc. The lowest cost meat and eggs come from the worst conditions for the animals.
Yeah, I wind up avoiding a lot of natural/organic grocery products because they’re looney-tunes against useful science like GMOs, but I always buy the most humanely treated meat I can find nowadays that I can afford it.
We recently bought two fresh chickens for $5. They roasted and tasted fine. Feels weird though; I’m all about saving money here and there, but is that really a good deal?
Yep, that’s my approach as well.
I’m ready for the lab-grown meat revolution once they finally advance it enough to make it cost effective.
That analogy is a non-starter because that child is of more value than that entire species of goats. Put another way: people are animals but animals are not people. (As an aside, your analogy works better if applied to the concepts of a “just war” and “collateral damage”.)
When it comes to wildlife management the goal must be the good of the population rather the good of an individual animal. Without the trophy hunter system there’s a chance the species would be extinct by now or be so reduced in number that recovery becomes difficult to impossible.
Instead the species is recovering with good and measurable progress. As a side benefit, the local population gets economic gain which reduces poverty and all the evils associated with poverty.
Additionally, in order for the goats to live their habitat must be preserved. Therefore many other species, in fact an entire ecosystem, will be preserved because the economic well being of the area is directly tied to preservation.
Your side of this debate would’ve resulted in an extinct species; therefore your side of the argument is the morally repugnant one.
Citation needed.
Seriously, though, I get what the money from the trophy hunt brings and how that money can be used to protect a species. I’m just saying don’t expect me to praise or applaud the guy.
Same. Often times I will be in the grocery store and pick up some produce and look and say “eww, organic” and put it back and move to the non-organic aisle. I ain’t paying more for the same bell pepper.
If only it were that simple. Deer and humans live in harmony (mostly, though Deer are the deadliest animal in the US) but humans and wolves can’t really live together as well. One species is more adapted to suburban/urban areas, while wolves would not be. They would kill a lot of pets, and livestock. Though, we could take a page from Africa’s predatory conservation strategy and get everyone an Anatolian Shephard.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/08/africa/cheetahs-guard-dogs-namibia/index.html
And there are some smart farmers using LGD (livestock guardian dogs) with success.
And who doesn’t want to have awesome dogs around on the ranch?
This is making an assumption that only through trophy hunting can a species be saved. Clearly that’s not case.
Relocate the humans. Problem solved.
(Joking. Sort of. ;)
Next you’re going to try to tell me that Japanese whalers aren’t our only hope in protecting endangered whales.
I want to see the business model for eco-tourism in a remote part of Pakistan ;)
I think we’ve been through this, right? There are several ways to preserve species and habitats. Philanthropy is great if someone steps forward. Eco-tourism is awesome, if it’s a place that can attract tourists. Regulations are wonderful, if they can and will be enforced.
And managed hunting will work in some cases. It’s not the only approach, or the best one in general, but it does have a niche.
HPD’s quote was “your side of the debate would’ve resulted in an extinct species.”
Many areas of Pakistan are very scenic, it’s just not a place for Americans (or maybe Westerners in general I’m guessing.) Does that extend to Asians or Middle Easterners? China, India, etc have a middle class that travel. Or is Pakistan just too dangerous for anyone? I honestly don’t know.
Edit: Can go mountain climbing there ;)
http://adventureguide.com.pk/mountaineering-in-pakistan/
Of course there are many strategies and tactics which can contribute to saving a species.
But for this specific species in question, it’s reasonable to extrapolate from what was happening before: unrelenting poaching with rapid population decline. That ends in extinction.
As others have stated, ecotourism is an awesome thing in places where it’s a workable solution. But good luck on getting enough people willing to spend enough money to travel to a hazardous, remote region in order to see a goat which results in enough money to change the economic value of the species for the local population.
Someday, ecotourism could be a factor for this species but during recent times when the species was in mortal danger it was not feasible.
You would apparently willing to go back in a time machine, stop a program which we now know for certain is saving the species, then replace the working system with a roll of the die to try to save it using a method against which the deck is stacked, just because of your delicate feels about the way the species was saved.
Your’s is the morally repugnant approach.
Getting back to climate, a NYT look at carbon capture:
At the moment, global CO₂ emissions are about 37 billion metric tons per year, and we’re on track to raise temperatures by 3 degrees Celsius by 2100. To have a shot at maintaining a climate suitable for humans, the world’s nations most likely have to reduce CO₂ emissions drastically from the current level — to perhaps 15 billion or 20 billion metric tons per year by 2030; then, through some kind of unprecedented political and industrial effort, we need to bring carbon emissions to zero by around 2050. In this context, Climeworks’s effort to collect 1,000 metric tons of CO₂ on a rooftop near Zurich might seem like bailing out the ocean one bucket at a time. Conceptually, however, it’s important. Last year’s I.P.C.C. report noted that it may be impossible to limit warming to 1.5 degrees by 2100 through only a rapid switch to clean energy, electric cars and the like. To preserve a livable environment we may also need to extract CO₂ from the atmosphere. As Wurzbacher put it, “if you take all these numbers from the I.P.C.C., you end up with something like eight to 10 billion tons — gigatons — of CO₂ that need to be removed from the air every year, if we are serious about 1.5 or 2 degrees.”