I’m sorry that the individual rhino pictured is no more: so horny and lumpy and beautiful…he and his kin just wanted to eat vegetation and be left alone.
Bye bye ugly…to paraphrase an old song ‘Whatever humans want, humans get’ and somewhere, someone is thrilled, absolutely delighted at these circumstances, as trembling hands unlock a chest filled with pointy bits of fused hair from a beast guaranteed to no longer increase supply.
If I have to choose I suppose a world full of humans is preferable to a world full of rhinos: they are not very bright and will charge is provoked…and smell rather poorly I’ve heard. But we sow the seeds of our own destruction don’t we?
"Too long have they escaped the gibbet themselves. But the noose comes, slow in the drawing, tight and hard at the end. Hang if you will!’
“each month we will focus our efforts to catalog another part of mother earth’s rapidly shrinking biomass. please donate today, because the need is urgent.” rotfl
wait, wait… free viagra with your pledge of 500 whatsits or more. hahahahaha
While it may seem counter intuitive, SANCTIONED and licensed hunts (not killings by poachers or local villagers) can strengthen a herd and more importantly bring money in for conservation.
Many animals in Africa are on limited resources on limited land. If their numbers tax their resources the animals will either starve, or they will go out side of their protected areas and encroach on farmland. While I confess I don’t know as much about the black rhino, elephants and lions are often killed, usually by poison, by villagers.
A sanctioned hunt to take out an older male will not hurt the population. A cull will free up resources for the females and younger, more viable males. And probably the most important thing is the money goes to the conservation efforts. Those protected lands are woefully underfunded. They need rangers to patrol for poachers, money for local education on conservation, and paying farmers for lost crops or cattle instead of them going after the animals.
In a perfect world someone rich would give a fuck or two and fund these efforts properly. Or maybe Africa could advance enough economically to fund these projects by itself. But it isn’t a perfect world, and something like these hunts is a decent way to get funding and awareness.
Extinction is nothing new. Animals have been coming and going since their inception. The earth has seen some massive extinction events in the past. With the probable coming climate change, I would expect more extinctions as some species fail to adapt, and others are unable to migrate to more suitable climes. We are used to seeing the world as static, but it has never been so. Remember the Sahara was a jungle not that long ago.
In parts I agree with you, but I think most people here agree that extinction is a natural progression of any species, but the difference here is WE are the cause of these extinctions, these are not animals that are being directly affected by climate change per-se but are losing their habitat due to our encroachment, and over-culling. The problem with the hunt model is the species you are hunting has to have a viable reproduction cycle the large African/Asian herbivores do not, they are not seasonal reproducers like deer or even elk, heck or even zebra or wildebeest of Africa. In regards to [quote=“Mister44, post:24, topic:13653”]
A sanctioned hunt to take out an older male
[/quote] scenario, it has been proven that the longer lived species like Elephants and Rhinos (30+) years this is very detrimental as the older males even past fertility prime keep the younger males in check. Many of the “rogue” large herbivores that have caused issues with farmers are often juvenile bulls who have not learned to avoid such confrontations. I do not begruge your ideas as they have worked for many animals that we hunt for food such as deer, moose, elk etc. but the super-massive mammals don’t respond in those same ways because they have never been prey before, yes occasionally lions will take down an injured baby elephant or maybe a rhino calf, but it is not a normal food item for them, in the case of said deer and elk humans are just replacing the wolves and coyotes we have killed off in those regions. If there was a way “domesticate” the super-mammals, that might help in some ways, but I am not sure if these animals can be managed in that way.
Rhinos are actually quite sweet (at least the asian ones are). Don’t smell any worse than your average horse/cow/person.
Pictured below, crenquis & friend.
