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Conservation and Wildlife (Almost $100 already donated)

I

Infrarednexus

Guest
Already over a hundred posts. If anyone else wants to throw in some of their spare change to go in to the birds efforts, the link is right here.

www.doc.govt.nz: Kākāpō Recovery

$2, $1, even just 50 cents goes to providing food, equipment, and medicine for New Zealand's endangered wildlife. It all adds up.

Simply being here and talking with one another contributes to helping a species recover from the brink of extinction.
 
Zerzehn

Zerzehn

Dojyaaaaaaaaan~
s-l640.jpg

Would you be willing to accept semechki as a donation?

Of course, I am posting to help the kakapos.
 
Anthrasmagoria

Anthrasmagoria

Space Cadet
Fallowfox said:
This is a bit of a nuanced topic. I can't confidently comment that trophy-hunting is good for conservation- and in general the scientific community doesn't endorse the practice.
I would probably err on the side of saying that it's a false narrative that hunters who have historically harmed ecosystems severely use to make themselves feel good about themselves.

The whole thing strikes me as being fundamentally flawed in the same way as people who donate to charity to carbon-offset their flights, rather than taking fewer flights.

and you know, we don't want to end up getting trapped in a world where the only reason Lions still exist in Africa is because impoverished Africans allow them to exist so that wealthy Americans can kill them for fun.

It's a vision of dystopia.
Click to expand...

I agree, but the world being how it is now and those places with wildlife in greatest need have a tendency to be so bad that this really is the best shot for some of this wildlife. I heard we recently lost a rhino species forever to poaching and there are so many others right on the brink. Even if we were to save these animals in zoos, that would be the end of their existence as wild animals effectively without the preservation of chunks of existing habitat along with them. Once they get put into zoos, their behavior and epigenetics will change to the point where they probably would not make it if they were returned to the wild (if there ever will be a wild left for them to return to). It's a sad situation but I do want as much habitat to be preserved as possible and this does seem a good way to get both the animals and the land they live on to be considered something too valuable to just disregard or destroy, or turn into farmland.

At the end of the day most people in the world do not care about the environment or animals in general as much as they care about feeding themselves and their families. And that's understandable. Humans aren't built to worry about things beyond their experience or immediate interests. I don't see that changing for the near future, until most people's basic needs are met. Meanwhile the wildlife's time is running out.
 
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Fallowfox

Fallowfox

Are we moomin, or are we dancer?
Anthrasmagoria said:
I agree, but the world being how it is now and those places with wildlife in greatest need have a tendency to be so bad that this really is the best shot for some of this wildlife. I heard we recently lost a rhino species forever to poaching and there are so many others right on the brink. Even if we were to save these animals in zoos, that would be the end of their existence as wild animals effectively without the preservation of chunks of existing habitat along with them. Once they get put into zoos, their behavior and epigenetics will change to the point where they probably would not make it if they were returned to the wild (if there ever will be a wild left for them to return to). It's a sad situation but I do want as much habitat to be preserved as possible and this does seem a good way to get both the animals and the land they live on to be considered something too valuable to just disregard or destroy, or turn into farmland.

At the end of the day most people in the world do not care about the environment or animals in general as much as they care about feeding themselves and their families. And that's understandable. Humans aren't built to worry about things beyond their experience or immediate interests. I don't see that changing for the near future, until most people's basic needs are met. Meanwhile the wildlife's time is running out.
Click to expand...

I am really not sure that legalised trophy hunting is a viable answer. I'm not aware of any substantial consensus among scientists in favour of it.
 
Anthrasmagoria

Anthrasmagoria

Space Cadet
Fallowfox said:
I am really not sure that legalised trophy hunting is a viable answer. I'm not aware of any substantial consensus among scientists in favour of it.
Click to expand...

Scientists who study the reserves know that they already have to cull lions, elephants, herbivores etc. to maintain the populations at numbers the land area can sustain. Someone has to pull the trigger, and it makes more sense to have someone who is bringing money in to do it than someone who doesn't, when the parks are always needing funds to stay maintained. Of course it would make even more sense for whoever does to be accompanied by rangers on which animals they can and cannot take.

Trophy hunting isn't in itself a big problem compared to the problems caused by locals killing the wildlife because it comes too close to their farms or livestock, the threat from poachers or habitat loss from big multinationals etc. It's one way an inevitable loss of certain number of animals can be made to help the overall cause of preserving the whole. Given how desperate the situation is for some areas, it's the lesser evil. Obviously tourism pays too, not just trophy hunting, but as we said, if animals have to be culled, it's logical they make some funds from it that can go back into the running of the reserve.

By far the biggest problem wildlife on land faces at the moment is humans keep taking and using the land it lives on and having little motivation to value the wilderness. That's more of an economic and social problem than anything.
 
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Fallowfox

Fallowfox

Are we moomin, or are we dancer?
Anthrasmagoria said:
Scientists who study the reserves know that they already have to cull lions, elephants, herbivores etc. to maintain the populations at numbers the land area can sustain. Someone has to pull the trigger, and it makes more sense to have someone who is bringing money in to do it than someone who doesn't, when the parks are always needing funds to stay maintained. Of course it would make even more sense for whoever does to be accompanied by rangers on which animals they can and cannot take.

Trophy hunting isn't in itself a big problem compared to the problems caused by locals killing the wildlife because it comes too close to their farms or livestock, the threat from poachers or habitat loss from big multinationals etc. It's one way an inevitable loss of certain number of animals can be made to help the overall cause of preserving the whole. Given how desperate the situation is for some areas, it's the lesser evil. Obviously tourism pays too, not just trophy hunting, but as we said, if animals have to be culled, it's logical they make some funds from it that can go back into the running of the reserve.

By far the biggest problem wildlife on land faces at the moment is humans keep taking and using the land it lives on and having little motivation to value the wilderness. That's more of an economic and social problem than anything.
Click to expand...

This thread probably isn't the place to begin discussing the nuances of this subject; there is not room to address whether trophy hunting changes the genetic resilience of populations by selectively killing the largest males, whether quotas for a safe number of a threatened species that can be killed are generated in a trustworthy way (for example quotas are issued for the number of African leopards that can be killed in spite of nobody really being sure how many African leopards exist in the wild or whether investment from trophy hunting is even benefiting them anyway), or whether an economic model for conservation that requires African communities to be economically reliant on North American and European 1-percenters is really sustainable. What happens if it becomes clear trophy hunting has become unsustainable for a species, but an African community has become economically reliant on continuing the practice?

Long essays could be written on any of these subjects.
 
Telnac

Telnac

Fundamentalist Heretic
Doomer said:
dont need to brag
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Why is that bragging? And by making a post here about it, he's helping even more. Nothing wrong with that!
 
Breyo

Breyo

Professional Nibbler
Doomer said:
Makes you doubt the true intentions behind acts of good will
Click to expand...
Geez... you're kinda pessimistic, aren'tcha? Besides no one is making you read this thread against your will (at least I hope not!), right? Let this be a nice, peaceful, hopeful thread like it was meant to be, please.

Good on everyone who donated! You all are great :D
 
Breyo

Breyo

Professional Nibbler
Doomer said:
Most people donate out of self righteousness
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And most people who ruin the joy of others do it out of lack of self-control, rudeness, or lack of respect. Either way, I'm not pushing you to be more kind or more malicious. I'm just asking you to please respect others and let them have their happiness and fun when/where they can have it :)
 
rekcerW

rekcerW

Well-Known Member
I've been donating to the Raincoast Conservation Foundation for years and years, CanadaHelps lets you set it up as just a recurring monthly payment. They send stuff every year to let you know what they've been doing, which is sweet. The best part is it's a tax write-off like any other donation in the world, and you can just print out the forms to put it toward your taxes at the end of the year, which is a kickass bonus :D

That's a topic I'm huge on, probably the one thing I'm most concerned about in the entire world. I never talk about because I have really really really strong feelings toward that shit that I find to be much easier to just do what I can by keeping a stiff upper lip about it and hopefully making a small difference in the best way I can right now.

I just find it fundamentally completely fucked in the absolute worst way possible that it seems like such a general consensus that it is acceptable to come into this world, tear it to shreds, and act like we're some sort of saintly wildlife management force that maintains critically-diminished populations by fucking eradicating others. It's fucking insanity to me, especially when we are in a world that WE FUCKING KNOW has experienced several mass-extinction events in history that it has recovered from, some being incredibly substantial; so, who in the fuck never said shit at the point it became apparent to us that we are adversely affecting the fucking planet we also live in, that maybe it'd be best left to let nature just do its thing like it has so many fucking times in history and say "alright, we'll stop killing shit and see how this pans out."

Maybe we shouldn't be desecrating the fucking land we live in by flattening more and more lands that shouldn't be considered ours to build farms to support a population that is growing like crazy. Maybe we should consider condensing our operations to the best of our ability, and actually embracing fucking genetically modified organisms that could be produced in a much smaller footprint. Maybe we should consider condensing our oil operations and promoting more technologies like SAGD, and finding ways to survey without having to provide gridded cutlines that enable predators to find prey in otherwise serene places. Maybe we should consider alternatives to disposable shit, like maybe reusable containers that you bring back to the grocery store to get washed when you're done with them. Maybe we should consider that there are a shit-pile of other people living on this same planet than makes sense, and that being so hostile to the fact that what you are eating has a mere potential to have some different genes in it, that it's fucked and it's going to kill you. That's the other fucking thing that pisses me the fuck off way worse, is the fuckhead 'off-the-grid' motherfuckers that hunt for their own food because 'that's more sustainable'... The answer to that fucking stupidity is simple: times yourself by 7.53 billion and see how FUCKING SUSTAINABLE THAT IS. That shouldn't even require a bunch of thought, what in the flying fuck do you think made the fucking industrial revolution a big thing? For the love of fuck, I wish they'd stop making TV shows about those fucking pieces of shit. Fuck you, Discovery Channel and History Channel, what the fuck happened to you?

Maybe we should be looking at this much more seriously, like when we busted a move to put the fucking Apollo mission on the moon to stay ahead of Sputnik. I'd guess to say where we're headed is at least on par with WWIII
 
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D

Deleted member 82554

Guest
New Zealand charities and government are nowhere near that corrupt. Trust me, most donation money goes towards the cause, not lining pockets.
 
MaelstromEyre

MaelstromEyre

Slippery When Wet
Mr. Fox said:
New Zealand charities and government and nowhere near that corrupt. Trust me, most donation money goes towards the cause, not lining pockets.
Click to expand...
The larger the organization, the more corruption you're likely to find.
My previous post was relating more to the international organizations, things like environmental causes and animal rights, that haul in a lot of money through donations that may not ever do a thing to help the cause.
As the saying goes, think global but act local.
 
Kit H. Ruppell

Kit H. Ruppell

Exterminieren! Exterminieren!
rekcerW said:
That's the other fucking thing that pisses me the fuck off way worse, is the fuckhead 'off-the-grid' motherfuckers that hunt for their own food because 'that's more sustainable'... The answer to that fucking stupidity is simple: times yourself by 7.53 billion and see how FUCKING SUSTAINABLE THAT IS. That shouldn't even require a bunch of thought, what in the flying fuck do you think made the fucking industrial revolution a big thing? For the love of fuck, I wish they'd stop making TV shows about those fucking pieces of shit. Fuck you, Discovery Channel and History Channel, what the fuck happened to you?
Click to expand...
The glorification of hicks in the media has gone on for far too long. Its marketability says a lot about American intelligence, though.
 
D

Deleted member 115426

Guest
rekcerW said:
I've been donating to the Raincoast Conservation Foundation for years and years, CanadaHelps lets you set it up as just a recurring monthly payment. They send stuff every year to let you know what they've been doing, which is sweet. The best part is it's a tax write-off like any other donation in the world, and you can just print out the forms to put it toward your taxes at the end of the year, which is a kickass bonus :D

That's a topic I'm huge on, probably the one thing I'm most concerned about in the entire world. I never talk about because I have really really really strong feelings toward that shit that I find to be much easier to just do what I can by keeping a stiff upper lip about it and hopefully making a small difference in the best way I can right now.

I just find it fundamentally completely fucked in the absolute worst way possible that it seems like such a general consensus that it is acceptable to come into this world, tear it to shreds, and act like we're some sort of saintly wildlife management force that maintains critically-diminished populations by fucking eradicating others. It's fucking insanity to me, especially when we are in a world that WE FUCKING KNOW has experienced several mass-extinction events in history that it has recovered from, some being incredibly substantial; so, who in the fuck never said shit at the point it became apparent to us that we are adversely affecting the fucking planet we also live in, that maybe it'd be best left to let nature just do its thing like it has so many fucking times in history and say "alright, we'll stop killing shit and see how this pans out."

Maybe we shouldn't be desecrating the fucking land we live in by flattening more and more lands that shouldn't be considered ours to build farms to support a population that is growing like crazy. Maybe we should consider condensing our operations to the best of our ability, and actually embracing fucking genetically modified organisms that could be produced in a much smaller footprint. Maybe we should consider condensing our oil operations and promoting more technologies like SAGD, and finding ways to survey without having to provide gridded cutlines that enable predators to find prey in otherwise serene places. Maybe we should consider alternatives to disposable shit, like maybe reusable containers that you bring back to the grocery store to get washed when you're done with them. Maybe we should consider that there are a shit-pile of other people living on this same planet than makes sense, and that being so hostile to the fact that what you are eating has a mere potential to have some different genes in it, that it's fucked and it's going to kill you. That's the other fucking thing that pisses me the fuck off way worse, is the fuckhead 'off-the-grid' motherfuckers that hunt for their own food because 'that's more sustainable'... The answer to that fucking stupidity is simple: times yourself by 7.53 billion and see how FUCKING SUSTAINABLE THAT IS. That shouldn't even require a bunch of thought, what in the flying fuck do you think made the fucking industrial revolution a big thing? For the love of fuck, I wish they'd stop making TV shows about those fucking pieces of shit. Fuck you, Discovery Channel and History Channel, what the fuck happened to you?

Maybe we should be looking at this much more seriously, like when we busted a move to put the fucking Apollo mission on the moon to stay ahead of Sputnik. I'd guess to say where we're headed is at least on par with WWIII
Click to expand...
If you don't think hunting is good, go vegan. Those people are just getting their food themselves rather than paying a hitman to kill for them.
 
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