Koala Cull
Pages
| Author | Topic: Koala Cull |
|---|---|
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 1814
|
written Tuesday, May 4 2004 00:25
Profile
Lets just say that in my occupation there is no inhumane. Tis true to say that one can rise to a high position and see horrible things. I think I've been scarred for life too, its not like I didn't grow up seeing cruelty. You understand how that effects a person right? I know theres good people out there somewhere, I just forget as long as remember... I'm not personally hating everybody.,don't feel upset. Posts: 215 | Registered: Friday, August 30 2002 07:00 |
|
This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
|
written Tuesday, May 4 2004 08:47
Profile
I think you'd find the typical shooter does care about animal lives. Certainly, all the shoots I've been on do conservation work. There's obviously a degree of self-interest here (not so much numbers, as they breed their own, the issue is relations with the public) but that doesn't explain it all. To give an example, the major shooting association in Britain is the BASC, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation. There are also basic rules of thumb which are just reasonable humanity, such as not going for obscenely difficult shots (you don't want the animal wandering off to slowly bleed to death) and killing any deer you may find that have been hit by cars. However, I wouldn't argue that maintaining life is always a good thing. In fact, speaking as a predator, I'd feel no moral compunction about killing an animal not raising young with a clean shot, provided this wasn't done on a big enough scale to cause a change in the ecosystem. I view myself as essentially a smarter animal and as such don't feel compelled to treat animals as if I am a higher being. Merely a being which may have a few advantages of mind and technology. Screwing up the enviroment is bad for me but everything dies sooner or later so I don't feel that in moderation it's a heinous crime to occasionally kill an animal. -------------------- "I particularly like the part where he claims not to know what self-aggrandisement means, then demands more wing-wongs up his virgin ass" Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
|
Guardian
Member # 3521
|
written Tuesday, May 4 2004 11:16
Profile
BtI, would you feel the same way about killing the occasional non-pregnant human being? If not, exactly why not? Do you have a moral rationale for considering animal lives to be of less inherent value than human ones, or would your only concern be the possible consequences of your action? -------------------- Stughalf "The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others."- Theodore Roosevelt, 1903. Posts: 1798 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00 |
|
Law Bringer
Member # 335
|
written Tuesday, May 4 2004 12:37
Profile
Homepage
Do you eat humans? If not, you are wasting a bullet and a pile of meat. ?Alorael, who understands that that is a cop-out answer. After much soul-searching, he has decided that he does, in fact, view animals as inferior. Incidentally, however, very few mammalian predators are willing to hunt and eat their own species. That's not what Darwinism is about. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
|
Apprentice
Member # 4162
|
written Wednesday, May 5 2004 03:29
Profile
Homepage
Im not sure if anyone said humans and other animals are equal. I dont think they are. But more objectively, what we should recognise is as we want to live, this desire is shared by other life-forms. That we are in many ways smarter (although alternate life-forms are advanced in their own ways) does not negate the ethics of taking from others what we value in ourselves. Claims of greater capacity for thought and estimation of this quality are no less contingent on what we value most about ourselves - 'our' existence. An inverse way of sizing up the rational is to reverse the situation. Aliens considerably smarter than ourselves decide snuffing out our existence makes for a good time. They are by definition superior (or advanced anyway, "superior" seems value laden for perhaps the wrong or debatable reasons, especially when complete sentience is a factor). Have we no basis to contend this situation, is it their right to take our lives ? There is no connection between needlessly taking the life of others, for the simple reason that we may have advantages over them. Just because we can is not a justifiable reason of itself. It seems this attitude of superior entitling what is right, especially as it relates to our natural provenance, is becoming more prevalent. But I dont think the logic of this thinking is really internally necessary or as with the example of aliens consistent. Rather because we can know better, because of our greater capacities we can observe this affinity between sentient-sensate existence. The diametric conclusion, namely respect for life in itself, would be more consistent with the causes of our own inherent self justification for existence. As such I think this is more reasonable and consequently more ethical. Posts: 36 | Registered: Sunday, March 28 2004 08:00 |
|
This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
|
written Wednesday, May 5 2004 08:18
Profile
I would if I were to eat that human. I'd prefer to avoid it however since I believe there are health risks attached to cannibalism and since I don't actually want to be imprisoned for life. However, it's not just pregnant animals I'd object to. Those bringing up young not mature enough to survive alone ought also to be exempted. In the case of humanity, this essentially means not killing parents of children living at home and I would extend that to removing one partner from a relationship where that would adversely affect the ability of the other to get by or those caring for the elderly. As a logical consequence, this would stick meerkat off the menu. Also, I think I'd have much more hesitance killing one member of a partnership in any species that mates for life, particularly a mammalian species. Even if you were to do so, in a case such as this, killing one in plain view of the other would not be something I would wish to do, all things being equal. And of course, if I wasn't relatively sure about taking it out with one shot and if that failed within about 30 seconds, that would also be a very good reason not to try to kill. -------------------- "I particularly like the part where he claims not to know what self-aggrandisement means, then demands more wing-wongs up his virgin ass" Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
|
By Committee
Member # 4233
|
written Wednesday, May 5 2004 09:05
Profile
An interesting factoid about Australia is that the top of the food chain is actually occupied by small creatures that are just very, very deadly. *Ten out of ten* of the world's most poisonous snakes are found in Australia, and the spiders, such as the bird-killing and funnel web varieties, are a whole other matter. These predators help keep other larger mammal populations on the mainland in check. Kangaroo Island, on the other hand, would seem to be lacking these species, which wasn't a problem until a foreign specie, the koalas, was introduced, disrupting the balance. With no predators, there is nothing to prevent them from thriving. The same thing happened when rabbits were introduced to Australia for hunting purposes, and also when the wolf population in the U.S. was decimated, allowing the deer population similarly to thrive and starve. It's unfortunate, but the koala population needs to be culled. While sterilization would be more humane, the reality is that there are very limited resources to deal with the problem, and one bullet is cheaper than trapping a koala, taking it to a veterinary facility and performing an operation, then releasing the animal. Not to mention the fact that the sheer size of the population, even were all the animals sterilized, would still place an incredible burden on the ecosystem. [ Wednesday, May 05, 2004 09:09: Message edited by: Andrew Miller ] Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
|
Agent
Member # 1993
|
written Wednesday, May 5 2004 15:16
Profile
Stugie, you should get an award for your sense of duty.  About the koala kill (isn't "cull" a neat masking?): I really hope that this local disaster opens everybody's eyes to the urgency of a national environmental protection. Australia's nature has been wasted. Since Europeans kolonized the continent, they destroyed 90% of the rain forests and 70% of the eucalypt woodlands. At least 41 bird and mammal species, more than 100 plants have become extincted. And the mismanagement goes on. 2'300 square miles per year are still cleared for pasture land, industries, settlements and golf courses. The lack of trees causes a climatic change. Australia endures already dryness and bushfires, insects spread and transmiss epidemics over the cattle, fruit-fly damage costs $ 28.5 millions per year and the chance, people get skin cancer, increases. Australia is on the best way to become a Scorched Earth. The problem is a political one. There are governmental departments as Greenhouse Office, Natural Heritage Trust, Department of Environment and Heritage and so on - recently founded, possibly not too efficient, perhaps mutually pushing responibilities there and back .. anyway, they seem to be dead links in John Howard's mind. Last year, he even did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Because Bush didn't. Please, Australian fellows on SW boards, prevent your Prime Minister from following America in environmental politics. Make him think, if it's possible. Hopefully, the sacrifice of the 20'000 poor marsupials will have an alarming effect. Support local green orgs. [ Wednesday, May 05, 2004 15:19: Message edited by: spy.there ] -------------------- ^ö^ Vegetarians are sexy. Solar power is the wave of the future. Posts: 1420 | Registered: Wednesday, October 2 2002 07:00 |
|
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Wednesday, May 5 2004 18:01
Profile
Homepage
Bushfires are not something to get particularly alarmed by. They're necessary to keep the soil fertile -- and if it gets infertile, things die. Lots of things, and it stays that way for generations. That said, I also think that apathy towards the environment is faintly alarming, but I can't really do much about it, and I have bigger issues to worry about. -------------------- AnamaFreak (3:59:56 AM): Shounen-ai to the MAX ...there really is nothing that can compare to hot gay sex with a mythological icon. --665 Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
|
Agent
Member # 1993
|
written Thursday, May 6 2004 09:24
Profile
Yes, bushfires are a natural feature in Australia, but they increase exceptionally and they have very bad ones, last time two years ago. And what could be a bigger issue to worry about, than keeping alive the earth we are living on? Facing the gradually destruction of the base of our lifes, facing the over-populated, poisoned planet, facing the increasing lack of drinking water, every other issue will be obsolet. I don't know, where you live, but the environmental desaster does not stop at state boarders. Every waste of nature in any industrialized country affects the global climat. But everybody could do things, to retard the ruin: Just be careful in your personal habitat. Do not drive a car, don't fly, don't eat dead animals, buy local and seasonal products, repair things instead of throwing them away, recycle materials, vote for green politiciens, etc. Think global, act local - and care. As simple. yeah, but the bigger issues ...  -------------------- ^ö^ Vegetarians are sexy. Solar power is the wave of the future. Posts: 1420 | Registered: Wednesday, October 2 2002 07:00 |
|
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Thursday, May 6 2004 14:41
Profile
Homepage
I don't see why eating animals bred for food is a concern, frankly. They are cattle; in the wild, they would live to a much shorter age, get picked off by wolves, and eaten alive. What's the issue with planes? For some of us, the option of buying 'local and seasonal' products doesn't exist, or is completely infeasible. I live in a desert, for instance. Besides which, the simple fact is that 'buying local and seasonal' ends with wheat rotting in one place and people starving in another. Me, I'm concerned with people. Until I can be good and convinced that local environmentalists care about sweatshops in Indonesia for more reasons than how horribly they pollute, I'm not going to get my blood angried up over them. -------------------- AnamaFreak (3:59:56 AM): Shounen-ai to the MAX ...there really is nothing that can compare to hot gay sex with a mythological icon. --665 Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
|
Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!
Member # 919
|
written Thursday, May 6 2004 14:43
Profile
Don't fly? Did you swim to Switzerland? Why do people complain about humans eating animals, but not about animals eating animals? Where are the "meat is murder" protesters when a lion pounces on a gazelle? Sure, humans aren't restricted to meat in their diets, but neither are lions. There are always alternatives. Hunting for fun, for trophies, for skin, or for money disgusts me. Hunting for food, however, is perfectly fine. -------------------- And though the musicians would die, the music would live on in the imaginations of all who heard it. -The Last Pendragon TEH CONSPIRACY IZ ALL In case of emergency, break glass. Posts: 3351 | Registered: Saturday, April 6 2002 08:00 |
|
Guardian
Member # 3521
|
written Thursday, May 6 2004 16:05
Profile
quote:That's incorrect, actually. Many purely carnivorous mammals are, quite simply, unable to survive without meat. Ferrets are a fine example. Due to the simplistic nature of the ferret digestive tract, a ferret is unable to gain any significant nutrition from the ingestion of carbohydrates. Only foods containing high percentages of fat and protein are nutritionally adequate. Ferrets will literally starve if deprived of meat in favor of a diet of carbohydrates and/or fruits and vegetables. I believe quite a few other carnivorous mammals, including the lion, might be in the same boat on this matter. So, in actuality, a lion really has no other choice but to eat meat, save starvation. We humans, however, are hardly bound by such a strong restriction. We are, like our great ape relatives, a naturally omnivorous species. A diet consisting solely of meat, while quite nutritious for a lion, would likely present serious problems of obesity and heart disease in a standard human. However, I feel it's undeniable that a vegetarian diet, with an emphasis on the consumption of protein-rich legumes and such, can be just as healthy for a human as an omnivorous diet, and infinitely more healthy than a largely carnivorous diet. -------------------- Stughalf "The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others."- Theodore Roosevelt, 1903. Posts: 1798 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00 |
|
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
|
written Thursday, May 6 2004 16:21
Profile
Homepage
quote:I'm not a vegetarian, but an argument that I've heard is that eating meat is wasteful. The animals that we eat have to grow up to meat-giving age. While they do, they eat plants. Most of the energy that comes from those plants goes to keeping that animal alive. Very little of it goes into the nutritional value of the animal. So the amount of total crop that goes into giving you one meal of meat is considerably greater than the amount that goes into giving you one meal of plant stuf. -------------------- Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM v1.1!) Rate my scenarios! Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue High Level Party Maker Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
|
Guardian
Member # 3521
|
written Thursday, May 6 2004 16:30
Profile
It's quite true. Only around 10% of an animal or plant's energy reserves are actually transferred in a usable form to the next trophic level of the food pyramid. The rest is lost as heat. -------------------- Stughalf "The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others."- Theodore Roosevelt, 1903. Posts: 1798 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00 |
|
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Thursday, May 6 2004 16:59
Profile
Homepage
I, personally, have neither the enzymes to handle legumes nor the money to find a substitute. -------------------- AnamaFreak (3:59:56 AM): Shounen-ai to the MAX ...there really is nothing that can compare to hot gay sex with a mythological icon. --665 Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
|
BoE Posse
Member # 112
|
written Thursday, May 6 2004 17:14
Profile
I've heard of pet lions living fine without meat. -------------------- Rate my scenarios! Areni Revenge To Live in Fear Deadly Goblins Ugantan Nightmare Isle of Boredom Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sunday, October 7 2001 07:00 |
|
Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!
Member # 919
|
written Thursday, May 6 2004 17:25
Profile
Exactly. Lions in zoos, too. Not that it's reasonable to expect lions in the wild to stick to purely vegetarian diets, but they don't actually need meat. Anyway, what about omnivores such as, say, birds and chipmunks? They could stick to purely vegetarian diets if they wanted to, or if they had to; they generally do not. There are probably a few that are purey carnivorous. Nothing wrong with that, right? Yet when a human does it, it's murder. -------------------- And though the musicians would die, the music would live on in the imaginations of all who heard it. -The Last Pendragon TEH CONSPIRACY IZ ALL In case of emergency, break glass. Posts: 3351 | Registered: Saturday, April 6 2002 08:00 |
|
...b10010b...
Member # 869
|
written Thursday, May 6 2004 21:56
Profile
Homepage
quote:In my opinion, to claim that it's perfectly fine for animals to kill other animals but not for humans to do so is an impossible position to support in a consequentialist ethical system. Therefore, I would argue that both are wrong. Suffering is intrinsically undesirable regardless of its cause, and we should therefore make every effort to prevent it. (Yes, I'm one of those Hedonistic Imperative wackos who wants, in the long term, to abolish suffering in all sentient life.) -------------------- I'd be tender, I'd be gentle And awful sentimental Regarding love and art I'd be friends with the sparrows And the boy who shoots the arrows, If I only had a heart. Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
|
Agent
Member # 1993
|
written Friday, May 7 2004 11:12
Profile
quote:Kel, Stug, you name it. To produce 1 pound of meat, you need 20 pounds of plants. More than a third of the world crop production is used to raise meet. The grain, America feeds the cattle with, could solve every starvation problem all over the world ... The consumption of meet is bloody too high. 1.3 billion people starve - as many suffer from over-feed. Meat production destracts heavily the environment. It's something to worry, because the meat consumption raises world-wide. David, I don't complain about people eating meat. I complain about people eating any meat. It has to be much and cheep, so the production looks like e.g. this chicken farm Look, this is a swiss example. We have one of the strongest animal protection laws in the world. Can you imagine, how the animals are treated in a chinese farm? Quantity goes over quality, that is the big mistake. quote:Air traffic is the fastest growing traffic, it has been doubled in the last ten years. In some years, air traffic will be the bigger source for CO2-pollution than cars. A flight from here to New York produces 252 tons of CO2. Flying gets cheaper, the greenhouse effect rises. Don't fly means: Do not hop to New York over the weekend, just to buy the new iPod (as people do here ...) And, um ... we are no island ... anyway, I'm born here. -------------------- ^ö^ Vegetarians are sexy. Solar power is the wave of the future. Posts: 1420 | Registered: Wednesday, October 2 2002 07:00 |
|
This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
|
written Friday, May 7 2004 12:29
Profile
Using planes is considerably worse for the enviroment than using trains (I won't compare with cars as I don't know how the economies of scale factor in.) Therefore it seems good not to fly when there's an alternative method. Certainly, over a few hundred miles the plane is not significantly faster than the train (if you take into account having to arrive early to check in etc.) There's enough food to feed the whole world anyway. It's purely an issue of lack of supply. As a general principle, I think those who object to eating animals bred for food should be forced to eat roadkill at least once before they die. Not for any real intellectually sustainable reason, just because I'm that kind of guy. -------------------- "I particularly like the part where he claims not to know what self-aggrandisement means, then demands more wing-wongs up his virgin ass" Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
|
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
|
written Friday, May 7 2004 14:05
Profile
Homepage
Here's to hoping that hydrogen power will significantly reduce these problems, if not solve them. I've heard really diverse estimates on how soon that will be cheap enough to be usable, ranging from under a decade to thirty or forty years. Until then, yeah, take mass transit when you can, ride a bike when you can, walk, etc. -------------------- Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM v1.1!) Rate my scenarios! Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue High Level Party Maker Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
|
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Friday, May 7 2004 15:01
Profile
Homepage
Hydrogen power is not going to be feasible on a large scale; the third world is built on oil. -------------------- AnamaFreak (3:59:56 AM): Shounen-ai to the MAX ...there really is nothing that can compare to hot gay sex with a mythological icon. --665 Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
|
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
|
written Friday, May 7 2004 15:17
Profile
Homepage
Erm, why not? By your semi-colon, I judge that your two statements are connected, but I don't know the connection. Hydrogen power, if we can use the enzyme method, seems like it would work on any scale you'd like. It's not as though there's a shortage of water... -------------------- Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM v1.1!) Rate my scenarios! Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue High Level Party Maker Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
|
Agent
Member # 3349
|
written Friday, May 7 2004 15:47
Profile
Homepage
well... I guess if you look at it like this there is a shortage of water. A. 3% of Earth's water is freshwater. B. 1.6% of it is in glaciers. C. Overpopulation is begining and with all the new children there is a lot more water needed. Amazing isn't it. -------------------- Espresso hasn't been invented yet. That stinks. Xian Skull- Avernum 3 Posts: 1287 | Registered: Thursday, August 14 2003 07:00 |