Poll (and feelings) about Wildlife

In very general terms, how do feel about humanity's current efforts to help wildlife?

  • We're helping too much.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    6

kdt26417

Official Greeter
Staff member
In addition to the poll, your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to answer and comment on various related questions, e.g.:

  • How much more should we be helping, and in what ways? (Examples and specifics would go well with this question.)
  • In what ways should we be helping less?
  • If we help too much, will wild non-human people become domesticated and if so, would that be a bad thing?
  • Should wild plants and wild animals be helped equally? and can you explain your response?
  • Should all wild animals be helped equally?
  • An infectious bacterium is technically an animal. Should we be helping it? Should we be hindering it? Can you expound upon your response?
  • If infectious bacteria should be helped, should cancer cells also be helped?
  • Should ticks, fleas, and mosquitos be helped? Should they be eliminated?
  • How about swatting flies?
  • When is/isn't it okay to deliberately smash a spider?
  • How careful should we be about not smashing bugs? Should we eye the sidewalk as we walk along, treating it like an "asteroid field?"
  • If bugs are infesting, eating, and killing a tree, should we help the bugs, the tree, or neither?
  • If piranhas are eating a hapless, oh, antelope, should we try to save the antelope?
  • How do we determine where (if anywhere) the line should be drawn between animals that should, versus shouldn't, get conscious help from humans? and would this be a fine line, a fuzzy line, or a continuum? Can you describe "what this continuum would look like?"
  • What about abusive treatment of wild animals (e.g. slaughtering dolphins along with tuna fish, or slaughtering seals or whales)? What should we be doing to stop such atrocities (or don't those things constitute atrocious abuse)?
  • Should we be hunting wild animals (salmon, tuna fish, deer, bears, etc.)?
  • If we hunt wild animals, should the hunting be done primarily for eating the meat, or is (e.g.) slaughtering elephants for their tusks okay?
  • Should we only hunt wild animals when we're really really hungry and in need of the meat?
  • Should all humans be vegetarians?
  • Should all humans be vegans?
  • What about testing rats and stuff in laboratories?
  • What about capturing wild animals and putting them in zoos, oceanariums, and dolphinariums?
  • Are you opposed to all zoos, or just the ones that don't treat their non-human captives very well?
  • What (if anything) would constitute adequate and humane treatment of non-human captives in a zoo? (For example, would releasing them all into the wilds be the only adequate and humane thing to do for them? and if so, should they first be rehabilitated for life in the wilds? How would humans accomplish that? What if a zoo-kept animal had never lived in the wilds, and was now an adult?)
  • And any other related yet puzzling (yes even contraversial) questions you can think of.
Of course, part of your mission will be trying reeeally hard to help this thread become an enlightening exchange of ideas, rather than a great big fight.

Okay, go forth and let your virtual voice be heard!
 
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To start us off, I'll confess (though not for the first time) to being a wanna-be "helicopter parent" to the wild animals; that is, "swooping down" to rescue them whenever they're in trouble.

But given our current limitations in the areas of knowledge and technology, we probably can't help much more than we're already helping. As far as that goes, we could and should direct (personal and professional) research into developing better and more effective ways to help them. In the meantime, we could do little things like "saving spiders," "euthanizing a goose with a broken wing," "setting out bird-feeders," etc.

And we can help protest (and disseminate information about) the abuse of wild animals. But I'm admittedly lazy (not quite uncaring, but not caring enough either) about that.

I'm not opposed to domestication per se, and mind it even less if it's "free-to-roam" domestication (that is, an animal becoming dependent on us for food and perhaps medical attention, but otherwise free to roam as he/she pleases).

I propose a continuum for how much a (plant or) animal will be helped based on its estimated degree of sentience. Insects for instance "call for less help" than mammals; however smashing and insect for fun is immoral in my opinion.

What non-human persons we should or shouldn't eat is a tougher question. Monkeys, dolphins, seals, and whales? I'd much prefer we not view them as lunch. Other mammals? also probably not. Birds? I still don't like it. Reptiles and amphibians? a gray area but I sort of think not. Fish? Ohhh ... so many omega-3's ... getting hard to decide. Squid/octopi? maybe not considering I've heard octopi are probably more sentient than intuition would have us believe. Crabs/lobsters/spiders/insects? I don't love it but I tend to excuse myself (especially for crab alfredo). Oysters/clams? probably pretty excusable (if slightly disturbing).

Of course if one is starving and virtually no edible plants can be found, then the continuum seems to me to shift somewhat ... Most mammals might become a "gray area;" birds might become "largely free game," etc. ... but I'd probably feel like a murderous cannibal if I ate a monkey, seal, whale, or dolphin, even if I was starving.

For microbes, I generally suppose non-interference is fine, unless the microbe is hurting us in which case I feel okay about trying to wipe it out.

Smashing mosquitos is okay (IMO). But I advocate much caution about how spiders are dealt with. They generally get a bad rep that they don't deserve. Even the most poisonous ones are less dangerous than we think: Their poison isn't as potent as we think, and the likelihood that they'll bite us is much smaller than we think.

Swatting flies? excusable, I think (though I personally would only do it if they'd plum drove me past the point of madness).

I have no idea what to do about bugs infesting/killing a tree. I guess technically the bugs are probably a little more sentient than the tree, so I probably just won't interfere and I'll let nature take its course.

Where piranhas are concerned, I'd only try to save their prey if said prey was probably a lot more sentient than them, and was still savable and restorable to a reasonably good quality of life. Otherwise, I might shoot their prey if I have a gun so at least it will stop suffering (and the piranhas will still get their lunch).

Personally, when I walk down the sidewalk, I do watch for bugs and try to avoid stepping on them if reasonably possible. (Kind of hard to do when rolling a wheelchair over an "ant highway," if you get my meaning.)

While I personally wouldn't want to go on a hunting trip (let alone carry a rifle and participate), I do get that humans have evolved to be hunters just like cats and dogs/wolves have. So I don't "hate on" other humans who go hunting. I guess it's a venial sin at worst. Although, hunting monkeys, whales, seals, and dolphins is not something I'd condone.

Due to humans' hunting instincts, I wouldn't insist a human be desperate/starving before he/she went out to hunt. I would, however, insist that he/she use his/her vanquished prey mainly for its meat.

Similarly, I wish I could get myself to be a vegetarian (while not feeling obligated to be a vegan), but I know humans have evolved to be omnivores and so I consider it a venial sin for a human to eat meat (on average). Still a continuum there; I'd much rather a human ate a fish than I would he/she ate a deer. And yet, even I could be talked into eating deer meat ... elk meat even moreso ... so darn tasty ...

Personally, I dislike the idea of testing just about any animal in a laboratory, especially a mammal (and it usually is a mammal because all mammals are more closely-related to humans than birds and stuff). Instead, my vote would be to ask for human volunteers for testing on humans. Not only does that get us express consent, it even gives us a heck of a lot more precise information about how this or that drug will work on a human. I know we do have human test trials, but I mean I think we should skip the non-human testing part and go straight to the human source.

I'm okay with zoos and oceanariums (including marine mammal parks) and dolphinariums, as long as the captive animals are very well treated. "Very well treated" is wide open for private interpretation, but in broad strokes I mean feeding them well, giving them lots and lots of clean water to swim around in (or lots of ground for roaming, with comfy sleeping spots, readily-available shelter, toys and playground structures for monkeys, etc.), decent medical care, treating them with affectionate attention, plentiful opportunities for them to play and interact with one another (provided they won't torture/kill each other!), etc. ... Well garden-variety fish don't need so much affectionate attention, but a goodly amount of clean water, food, probably some fellow-fish company, and some nice hidey-holes too would be called for.

Fun side note: The zookeepers in Albuquerque have found that many animals, especially quite a range of mammals and not just monkeys, seem to enjoy handling empty boxes as if they were toys. So often it's the little creative things that help define kind and humane treatment.

Whew. With all that, I'm sure I'm already in a heap of trouble, so I won't try to think of any more questions to puzzle over right now. If you guys think of some, post 'em and I'll respond to 'em.

Kevin (the hopelessly non-wild animal).
 
P.S.

Thanks for the poll votes so far ... and please, feel not obligated to answer *all my questions* in that big list above. Pick and choose the questions you like and have time for, add a question or three of your own if you can and so desire, and I'll be gratefully content. (Bypassing all the questions is fine too; I do like the simple votes on the poll.)

Regards,
Kevin T.
 
As a avid outdoors man I believe while in some parts of the world we are doing enough, in others we are not. As a hunter I am very concerned about conservation and take a active part in protecting the wild. I am not a trophy hunter by any means, I just prefer wild game. It is healthier and entirely organic. I also believe wild killed meat is far more humane then what you get from a grocery store. Ever been to a slaughter house? It's pretty gross. Animals standing around in their own fecal matter waiting their turn. Yuk
One of the biggest issue in North America is that as humans have spread out we have upset mother nature. We have in some cases hunted a predator to extinction (wolves in the western US) this in turn caused the species that would have been prey to the wolves to explode in population. Now you have a unmanageable and unsustainable population of those animals. In this case a few years later they reintroduced wolves to the ecosystem with what has been desasterious results. The wolves they introduced were of a stronger more hearty variety (Canadian) and they have now almost hunted the wild elk to extinction. When it was proposed to allow a limited hunt to cull the wolves it was met with fierce opposition. People remember why happened before and are afraid it will happen again.
Here where I live in Alberta we have a huge white tail deer population, it is regulated in part by hunting as even here the natural predators while not extinct are low in numbers. Mother nature could fix all this on her own, but it would take decades and humans would have to leave the area completely.
Conservation is something that humans have to take seriously. We have to carefully manage the game and woodlands to make sure they are here for future generations.
 
Re:
"Conservation is something that humans have to take seriously. We have to carefully manage the game and woodlands to make sure they are here for future generations."

Good summary that I hope people will heed. Bummer how once humans have overtweaked the rest of the ecosystem, they find themselves in a bigger heap of do do than they'd expected.
 
I really can't respond to the poll, as framed. The idea of "helping" all of "wildlife" doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

For one thing, the value of a particular living thing - intrinsic or otherwise - has to be considered in relation to other values - e.g., the value of species (not the same thing!), the value of larger systems, and a rich array of cultural values, including natural heritage and the value we place on uniqueness.

I would suggest Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac - the whole thing, not just "The Upshot" - as a way of getting at this wider range of values, presented in the form of stories.

For any given kind of living things, there may be contexts in which, all things considered, it is best left alone, contexts in which it requires support from human conservation activities, and contexts in which it would best be eradicated.

I've seen documentaries of conservationists with chainsaws, cutting down trees. The trees were invasive, growing as a result of broader ecosystem disruption, and they were drying up streams needed by humans and other living things downslope.

In New Zealand, good conservation practice all but demands a continuous effort to limit or eradicate mammals - rats, stoats and possums, especially - all of which are invasive, all of which threaten endemic bird species, many of which teeter on the brink of extinction.
 
So hyperskeptic, you're not gonna answer my whole big list of questions in that first post? :( LOL nevermind, I think your answer to all of those questions would be, "Well, it depends."

Okay, no more jabbing you in the ribs for today. It looks like we can all agree that wildlife as a whole challenges humans with some really complicated riddles. What to do, what to do ...
 
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