Should we kill off the tigers once and for all?

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by tt22, Aug 2, 2010.

  1. tt22 Registered Senior Member

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    Who needs predators anyway? I guess most people on earth would vote in favor to save the tigers, almost all but people living close by tiger habitats. Its kind of the common story for big predators all over the world. We should keep carnivores but just keep them far away from us. Its pretty hypocrite don't you think that the people that has to deal with big predators as lions and tigers are poor people in Africa or India, but this is not going to last. Economic booms in those countries will pretty soon make both lions and tigers extinct there. As western people killed of most large predators in our living areas hundreds and thousands of years ago we feel that it is not longer our responsibility to help save tigers.

    People suggesting Pleistocene parks in US, bringing lions to north american plains, are being ridiculed but the fact is lions and tigers roamed much of Europe and US not to long ago so it is not such a silly idea. I am pretty sure nature conservation as it is running today is not going the right way and I would like to bring up the debate about setting aside large nature reserves in both Europe and US and import animals, both carnivores and herbivores. If tigers are going to live to see the next century I am pretty sure Europe and US are their best chance and I think we should step up and do our part. It will take a big mind shift though
     
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    There are still lions in America. Mountain Lions and Jaguars. And big predators too, like Grizzly Bears and Polar Bears.
     
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  5. Emil Valued Senior Member

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    2,801

    I propose to educate and persuade them to be herbivorous.
    oopsss ..... what about those who protect plants?
    Maybe we should eliminate all animals because all production methan.
    Or only cows produce methane? :wallbang:
     
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  7. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    4,160
    .

    Why don't we eleminate all the life forms on earth?
    that would be better
    some nuclear bombs, some oil floods, some toxic gases in the atmosphere, idk, let's be creaive in that!
     
  8. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    4,160
    hahahahahah, whut? even that some can, like cats maybe, but they still want meat meat meat, i mean, we eat meat too!
    also, human meat, is not the animal's favorite, also, bats, don't like human blood, just an info, because people think it love to suck our blood, but infact no, i don't love our blood, they maked experiments with human blood and cow blood, and some animals blood, and guess what? the reflection to the human blood, is very law, also sharks don't love our blood, the reflection to it, is ery law too.
    just some addional informations, that animals are not like we always think they are.

    what about humans? it's the biggest distructive force in nature, we should eleminate it too.

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  9. synthesizer-patel Sweep the leg Johnny! Valued Senior Member

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    Warm cuddly stuff aside, there are pretty sound, hard-nosed, business reasons why preserving biodiveristy is a good idea.
    We never know what amazing and above all profitable properties we may find hidden away in the genomes of extant species.

    one of the best examples of this is a single enzyme (taq polymerase) derived from the lowly bacteria Thermus aquaticus which allow us to replicate DNA in a test tube in much the same way as happens in nature.

    this not only created whole new industries in biotechnology, molecular biology, and gave us irrefutable proof of the theory of evolution, but also managed to revolutionise law enforcement, and made a cool $10b within 5 years of it being patented (the market for thermo-stable dna polymerases makes close to 50 times that in a single year these days) - so the impact of just a single gene from a single organism has been simply massive both commercially and culturally.

    Once a species has been rendered either extinct or had its genetic variability depleted, it is lost forever along with our opportunity to gain from them.
     
  10. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Interestingly enough, this was my father's attitude. "You think some poor, starving villager in northern India gives a damn about biodiversity, boy?" It's a rare position; I don't agree, naturally, but I do understand it. (His favourite book was Maneaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett.) I don't know; I see beauty in them.
     
  11. keith1 Guest

    Humans have already affected the evolutionary dynamic by their presence (which is a natural progression, no matter the outcome).
    Human evolution into space may help in adjusting that outcome, if done with an expediency.
     
  12. ExplorerAtHeart Registered Member

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    No preserve all nature. The only things that should be allowed to go extinct are things that are going that way naturally. (no humans causing it)
     
  13. Starthane Xyzth returns occasionally... Valued Senior Member

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    Lions & tigers, like all species, have an intrinsic right to exist. I'm not saying it's wrong to kill individual animals - only that they should not be driven into extinction, especially not when there's no good reason for it.

    If carefully managed, the Earth can support a huge human population and still have room for wilderness and big wild animals.

    Definitely. Rewilding them in the developed nations would make partial amends for the excesses of our distant forebears, who wiped out most of the original megafauna in Europe and America. It would also set a worthwhile example to other nations. Even if tigers only remain in zoos or semi-captive enclosures, there will still be the hope of reintroducing them to the wild some day.
     
  14. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    Sure they're beautiful, from the other side of the planet. But I agree with your father. It's pretty fucking arrogant for a rich westerner living in a nation that has wiped out almost all the dangerous predators to tell a bunch of starving villagers they need to respect the right of tigers to eat their children.

    Only the people who must live alongside these animals have any right to decide what to do with them.
     
  15. Kajalamorth The Doctor Registered Senior Member

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    76
    That's a bit stereotypical. So we wiped out ALL predators? Most of those "predators" were wiped out because of the fact that we are on the top of the food chain. Also the tigers you speak of are man eaters. An animal will do what it can to survive. I guess its just easier to wipe out an animal then take the means to defend one self. Go a head wipe out a couple species if you want. It will just prove that our species is arrogant.

    Also I do hate when people say that animals should go extinct by natural means(not humans) Which doesn't make sense. We are living. Will I hope we are. Humans are on the top of the food chain so naturally life will go extinct the animals that go extinct usually wouldn't survived even if we tried. You know evolution, adaptivity. To put it simply survival of the fittest.
     
  16. SrasRodriguez Registered Senior Member

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    You can't just "rewild" an animal in a country foreign to it's original habitat. The native fauna would have no history with it and would have trouble adapting to a new top level predator.

    An example of an introduced species gone wrong is the cane toad in Australia. While not a major predator it has caused havoc in the country's food chain and has no natural predators so has become a pest. While I doubt the tiger would take over as cane toads have it's still not the best idea to just introduce a random species into a biological community that hasn't had to deal with it before.
     
  17. kurros Registered Senior Member

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    I agree, this is really the key factor. The value of biodiversity to science is immeasurable, it really is our greatest natural resource, and we cannot begin to imagine the benefits we may derive from it in the future. The Earth has fairly literally been acting as an enormously powerful supercomputer for billions of years, computing highly optimal ways to take advantage of natural laws for a huge number of tasks. We will never be able to artificially reproduce this information.
     
  18. Starthane Xyzth returns occasionally... Valued Senior Member

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    The idea is to replace extinct, related animals which lived in Europe & America until about 10000 years ago: the sabre-toothed tigers, the cave lions, the American lion and homotherium, the short-faced bear etc. They (and the largest herbivores such as mastodons) have been gone for only a brief instant of evolutionary time; the ecosystem will still be unbalanced because of their absence, and should readily adapt to the introduction of similar contemporary species.

    Even horses disappeared from America at the end of the Pleistocene: they were reintroduced by early Spanish settlers in the 1600s, and quickly turned feral. Today, wild mustangs are a naturalised part of the North American fauna - they fitted in perfectly, because their old ecological niche was still empty. If horses did it, so could elephants, camels, lions etc.
     
  19. scifes In withdrawal. Valued Senior Member

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    2,573
    tigers were killed off in austrailia, rabbits over took the country in no time.
     
  20. scifes In withdrawal. Valued Senior Member

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    it seems the tiger incident didn't happen in Australia, and i forgot where i read it was.

    it was an idiot human who broke out the rabbit hell in Australia http://www.convictcreations.com/animals/rabbits.html
     
  21. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    Homo sapians are predators. Who needs homo sapians?
     
  22. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Dunno, but if you find a representative of the race 'Homo Sapiens', them being being thinkers, you could ask them.
     
  23. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    4,101
    I assume this was ironic, but I am not sure who the irony is aimed at, me or the OP writer or both....
     

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