this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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That's only true if there are enough carnivores like wolves and bears around. If not: goodbye forests. Hunting is pest control.
This is not proven at all. It's at best controversal.
It's very much proven in some ecosystems where humans introduced new animals, which ate all the plants and caused tons of new erosion.
Show me a study tust proves it then please.
The example I'm thinking of is New Zealand, where there's endless studies into causes of erosion most of which mention the introduction of grazing game animals(e.g. deer) as a contributing factor.
https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.3400060202
https://www.mpi.govt.nz/dmsdocument/81/direct
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/deer-wars/story/2018906408/e01-the-last-great-adventure
Its pretty proven at a 5th grade reading level of study, and even more proven with every grade up.
Its actually kind if hard to find a more proven aspect of biology.
You are confidentaly wrong here, my friend.
For one it realy is something that depends on the global and local region. There are multiple studies that point to a lack of evidence towards a clear answer. I'm not invested enoth to hunt down to many examples, so I'll just quote this 2016 Australien study:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305655680_Can_recreational_hunting_control_pests_on_public_lands
Even clearly pro hunting websites have liste of pros and cons to hunting as pest control, like this one
https://huntingandnature.com/index.php/2023/09/04/hunting-as-a-form-of-pest-control-pros-and-cons/
So no. It is not a clear cut matter, nor is it proven beyond any doubt.
Obviously it depends on region. It also depends on the species in question. No one thinks hunting rhinos is pest control.
That doesnt change the fact that in areas where we have removed or reduced predator populations, replacement hunting does show to help fill the gap and keep prey populations within healthy limits.
Look at the american deer conundrum as your prime example. When we stop hunting them in areas low in predation, they start destroying their already fragile ecosystems with overgrazing.
You are shifting the goalposts here. I argued against hunting beeing, and I quote:
You are the one who claimed that it's 1000 % proven that hunting is good pest control. Which is not true.
I didn't argue against it beeing efficient in some locations. I argued against it beeing "hard to find a more proven aspect of biology" that it is so.
So either show me some scientific backup or admit that you might have been a bit of there (it happens to the best of us, no big deal).
Please read the study I posted earlier, which shows how this is not universaly true, or, as I have said before, at the very least controversal.
Regarding this i would like to direct you to this study:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.5729
To be fair, they are talking about hunting beeing the only method used here and also can't find prove, that other measures (like only protecting the plants) and no hunting are enoth. There just is not enoth clear data to support either side right now. Hence its controversal.
I'm in Germany, where hunting is highly regulated (not "recreational") with specific quotas which have to be followed (a fermales and b males from species 1, c females and d males from species 2 etc.). No more, no less, and roadkill has to be accounted for.
Thankfully, wolves are slowly coming back, so the quotas can be (and are in certain regions) lowered - but, unfortunately, now wolf-haters show up whining about their sheep because they are unwilling to invest in proper fences and guard dogs, even while both are subsidized by the state.
Youre claiming Im wrong because it is not a universal pest control.
I didnt say it was a universal pest control. Ive pretty explicitly corrected you on that already.
Your own sources cite examples where it has been successful, as I said it is. Like literally any other method of pest control, or anything else really, it obviously is context dependant on if its a good use. No one said it wasnt.
But do you act this way when someone says "yeah bleach is known as an effective cleaner" just because you cannot spray bleach on literally every mess in literally every scenario with every surface? I dont think you do.
Most of these controversial takes are if it alone is enough to maintain populations in specific regional examples. I would also wonder if bleach alone will be enough to clean my kitchen. This does not cause me to doubt the ability of bleach as a cleaner.
Well I for sure woudnt say: "Bleach is the most efficient cleaner, it's hard to find a better proven chemical fakt. "
;)
Well its a good thing I, nor the original comment, said anything was the most efficient anything.
Now, if you meant that you wouldnt say "bleach is a known effective cleaner, and its hard to find a better proven chemical fact," you would certainly look the fool, given thats a better comparison to what was said and is additionally correct.
I mean, if there has been a forest somewhere for the last 100 years, chances are there are enough carnivores anyways. Nature finds its balance, hunting only adds chaos to the equation.
Wolves had been extinct in western Europe for hundreds of years, only slowly spreading again after the fall of the Iron Curtain 30-something years ago. And, consequently, the hunting quotas for deer are being lowered.
The chaos caused by eliminating wolves is slowly getting back to balance.
By the way: a 100 year old forest is in its early childhood. Hasn't even reached puberty yet.
No it isn't. This is the noble excuse hunters came up with to justify murder.
Nature has this funny way of balancing itself out. Humans are unique in that we somehow view ourselves as above that rule. But as you'll see in the coming years we're at the mercy of that equilibrium.
Right, all those noble ecologists who spent decades studying this just decided to fake their results cause they get so horny over killing.
Nature balances out over a couple thousand years. What you are asking for is to speed up the current extinction event.
Do you hunt?
No, I just have spent my whole career studying ecology.
How long of a career is that again?
Probably longer than yours. Why, are you upset that someone who actually studies this for a living disagrees with you?
Youre gonna find that in science a lot.
I'm not upset that you disagree with me, but the idea of human intervention in natural systems affected by unnatural actions from the same human intervention doesn't make any sense. We hunted buffalo to extinction for capitalism. Did we control the population enough for you?
I'm glad you're comfortable being disagreed with though. It probably happens a lot.
You think the intentional extinction of a species for the purpose of ethnic cleansing is the same as metered population hunting?
And youre surprised the science disagrees with you?
I really get the feeling you do hunt...
Then you feel about as well as you think, cause I havent even fired a gun since I was 20, recreationally or otherwise.
Its cute how you tried to turn an attack on native americans into some parallel with restricted hunting seasons tho. Insanely racist and massively offensive to the native american survivors, but also quite cute in a "bumbling dipshit" kinda way.
Do you do that often? Say really racist shit to mask how little you actually understand about the topic?
Oh brother... I didn't realize I was arguing with a moron. My mistake, smooth brain.
Right, right. When you get caught saying racist things, drop some 4chan slang.
High class, you really are cementing why your voice is of a higher caliber than decades of scientific research.
You clearly know more about racism, 4chan and being a fucking nut job better than anyone here so I'll defer to you on matters you're clearly more knowledge about than me.
Anyone truly in the scientific community would know that challenging long held scientific beliefs and having those change with new evidence is what it's all about. But then again what can any of us expect from someone who jumps to talks about racism in an argument about any thing other than race.
You brought up the attempted extinction of buffalo in the northern US continent, and compared it to modern deer hunting.
An attempted extinction that was explicitly stated by the officials who ordered it to be an attempt to starve the native population into submission or death, whichever came first.
That is not """challenging long held scientific beliefs.""" Thats you, being a racist little git, pretending that current hunting of deer which isnt associated with minority group survival and explicitly has hunting restrictions to prevent risk of damage to overall population counts is equivalent to a horrific attempt at ethnic cleansing.
I am even willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are just so damned ignorant that you had no idea that the only reason the american bison was removed from the americas was to starve the natives. Sure, why not. But if that was true, your response to double down shows this isnt about science, or learning, its about you putting feelings first and researching never.