No Simba, if they were all allowed to die naturally, there would be too many of them to share the grass. They would die fighting themselves for food, a miserable existence. Only a truley dumb species would ignore the natural order and allow their own to die of hunger.
There is that aspect though. Unless the Antelope are good at looking out for each other and taking turns, they will mindlessly degreen the entire area.
read a long time ago about how the deer population got out of control in this one forest, and within a few years the place was practically a desert. everything just fuckin died
That’s a common problem in places where humans eliminated the existing predators. Herbivores evolved to reproduce in large numbers to account for the predators and this is a disaster if suddenly there are none.
I’ve seen an arthritic goat hobbling around in agony.
With nature, you don’t generally peacefully breathe out your dying breath, even if there are no predators. You live until life as it is is torturous enough that you no longer live.
There is no alternative to life, and death is compulsory and often painful. We, as humans, are lucky enough to be capable to, at times, make that process quick, and, at times, painless.
Predation is not wrong. The quality of life is what matters - and because of that, death is necessary.
Life offers joy, but can dish out misery just as deeply. If life gives you joy, it lasts as long as it can. If life gives you misery, the depth of it is limited by death.
It’s morally better they die fighting us for food, while we right each other for food. Trust me.
No trust needed.
Oh shit are we the deer
I guess deer and antelope are fairly similar now that I think about it. Yes friend. We are the moose
They would overpopulate and exhaust all the resources. Then the last survivors would kill one another for the final scraps while poisoning the land… Have you ever thought about how the wasteland came to be? Let me narrate you a story about their ancient inhabitants… the pale apes.
They would overpopulate and exhaust all the resources.
Save your right-wing “overpopulation” bullcrap. Barely anything predates on elephants and rhinos, yet they haven’t managed to strip the continent of Africa and “exhaust all the resources.”
absolutely wild that someone would assume someone’s political views based on their understanding of ecosystems-level biology, but on lemmy, somehow, i’m no longer surprised
Lemmy is trying to be the new Reddit after all
absolutely wild that someone would assume someone’s political views based on their understanding of ecosystems-level biology,
Lol!
What did you think the (so-called) “Tragedy Of The Commons” right-wing myth was all about, eh? It’s literally the same argument as the one being peddled here.
The tragedy of the commons, an argument as to why unfettered capitalism is bad, is right wing (i.e. pro-capitalist) propaganda.
I’ve officially heard it all now.
The (so-called) “Tragedy Of The Commons” is literally a right-wing tirade against the collective management of resources, Clyde.
Go read it again.
For a start, my name’s not Clyde, it’s Vincent. It’s in my username. Thought you’d’ve figured that out. Second, it’s an argument about why letting a bunch of individuals who have no incentive to care what happens to the group go wild with no previously-agreed-upon restrictions about how much they should use is bad, and that’s not true of any socialist movements I’m aware of. Thirdly, the photo on the Wikipedia page for tragedy of the commons is of pollution.
Clyde, why do you think this right-wing trope’s most vociferous critics are all leftists?
You fell for a trope popularized by a white supremacist eugenicist who spent his career peddling the right-wing “overpopulation” myth.
That’s YOU, Clyde.
I feel like it’s far more likely the commenter was making a joke. I think the give away was when they referenced a post-human world populated by talking lions.
It’s exactly what happens, and we have about as good a natural experiment on this as it gets:
https://www.gi.alaska.edu/alaska-science-forum/when-reindeer-paradise-turned-purgatory-0
tl;dr: a Reindeer herd was setup on an uninhabited Alaskan island as a potential food source during WWII with no natural predators. The war ended before anything came of it, so the herd was left on its own. Within a few decades, they had stripped the island bare of all vegetation the deer could possibly reach, and then they all starved to death.
Also, see predator reintroduction programs, such as how wolves change rivers.
Elephants and rhinos don’t breed the same way a lot of other animals do. If they did, evolution would very quickly do what happened in Alaska to those deer. Animals like deer and rabbits breed in great numbers with the evolutionary expectation that predators will keep them in check.
If you think this process is brutal, well, yes, it is. The conservative thing would be to say that this is “natural” and therefore the correct and only way to run human society. This is wrong; we can choose a better path for ourselves while also accepting that nature works this way all the time.
tl;dr: a Reindeer herd
So your eco-fash hottake can literally be disproven by the fact that elephants exist, yet you are so desperate to cling onto it that you try to peddle forcing deer into becoming an invasive species on an island they have never adapted to as proof?
You’re aware that Elephants are not Reindeer, right?
You are aware that elephants exist, correct?
So because Elephants exist, Reindeer can go on without Predators? Dude, this is the most uncontaversial take in conservation. Predators are a necessary part of the cycle. That had nothing to do with how human society should run.
Dude, this is the most uncontaversial take in conservation.
So, again. Your Malthusian eco-fash hottake can literally be disproven by the simple fact that elephants exist. Animals can and will evolve to live within the means of their environments. Even humans have been thoroughly documented to be capable of such. So your pretensions that a “Reindeer Apocalypse” is imminent is… what, exactly?
They addressed the elephant issue in their comment. I recommend you read it again. The summary is elephants evolved without predation, so they don’t bread in large numbers. Prey animals breed with the assumption a not-insignificant portion of their population will die prematurely due to predation. If this doesn’t happen then their population balloons until it consumes all available resources, then it collapses.
This happens fairly frequently where we’ve removed predators from the ecosystem. Its why we promote deer hunting, for example. We’ve removed their natural predators, and if they aren’t culled then they will grow until they collapse. This is well understood and not controversial.
I guess we could engineer the planet until this isn’t an issue, but that’ll take a few millenia and probably isn’t the best idea. Let nature be natural. It’d be fascist to assume it’s our domain to conquer and dominate into submission.
elephants evolved without predation
Really? They just jumped from rabbit-sized mammals to elephant-size with zero predation?
Prey animals breed with the assumption
This is the first time I’ve heard of a deer “assuming” anything.
If this doesn’t happen then their population balloons until it consumes all available resources, then it collapses.
Evolution doesn’t stop simply because predation stops. Yes, deer population will expand if predation stops, but that expansion will not result in some “Reindeer Apocalypse” as the colonialist brain-trust on here is trying to pretend it would. No, it will not result in the consumption of all available resources, as reindeer’s natural environment is vast frikken northern hemisphere continents. If that could be possible, you might as well try to prove that bison hoovered up all the world’s grasslands before humans even managed to become humans.
Let nature be natural.
We closed that door permanently about two centuries ago. We did…
We’ve removed their natural predators,
…this, remember?
It’d be fascist to assume it’s our domain to conquer and dominate into submission.
I’d say it’s pretty eco-fash to assume that this isn’t the exact thing we’ve already done.
You’re trying so hard.
Being fair, humans now have no realistic predators and we’re stripping the planet bare…
Humans have plenty of predators. Like capitalists, for instance.
Because their evolutionary defense is literally defense, and not just having enough numbers to overcome predation.
Sure, there are species that exist without predation, but introduce predators (like humans) and oh, would you look at that… extinction!
Life is complex, and doesn’t have any one single explanation for how it exists.
but introduce predators (like humans) and oh, would you look at that… extinction!
Mammalian mega-fauna stil exists (and thrives) on the continent where human beings literally evolved.
Tell that to the Northern White Rhino.
The White Rhino has survived on this continent for thousands of years, until it was exposed to capitalist exploitation. Ie, the parasitic wealth-and-power accumulation of a tiny minority of the human race.
So… a predator it was unfamiliar with and had no defense against?
You do understand there was humans in Africa before white colonialists showed up, right?
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Save your right-wing “overpopulation” bullcrap
Wild what you guys think of as political. It’s just how it sometimes goes in nature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation#Deer
Barely anything isn’t nothing, they still have predators.
AKAB
What does the K stand for?
Kmufasa, the K is silent like in knife
Kings, most likely
Karnivores
I was thinking Kings but I like it
Kscar
Kings.
Knights
Kmufasa. K is silent.
AKAS (All K’s Are Silent)
All Kings Are Bitches?
ಠ_ಠ
