Cows have survived 2 million years by being eaten
Ian Clysdale
>The real question is, what are you agreeing with? I'm having serious trouble
>parsing that sentence, it's a triple negative ;-)
So my grammar is faulty. Shoot me. If you couldn't understand who
I was agreeing with from the rest of my message I've become even more cryptic
and incomprehensible than usual.
>The truth of the matter is far more complicated than a sentence or
>two of this type.
I agree. So I'll try to develop and explain what I meant. I
agree conditionally with most of what you said in your article too, I
just think that you have to look at it in a different light.
>The only reason that they *existed*, past or present, is because
>we eat them. Cattle are not a "natural" species. They were
>created for this purpose. They're no more a natural wild species
>than chihuahuas are.
That depends on how broad your definition of cow is. I'll
agree that our modern-day grazing cattle bear little resemblance to
the original 'cow' that they all descend from. And it's interesting
to note that the original 'cow' is now pretty much extinct. Obviously
we found it wasn't as easy to eat him as the new varieties.
>It's almost entirely untrue. The true statement is "few large
>non-domesticated animals are safe". Even then, individual
>"varieties" (subspecies) have become extinct, or nearly so. Did you
>know that there's a breed of horse called a "Canadian"? There's less
>than 2000 left. Even varieties of domestic animal become "obsolete",
>and die off. There are literally dozens of sheep and goat varieties
>that are not around any longer.
No, the question is "Very few species that we have no current
use for are safe." I worked for two summers on the Log Farm, the Heritage
Farming centre here in Ottawa, where we had some horses that were part
Canadian. The Canadian is now an endangered subspecies because we don't
use it anymore -- we use Percherons, Clydesdales, Belgians instead. The
dozens of sheep subspecies (Suffolks and Leistershires are the two we
had at the farm, if memory serves me right) that are going out are because
we have better subspecies that we use instead. If we don't have a use
for a species, then we don't go to the extremes to protect it, and it
has to survive without our help and usually with our hindrance.
>How about some examples:
Sure. Why not?
> - cattle - of course. But they didn't exist 2 million years ago.
> Not even 20,000. Their (likely) wild ancestors are virtually
> extinct.
Yep. The cattle that we have a use for right now we keep alive.
The original 'cow' that I talked about earlier we didn't have nearly as
much use for as the domesticated varieties, so we stopped trying to keep
it alive.
> - Bison (an example you bring up) *almost* went extinct. And
> are still not doing that well. And they're great to eat.
Yep. But how many people do you know farm bisons? None that
I know of. Can you see people eating 100% pure bison burgers? The fact
is that we currently do not use the bison, therefore we see very little
interest in working hard to keep them alive.
> - Woolly mammoth, mastodon, giant ground sloth, north american
> horses, camels, giant bear, European bison are all extinct. They
> were good to eat - indeed, there's a site in France that was
> intermittantly occupied by man for about 20,000 years, and contains
> the remains of tens of thousands of mammoth. These animals were
> all wiped out by early man.
Actually, they were all really wiped out by the end of glaciated ages
and the changes in world climate; hunting by early man didn't really do much
to hurt them. Individual killings just for food on that level didn't do very
much. Also, at that time, we didn't domesticate them. I'm talking about us
keeping them alive through careful domestication.
> - The dodo - good to eat - gone.
Mainly because it was already pretty dead when the white man came
to Madagascar. A creature that only has one natural habitat is seriously
endangered by any changes in it.
> - Skunks - not great to eat - doing well.
As I said, VERY FEW. Skunks are one that few people are willing to
mess with, and as a result they still do OK. But compare the numbers of
skunks to the numbers of cattle.
>Farm economic interests have major political clout.
Well, yes. If they produce all the food for the nation, they sure
do have pretty major political clout. When people's food supply is
threatened, they're willing to do a lot to keep it going. If we look
throuugh history one of the worst things that could happen to a civilization
was to suffer a famine.
>> Only if we kept them as cute cuddly little pets like our
>>cats and dogs, which I think that they're a little too big for, or
>
>Indeed....
I don't know. But I think they eat a little too much food also
for the average pet-owner to be able to afford. (Imagine dragging home
twenty fifty-pound bags of elephant food a day. :)
>You'd have to do a lot more than merely turn them into burgers
>to give the elephant a better chance of survival.
Perhaps. But we'd have to do something to make us want to keep the
elephants. If the restrictions were made such that private growing of
elephants for ivory and meat was legal under liscensed groups, I think that
the numbers of the elephants would grow immensely.
>Chris Lewis; cle...@ferret.ocunix.on.ca; Phone: Canada 613 832-0541
>Psroff 3.0 info: psroff-...@ferret.ocunix.on.ca
>Ferret list: ferret-...@ferret.ocunix.on.ca
What is the Ferret list or PSroff 3.0 just out of interest? I've
been seeing that on your .sig file for a while and wondering.
-Ian!
--
Ian Clysdale -- UNIX Illiterate,; ; "Great hatred, little room
Master of the Asbestos Suit, ; ; Maimed us at the start
clys...@gurtheru.ocunix.on.ca ; ; I carry from my mother's womb
ac...@freenet.carleton.ca ; ; A fanatic heart." -- Yeats
Chris Lewis
>Quoting from Chris Lewis (cle...@ferret.ocunix.on.ca):
>>The real question is, what are you agreeing with? I'm having serious trouble
>>parsing that sentence, it's a triple negative ;-)
> So my grammar is faulty. Shoot me. If you couldn't understand who
>I was agreeing with from the rest of my message I've become even more cryptic
>and incomprehensible than usual.
Your grammar? What makes you think I was commenting about *your* grammar?
This is the triple negative, written by tmo...@bnr.ca:
>In article <1993Jun21.2...@bnr.ca> tmo...@bnr.ca writes:
>> Did it never enter into anyone's mind that few
>>herbiovours have survived the last 2 million
>>years because they weren't good enough to eat?
Maybe I should have made the smiley a few orders of magnitude larger.
>>The truth of the matter is far more complicated than a sentence or
>>two of this type.
> I agree. So I'll try to develop and explain what I meant. I
>agree conditionally with most of what you said in your article too, I
>just think that you have to look at it in a different light.
Part of the problem is that both you and tmoore are taking too
drastic shortcuts with language. His statement was along the lines
of "they survived because we killed them for food". There's
something dramatic missing from this sentence. That being, if we
killed them for food, how could they have survived? If someone
ate *you* for food, how would you have survived? (oh forget about
them just amputating a leg! ;-) An oxymoron.
There are plenty of examples of animals that were just perfect for
eating that have become extinct (or locally extinct) or nearly so.
So something is missing. And that is animal management or domestication.
Which was not used with all "good enough to eat" herbivores.
>>The only reason that they *existed*, past or present, is because
>>we eat them. Cattle are not a "natural" species. They were
>>created for this purpose. They're no more a natural wild species
>>than chihuahuas are.
> That depends on how broad your definition of cow is. I'll
>agree that our modern-day grazing cattle bear little resemblance to
>the original 'cow' that they all descend from. And it's interesting
>to note that the original 'cow' is now pretty much extinct. Obviously
>we found it wasn't as easy to eat him as the new varieties.
On the contrary, it was just as easy to eat him. Just a trifle
harder to catch. However, the incentive to preserve them at
a high population wasn't immediately obvious, so they were
overhunted.
We actually agree completely. The difficulty being that both
you and tmoore originally said "they survived because we exploited
them" (and there certainly are many examples of animals that we
exploited but not sustainably), but what you really should have said
is "they survived because we _sustainably_ exploited them". Through
domestication or other avenues.
Which is what you're saying now. And what I agree with. But perhaps
didn't make altogether clear in my first posting.
>>How about some examples:
> Sure. Why not?
>> - cattle - of course. But they didn't exist 2 million years ago.
>> Not even 20,000. Their (likely) wild ancestors are virtually
>> extinct.
> Yep. The cattle that we have a use for right now we keep alive.
>The original 'cow' that I talked about earlier we didn't have nearly as
>much use for as the domesticated varieties, so we stopped trying to keep
>it alive.
It's more accurate to say that we had just as much use, but used
them unsustainably.
>> - Bison (an example you bring up) *almost* went extinct. And
>> are still not doing that well. And they're great to eat.
> Yep. But how many people do you know farm bisons? None that
>I know of.
There are several bison farms out west in both the US and Canada. You
can buy bison meat, as well as "beefalo" (a cross-breed), if you know
where to look. There are restaurants that serve it.
But, environmentalists keep trying to shut them down.
>Can you see people eating 100% pure bison burgers?
Sure. It's already happening. But whenever there's an advertising
push on, environmentalists start screaming.
>The fact
>is that we currently do not use the bison, therefore we see very little
>interest in working hard to keep them alive.
It's probably more accurate to say that environmentalists are doing their
damndest to make sure that we don't.
Which brings up one of my real peeves. Most environmentalists simply
don't understand that, aside from mass die-offs of humans, there is
simply no way that most wildlife is going to survive without drastic
intervention, and intervention in such a way that produces economic
benefits (see, we agree).
If we banned hunting outright tomorrow, the die-off would only accelerate.
You should see the reactions when you point out to many environmentalists
(and I consider myself one) that no-one, not governments, not environmenalists
have done anywhere near as much to *preserve* wildlife in the past century
as the fishing and hunting groups. Ducks Unlimited being one. Yes,
the duck populations have declined. But it would have been a lot worse
without Ducks Unlimited. Drainage of swampland is the real problem. Not
hunting. With ducks.
The simple fact of the matter is that even if you do manage to preserve
areas large enough to sustain viable populations of various wildlife,
these areas are and will remain vulnerable to economic reality, illegal
hunting (ie: bear bladders, rhino horn, elephant tusk, heads), and
development pressures.
It is imperative that we make it economically advantageous to preserve
wildlife. They're trying in some places, through the development of
reserves with tourism as a support and the incentive. But you can only
do so much of that before the market is saturated. Herd management
and food production would be more effective.
But no, too many environmentalists would rather than an species becomes
extinct than be exploited and survive. You should read the controversy
over the California Condor captive breeding programme.
One of the desirable changes in North America would be to promote the
management and production of bison for meat. With the ultimate goal
to reduce the domestic cattle population. We could then guarantee
the survival of bison.
>> - Woolly mammoth, mastodon, giant ground sloth, north american
>> horses, camels, giant bear, European bison are all extinct. They
>> were good to eat - indeed, there's a site in France that was
>> intermittantly occupied by man for about 20,000 years, and contains
>> the remains of tens of thousands of mammoth. These animals were
>> all wiped out by early man.
> Actually, they were all really wiped out by the end of glaciated ages
>and the changes in world climate; hunting by early man didn't really do much
>to hurt them. Individual killings just for food on that level didn't do very
>much. Also, at that time, we didn't domesticate them. I'm talking about us
>keeping them alive through careful domestication.
Actually, the European Bison isn't extinct. Oops. There are a few preserves
in Poland and Russia. Fewer animals than North American Bison.
Many of these animals survived well after the ice ages. There were
also several large animals that are now extinct in europe, but still
survive to the east or in africa. You'd think that
individual killing wouldn't have that big effect, until you consider
that some of these weren't individual killing. Hunting sites in France
and other parts of europe clearly show that upon occasion these animals
were killed in vast numbers, because upon occasion, it was convenient
to do so.
North American bison almost became extinct because of a political decision
to control the native indian populations by killing off their prime food source.
Or, as a more recent example, when Idi Amin's army was finally defeated,
they went on a killing rampage and destroyed tens of thousands of animals
in game preserves. Much as Iraq did with Kuwait's oil wells.
> Perhaps. But we'd have to do something to make us want to keep the
>elephants. If the restrictions were made such that private growing of
>elephants for ivory and meat was legal under liscensed groups, I think that
>the numbers of the elephants would grow immensely.
Only if the poachers are offered jobs. Otherwise, it wouldn't make any
damn difference.
One of the preserves in africa is trying to reduce poaching by removing
the horns of their rhinos which is the main incentive of the poachers.
The poachers are killing them anyways.
--
Chris Lewis
>>Psroff 3.0 info: psroff-...@ferret.ocunix.on.ca
>>Ferret list: ferret-...@ferret.ocunix.on.ca
> What is the Ferret list or PSroff 3.0 just out of interest? I've
>been seeing that on your .sig file for a while and wondering.
I forgot to answer your question. Oops.
The ferret list is a mailing list where owners of pet ferrets, vets
and other interested people get together and natter about healthcare,
feeding, funny stories, advocacy (some places ban them for bizarre
reasons) etc.
Psroff 3.0 is a software package that can convert any version of troff
into PostScript, HP Laserjet, and indirectly into a host of other formats,
such as Epson 24 pin printerse, X windows, G3 FAX, GIF, TIFF and gazillions
of others.
--
Christopher Solar
: Perhaps. But we'd have to do something to make us want to keep the
: elephants. If the restrictions were made such that private growing of
: elephants for ivory and meat was legal under liscensed groups, I think that
: the numbers of the elephants would grow immensely.
Somehow I don't think that if we had thousands of elephants being
raised in captivity and then slaughtered for their tusks, we could
say, "See? We saved the elephant from exinction."
Sure, we would have many examples of an animal that looks like an
elephant. But what is the point? I think all we'd end up with is
some macabre extended zoo. To me, preserving wild species means
preserving them *in their habitats*. Besides, if elephants really were
domesticated for commercial reasons (on the grounds that we only
get interested enough to save something if we can profit from it),
the species that we know today wouldn't last too long. "Elephants"
would be genetically engineered into a species that, say, had longer
tusks and a smaller body, just like today's domestic animals are
bred to give us more of what we want and less of what we don't.
--
Christopher Solar Bell-Northern Research Ltd. (613) 763-2862