Comment by sbarre | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sbarre | Hacker News Reader

The death of a (sub-)species.

We are destined to see more of this in our lifetimes, given how some people treat the natural world and our animal kingdom neighbours..

Other sub-species of rhinos, and even elephants, may not be far behind.

But we are making progress. In the 1980s, it is estimated that over 600,000 elephants were killed by poachers in less than 10 years.

We are now "down" to 20,000 killed per year by poaching. But sadly, this is still more than are actually born in a year, so it's not quite enough progress, and there is still much work to be done.

If you feel like supporting conservation and education efforts to help with this progress, here are a few places to start:

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust[0], The Amboseli Trust[1], Save the Rhino[2], and of course the World Wildlife Fund[3] if you want to support conservation in a broader sense.

0: https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/

1: https://www.elephanttrust.org/

2: https://www.savetherhino.org/

3: https://support.worldwildlife.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=...

I was at the Natural History Museum in London on Saturday and astounded to learn the Mastodon was still around 13,000 years ago. I started looking online and realized that many of these animals I thought were super prehistoric are more recent that I thought, including the Mammoth (present until 4,500 years ago). The plaque suggested a bunch of reasons for the Mastodon extinction but one of them included hunting. We (our species) have been at this for a long time. Perhaps if the Earth was far larger they would stand a better chance.

For a more recent example, the Moa of New Zealand went extinct only a few hundred years after human arrival.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/why-did-new-zealands-...

Also the famous Dodo : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo

More recently, the North American passenger pigeon. Billions to extinct in 19th century... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon

Non-mobile link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon

Twentieth century, as Martha (probably the last member of the species, although the standard post-extinction cryptic sightings continued into the 1930s) died in 1914.

If anybody wants to read an extremely complete book on the subject, it's hard to do better than A Feathered River Across The Sky[0]. It's well written and the science is sound.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Feathered-River-Across-Sky-Extinction...

I was about to mention the Great Auk [0] but realized while reading up on it that scientists have started asking questions about the previously official sad story that I heard as a child.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_auk

Yes, Mammoths were alive at the time the Pyramids were built. Kinda mind-blowing.

I always though Giants animals have been on earth longer than we though and were the sources of our legend such as as dragons or sea monsters.

Well, the largest animal known to have ever existed is still around today.

Another interesting one gone: Aurochs, larger ancestors of domestic cattle, died out in 1627. They were famous in Greek myths and used in Roman arenas. Elasmotherium, a sort of furry rhino, died out about 10,000 years ago, and could have inspired tales of Unicorns or other mythical beasts. Aepyornis - The Elephant Bird (9.8ft tall, 880lbs) died out in the 11th century, and Dromornis was even taller. Quagga, a subspecies of Zebra, went extinct in the 19th century.

Many animals may have been spared extinction by humans due to the fact that the western world thought they were myths, until late in the second millennium AD when furthering exploration brought back evidence of their existence. Among them: tigers, komodo dragons, giant squid, giraffe, pandas, gorillas.

Dromornis was prehistoric, and would never have encountered humans, according to wikipedia

https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromornis

Yuval Noah Hariri's Sapiens devotes several pages to the extinctions of various prehistoric species in the Americas and Australia, and how they all seem to curiously line up with the first signs of human migration. Only African species evolved around early apes and hominids, and learned to fear their wiles. Our current mass extinction is rivaled by the spear-y wave of death that followed humans' advance out of Africa.

Tasmanian tiger is still one I’m sad about. The video of the last one in a zoo makes me so sad :(

New Zealand also has some horrifying stories (the last group of a thought to be extinct bird was killed by a lighthouse owners cat after he’d sent one to be identified. I hate cats.)

With Sub-saharan Africa’s population alone projected to rise by 3.5 billion to over 4.5 billion by the end of the century I share your concern. Europe and North American need to begin planning now for dealing with the migrant crisis which is just now in its very earliest stages. The environmental impact in Africa would otherwise be deviatating.

I have to expect upwards of a billion people from this region will need to migrate to Europe and probably an even higher number to the Americas.

I don't understand why to you, population rise implies migration.

Africa (currently) has a lower population density than Europe or Asia. We know people can sustainably live at much higher densities than Africans currently do.

The drivers behind migration are global inequality and conflict. If you want to reduce migration, start there. Isolationism and closed borders will only ultimately lead to more humanitarian crises, and more migration pressure.

True.

Even a place like Congo is, geographically, the size of Western Europe, with about 1/6th the population. Over population isn't really an issue in sub-saharan africa, conflict is.

Can't grow enough food at current cultural level, and improving the cultural level is seen as imperialism. Poverty to the point of famine is permanent in Africa.

The creation of educational institutions and accessible healthcare is part of probably every investment deal in large parts if Africa.

The question seems to be wether those deals are crafted with both parties on eye level or wether they are imposed by one party.

> We know people can sustainably live at much higher densities than Africans currently do.

Really? What are some places where people live sustainably at higher densities and at the same scale?

3 people sharing a sustainable farm doesn't count. You also have to account for the cities, which consume vastly more resources and produce vastly more waste.

Cities are almost always wildly more efficient on a per capita basis than rural regions due to economies of scale.

Yet, there are no sustainable cities. They still depend on vast supply chains that flow far outside their borders for resources and waste disposal.

Given the benefit payments offered in certain European countries, why should migration stop at all if you have open borders?

In Greece 86% and in Italy 80% in polls want fewer immigrants allowed into their countries. More than 50% in the United Kingdom and in France plus 47% in Spain agree. How do you deal with this, ignore these voices?

Africa has much less percentage of arable land than Europe or Asia:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.ARBL.ZS?type=sha...

The UN would suggest your numbers are correct but for Africa as a whole not just Sub-saharan africa https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2017_KeyFi...

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