Only 12 vaquita porpoises remain, watchdog group reports | Hacker News Reader

Only 12 vaquita porpoises remain, watchdog group reports

news.mongabay.com

72 pointspvaldes22 comments

The enormous demand for medically useless endangered animal parts in China is surreal and tragic. Sounds like this will be the 2nd large mammal extinction this year (white rhino) purely because of stupid people paying enormous amounts of money for fraudulent TCM cures.

Perhaps this could be solved by corrupting the supply chains with endangered animal parts enriched with lethal poisons?

Surely the demand for medically useless and deadly products would fall pretty fast.

They tried that in the prohibition with alcohol, and again with the war on drugs.

The problem is that you just end up killing or making sick the end of the supply chain, the end user. Disregarding the moral issues of poisoning people, it costs a lot of money, because then you have to treat these sick people. Secondly, the worst criminals (assuming that using drugs or alcohol is a crime), the suppliers and dealers, don't actually get affected by this.

People will try and get their fix regardless. People are buying fentanyl and killing themselves wholesale, and the people dealing it out don't give a fuck that they're killing their customers.

1. It doesn't work. It was done by the US gov with alcohol during the Prohibition era.

2. The main end result is that you're essentially sentencing people to death for this crime.

Is much simpler than this, just a case of wrong politicians that just don't care. Would be the army able to survey, control and stablish a exclusion perimeter against illegal fishermen in a relatively small spot of sea in a relatively closed bay without using harmful sonars?

This tactic was (in)famously used during prohibition in the United States.

The same argument would probably be made to combat the illegal drug trade. Not sure we want to go there

It is far more difficult to condemn illegal drug trade and consumption than it is to condemn the trade and consumption of completely ineffective "medicine".

Drug production and use generally causes little damage, the same does not apply for this insane "natural medicine" practiced by some people.

> Drug production and use generally causes little damage

Illegal drug production causes immense damage. Look at Columbia circa 1990 for an extreme example.

As for condemnation, that is entirely subjective. Poisoning the well and accepting random damage to save animals is not imo a morally just move.

To be brutally honest, recreational drug use is absurdly overrated, and the people that insist on engaging in cool kid drug experimentation merit badges are selfish to the point that they wouldn't be missed. Bombs away, and let it burn.

Should coffee, Coca Cola, tea, wine and beer also be banned? I've known some religious people who legitimately don't consume any of those products, but trying to impose such a regime on the general population would probably work as well as when the Japanese emperor tried to make everyone vegetarian (hint it didn't work very well).

Many of the "drugs" that are illegal are not harmful in any way, such as psilocybin mushrooms. How ridiculous would it be to poison people seeking such a safe substance? To be brutally honest you sound like a sociopath.

So edgy. You made a brand new account just to post this trash?

It's worth it to expand the conversation. Drugs aren't incredible, and really, seriously wouldn't be worth the effort even if they were 100% legal.

And how many people get sucked into the party kid bullshit, because they want to fit in and impress people. AKA: doing drugs to seem edgy.

You seem to be doing drugs wrong - I have taken drugs recreationally and have never been to a "party". Actually thinking about it, I have never taken drugs in any social setting at all (including alcohol).

I like the tried-and-true method of just shooting poachers.

We need to have a DNA bank so someday we may revive these extinct animals. But that says nothing of microbiome that accompanies a species. I do not know how to adequately preserve or catalog that.

We could use the common porpoise microbiome for this.

Dolphins have grand parents, so 12 porpoises alive could translate maybe in 6 males, two old females past their fertile period and 3-4 females still in reproductive age. Each one could deliver one baby porpoise each two years. The species exclusive from USA and Mexico has a really bad luck. Too many actors currently throwing gasoline to burn all bridges instead promoting the necessary cooperation between the two countries. Mexico at least tried and failed. The species will probably not survive to see the next president.

Whichever live species you're obtaining the DNA sample from, you can also acquire the microbiome sample, which you can sequence to bank as well. Or the seed-with porpoise microbiome idea. Also for this idea to work, you need more than one, ideally all 12, in order capture some of the genetic diversity of the species.

Such an oddly phrased headline.

help us with the title @dang, you're my only hope!

At your service.

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