Comment by specialist | Hacker News Reader

Comment by specialist | Hacker News Reader

I briefly got involved in wolf stuff in Washington state. Participating in the Wolf Advisory Group and so forth. What I learned shouldn't have surprised me. Here's the state's wolf page: https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/at-risk/species-recover...

(I don't know anything about the Alaska wolf stuff covered by this article.)

My takeaways:

My state now works very closely with ranchers to manage wolves. Both livestock and wolves are tagged and tracked, to better keep them apart.

Most everyone involved is trying to do the right thing. It was super impressive. So different from when I worked on salmon conservation. The wolf coalition formed by the state, ranchers, and conservationists had a very hard genesis, but somehow managed to function and move forward. And most ranchers were on board with protecting the wolves.

There's always that one asshole who just cannot fucking color within the lines. Our major incidents which made the news (state culling wolves) were orchestrated by a vehemently anti-wolf whackadoodle rancher who grazed his livestock right on top of known wolf dens. This one yahoo purposefully sabotaged the coalition's efforts.

Our current predator management laws are pretty unforgiving and easily gamed. (As of 2017, I haven't kept track of the reform efforts.) Whereas the state has to kill wolves in response to incidents, there are no consequences for the rogue rancher.

I knew ranching was a tough gig. My brief contact reinforced that view. Pre COVID-19, I speculated that most non-corporate ranchers would not survive. Futurist me thinks their salvation is "artisanal" meats, sold to high-end customers (yuppies at farmers markets), until such time vat grown meat makes ranch meat a premium product.

Adjacently, our Federal Bureau of Land Management is thoroughly corrupt and desperately needs a do-over. BLM leadership will continue to block and sabotage any and all cultural, economic, moral progress. Thereby negatively impacting everything from watershed restoration, protecting endangered species, climate change. Etc.

> This one yahoo purposefully sabotaged the coalition's efforts.

Unfortunately this is always the way. In my country it's the farmer who still shoots kea[1] for predating his sheep, despite their protected status (and their being here first) and the fact that proper livestock management would prevent that - they typically only predate sheep that are snowbound, and a good farmer doesn't leave his sheep in the high country when snow's forecast.

Or it's the hunters who transport deer species that have a negative impact on native plants to new areas for their hunting opportunities, or just to stick it to the man - I have no direct link for this, but entire truckloads of Sika deer have been intercepted trying to cross the strait between our North and South islands - Sika deer are well-established in the North Island (Te Ika-a-Maui/The Fish of Maui) but non-existent in the South Island (Te Wai Pounamu/The Waters of Greenstone(Nephrite Jade)), yet deer transporter trucks filled with Sika have been stopped trying to board the ferry.

Which I don't get, plenty of red, fallow, and white-tail deer in the South Island.

Likewise, there's been a spread of fallow deer over the country - typically they don't spread that far naturally, but from the 12 original herds introduced, there's been, shall we say, a continual leakage to other areas of the country.

And of course, perhaps, ecologically more relevant, is the deliberate introduction of Bennett's wallabies from the relatively small area of the South Island they were originally released in, to areas in the North Island. They have a significant impact, and speaking frankly as a hunter, they're a bit shit, so I don't really understand why anyone would bother other than to be contrary.

[1]: http://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/kea and also https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-... with special highlights:

* A kea learnt to turn on the water tap at Aspiring Hut campground.

* A kea locked a mountaineer inside the toilet at Mueller Hut.

* A kea learnt to use tools to set off stoat traps to get the eggs.

* A kea was seen having a tug-of-war with a cat over a rabbit carcass.

* A kea that was being attacked by magpies hid behind a tramper who fended them off.

To which I'd add:

* I thought my flatmate was tipping out my cylindrical ashtray I kept outside as a passive-aggressive way of telling me to quit smoking. Turns out, two kea were tipping it on its side to kick between them like a football

* I once had to counsel a German hiker whose boots, pack, and tent were systematically dismantled by a gang of young male kea when he was camped on a high alpine pass, he fled barefoot with his belongings in his arms

* An older kea had figured out he had enough time when someone went into the local tearooms to run in and grab a chocolate bar and exit before the self-closing door closed. Until one day they moved the chocolate (on account of the kea thefts) and he was trapped in the tearooms and flew around screeching merrily to everyone's horror

* Gangs of young male kea used to hang out by the toilets in town and dare each other on to make a car's tyres make that "psssssh" sound - which often resulted in people with two flat tyres on one side seeking assistance

* When working in the visitor centre I handled three complaints about kea stealing passports at a popular photo site. There was a common modus operandi - one kea would jump around and act cute for the camera, while their buddies snuck up behind the distracted tourist and rifled through their belongings. Passports, on account of often having a shiny coat of arms, were often the first thing stolen, and then dropped into a deep ravine by a kea when it realised it wasn't worth eating

* Kea love sliding down a frosted back-country hut's roof. Which sucks if you're trying to get some sleep in it at the time

Kea are fantastic. One stole my gopro at the Remarkables years ago. I recovered it after playing a protracted game of chase while other Kea watched with glee. Eventually they got distracted by the next game (which seemed to involve jumping into snow drifts) and left my gopro alone. I wish it was recording at the time!

I used to describe them as monkeys with wings... ...and built-in Swiss army knives, to tourists. Because their beaks are amazingly versatile. They've been observed removing screws with them.

But I love how their cleverness is directly tied to the harshness of their habitat - they're the only alpine parrot, and they survive solely on their wits and their incessant curiosity, to them, everything must be investigated as a potential food source.

...or as a potential fun source, they do love a good time.

It took me a second to grasp that a type of parrot is responsible for attacking and eating sheep. Even if it's a large parrot, the fact that a 1kg bird can tear and eat the living flesh off a 100kg ruminant is remarkable.

Europe has a similar problem with farmers saying that had seen vultures (8kg) eating their 800Kg cows alive. Something that would be obviously impossible without vultures learning how to use a firearm or without finding dozens of severely hurt and dead vultures around after the battle (something that strangely, never happens).

Thus farmers can now ask for a compensation for each old cow that slips on a clift, or has a disease too expensive to treat.

Maybe Keas are enough smart to eat an alive sheep (a lamb would be much more probable), maybe once in a blue moon, but disinformation and rumour spreading for money is a global problem that biologists face.

These are alpine birds and only, rarely, attack sheep that are stuck in the snow. The sheep is defenceless, much like a man buried up to his neck.

Went up to Milford Sound some years back. We were told by our helicopter pilot that Kea have been known to shred the blades of the chopper and people had been temporarily stranded up in the fiords.

Wow, TIL that there exists a parrot that eats sheep. That's as impressive as a wolverine fighting a bear.

I read that and it still sounds unbelievable, that sheep get attacked by a parrot.

But yeah, live sheep are at risk of getting bit and clawed at by a smart parrot whose diet includes carrion. Turns out chupacabra lives in New Zealand.

Kea are opportunists of the first degree - you don't get to be the only alpine parrot without being smart enough to exploit every opportunity available to you.

> until such time vat grown meat makes ranching meat a premium product.

I suspect farmed meat will be able to reduce price significantly to demand. Reason is much of the price is based on the land values. Also feed, but that can be reduced with stocking rates as land value drops. And given much grazing land isn't useful for other formats of farming, I suspect in the future were going to see significant drops to cattle grazing land values allowing it to stay price competitive to lab meat as that scales up.

On the other hand the moral argument is hard to win, and I say that as a meat eater. I suspect justifying eating farmed meat is going to seriously dwindle in a few generations once the 'that's how its always been' mentality has softened.

> I suspect justifying eating farmed meat is going to seriously dwindle in a few generations once the 'that's how its always been' mentality has softened.

It will start more seriously once lab/vat grown-meat becomes a viable competitor. Suddenly it won't be "necessary" anymore to eat animals and ethics will rapidly shift.

I don't think it's a coincidence societies view on slavery shifted at the same time as the industrial revolution made pure mechanical human labor less valuable, and that opinions on the legality in the US states roughly was determined whether that state's economics was dependent on slave labor or not.

No need to wait for for "clean meat" as an excuse, it's already not necessary to eat animals.

It is not necessary in the same way that it is not necessary to drink alcohol or watch Netflix. People still want to do it.

This makes killing animals an economic necessity to supply a large amount of demand. That will only change with lab grown meat or indistinguishable-from-the-real-thing meat replacements.

I think that’s quite a straw man. In order to say we don’t require meat, we have to know what the correct diet for humans are, which we unfortunately don’t. Nutrition literature is littered with contradictions, debates, and mostly recommendations based off of correlation (epidemiology) studies.

Not throwing everything that’s been studied in nutrition by any means, but research areas like the gut micro biome are in their infancy, and we’ve yet to really study the effects food has on this complex system. We’ve had instances of saturated fats being painted as causing heart disease, red meat causing cancer, or sugar not being that bad for you. Each either having a perverse financial incentive to get specific results, or they used poor methodologies.

This also assumes a plant based diet is the most optimal diet for humans, which I’d disagree with, especially on the account that most plant-based diets lack nutrients that are only derived from meat based products. Yes you can supplement, but now the bioavailability is changed, and typically supplements target a single or few nutrients, and rarely has the full spectrum of what the particular food has for nutrient ratios.

For instance, what’s the effect on the gut microbiome when we use a supplement vs the nutrient “from the source”? We know there exists a difference in how our bodies react, just not the full picture of effects.

If your ethics supersedes what could (emphasis) be a more optimal life, or if plant based diet works better than meat based anecdotally, then have at it. But we shouldn’t be dictating policy or pushing for cultural changes on things we don’t have a full understanding on, especially when we don’t know the full implications of any one human diet.

Comparing meat eating to, if I’m reading between the lines correctly, hedonic pleasures of Netflix and alcohol, is fallacious, perverse, and dogmatic. I would go so far as to say restricting meat consumption on a policy level is unethical.

I'm not aware of any essential nutrients lacking from a plant-based diet, aside from maybe B12, which is supplemented in animal feed and besides would probably be provided by soil bacteria if agricultural soil was healthier and our produce wasn't washed so well. A few amino acids like taurine aren't in plants but are synthesized from others in the human body.

The concept of "bioavailability" might be too simple when talking about nutrition. Heme iron from animal products and vitamin A from liver are bioavailable to the point of being toxic. With the example of iron, our body has variable absorption rate based on how much we need; heme iron bypasses this mechanism and gives us extra iron.

Hundreds of millions of Indians have been vegetarians for centuries without any meaningful difference in health outcomes. Any claim about adverse health effects needs to account for that history.

I have a very bleak view about humanity’s ability to overcome the senseless, mass slaughter and consumption of animals, even in spite of the existential risks of pandemic disease and environmental collapse that continuing to do so poses. But the idea that it’s a biological necessity (outside of a very small percentage of people with specific health conditions), seems easily disproven.

Malnutrition is rife in India with some 40% of children malnourished and stunted. Indian diet is not very nutritionally balanced and as a result, lifestyle diseases like diabetes and heart disease are quite common in the upper income brackets and malnutrition in the lower income brackets.

I love meat but by no means is it necessary for living. About 40% of India is ovo-lacto vegetarian and India is in the top half of the life expectancy table compared to other countries with a similar GDP-per capita.[1]

I'm personally down to eating meat once or twice per week. Mostly because it's delicious. I feel no different from when I ate meat every day, and I've lost some weight.

Most of the resistance to vegetarian diets in the Western world is for cultural reasons. There isn't widespread knowledge of how to feed oneself healthily on a vegetarian diet - people picture endless salads with no fat or protein or taste. And there's the perception of vegetarian sources of protein - beans, legumes, lentils, peanut butter, eggs, tofu, yogurt, paneer - as either foreign or "poverty" foods. There are also notions of masculinity tied up with meat consumption. I have no truck with any of that, but it's silly to try to use faulty nutrition science to defend cultural mores.

1. https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#life-expectancy-a...

> I think that’s quite a straw man. In order to say we don’t require meat

You're missing my point. I'm not arguing for/against eating meat or whether its necessary, just observing that there is an economic demand for meat which is unlikely to change in the near future. To supply this demand you need to kill animals.

I'm arguing that current ethics on killing animals are that way because of otherwise we cannot get meat. Once we get clean meat and you don't need to kill animals to get meat, societal ethics will rapidly shift towards killing animals no longer being ok.

But I want to eat animals! They are delicious!

In all seriousness I find your sentiment amusing. The way you guys explain right past the existence of carnivores or the cruelty that nature is capable of without human interference is downright inspiring.... for me to throw another couple patties on the BBQ

That's an interesting take. I'd like to learn more.

I remember being surprised to learn about the counterintuitive impact the cotton gin had on slaves. TLDR: It somehow made slavery even worse.

I remember it being touched upon by Freakonomics [1], including references to some sources that elaborate more. I read a book that argues this point, but can't for the life of me remember its author or title.

I'm not surprised the cotton gin made slavery worse, the raw cotton still needed to be harvested by humans.

[1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/meat/

That was a good episode, thanks.

Aside: Recently got addicted to podcasts. I really like their transcriptions.

The gin doesn't pick the bolls. It just created bigger fields and more work.

I suspect farmed meat will be able to reduce price significantly to demand.

Vat grown meat is essentially a plant that needs a specialised greenhouse. It's not particularly different economically to growing a tropical fruit in a non-tropical country. Farmed meat won't be able to come close to competing.

We might be thinking of different things. I'm referring to actual animal protein, without the animal. Not meat substitutes. Of course, I enthusiastically support every variety of protein source.

I don't think we are. Vat grown meat is animal protein that's grown in controlled conditions in a lab by adding chemicals and mechanically "massaging" it. That's economically closer to growing a vegetable than raising cattle.

Economically? Ok, sure, probably.

I was stuck on the mental model of plants using photosynthesis for energy. And non-biologist me assumed meats would use other sources of energy, like how yeasts and bacteria function.

FWIW, I just learned that "cultured meat" seems to be the catch all phrase. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat I should probably learn more about how it actually works.

I really don't know.

If and when factory farming goes kaput, I have no idea if land will get cheaper. Mostly because of straight up supply and demand.

Even when Big Ag goes bankrupt, would the land ever go back on the market? Or would a different vulture capitalist just gobble it all up?

Most people don't know that most land (stolen from the natives) was gifted from the government to farmers, ranchers, settlers, railroad companies. That was how the USA created one era of the "middle class".

I dont know if farming will ever go away, people are entirely diverse and will always be diverse. Some will prefer organically grown goods over GMO drone / AI managed goods. Heck organic foods already expensive it wont get any cheaper.

> Reason is much of the price is based on the land values.

This is untrue. Beef prices are set by the four meat packers that control 75% of the market[1].

https://www.hcn.org/issues/43.5/cattlemen-struggle-against-g...

There is nothing in your link that implies that prices are set by the four firms or that there is a cartel. 75% market share probably isn't even enough to effectively run a cartel.

BLM management does seem to have improved in other areas, thinking of their interactions with the third largest city in Nevada each year for the week before labor day.

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