Hacker News Reader

Comment by 9dev | Hacker News Reader

That is such a clear example of Chesterton‘s fence, it makes me mad people can’t see it.

Not by any means do we understand enough about ecosystems to justify the hubris to declare any animal as a net negative effect to the environment.

In western Europe, hunters argue they need to cull deer, for example, to keep the forest in balance. That is only true because a) they make an effort to feed the animals during the winter, helping more to survive than otherwise would, and b) because natural predators have been eradicated in the previous centuries.

Don’t ever trust someone that attempts to justify culling a species for the greater good.

View on HN

I don't disagree that our hubris gets us in trouble, but we do have eyes, some animals when introduced cause very quick changes to ecosystems and I don't think it's hubris to say "oh fuck, we goofed". I don't condone cullings specifically but I think conservation absolutely requires controlling non-native species in certain circumstances. New Zealand has had enumerable species go extinct thanks to introduced species.

The obvious one is usually feral cats, which end up killing birds in large numbers if they haven't dealt with cats before. And a lot of those tend to be escaped house pets.

> feral cats, which end up killing birds in large numbers ... escaped house pets

I'd argue that it's also a problem of biodiversity (at least in the U.S., don't know about New Zealand). If we hadn't eradicated almost all wolves, coyotes, foxes, birds of prey, weasels, and I don't know what else, nature would have solved the problem already.

Problem of biodiversity is one way of putting it. New Zealand did not have any mammals apart from bats. When those arrived, the native wildlife were not equipped to deal with them.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoat_in_New_Zealand

Even a common rat caused a number of species to go extinct in NZ. I can't imagine any conservationist would agree that we should let a common rat kill off dozens of incredibly unique species of such a one of a kind ecosystem, just in case the rat has a net positive effect in the long term.

Now that is hubris, what the hell do we know about long term net positives? Selfish warm feelings, while watching the reality of introduced extinction take place in a matter of mere decades. Pardon me.

many of the predators we eliminated also ate the same birds and rodents that the cats ate.

N = 1 but the cats I’ve seen around my neighborhood seem to be quite well cared for and simply killing for the sport of it, toying— ok, perhaps I’m anthropomorphizing— with their prey and often, IME not eating it at all

(in North America) and if we hadn't hunted and driven away the bobcats lynx and ocelots that would have killed those bird for food (along with the weasels stoats ferrets ermine mink foxes and other predators) how many birds would they have killed?

Generally speaking, if prey and predator evolve together then the prey have adapted and have a fair chance of escape/survival.

Non-native introductions usually have the issue of such a sudden population explosion that the prey cannot adjust in a timely fashion and get killed very quickly, very suddenly.

Fortunately for the birds then wild cats such as lynx bobcat and ocelot close cousin species to house cats were among those species we removed from the ecosystem before we introduced Felix catus.

We’ve introduced millions of cats into areas that haven’t had cats at all, like the entirety of Oceania.

Sure and that was bad. However using New Zealand as an excuse for pearl clutching in North America over cats, when there were several species wild cat here already not to (mention many other predators) that we decimated the populations of is disingenuous at best.

It isn't Chesterton's fence though. We removed the fence (wolves in your example) and have now discovered why the fence was there, and have now stepped in to build a new fence.

Also removing native species and sending the balance out of whack is different to removing a non native species that has sent the balance out of whack.

> We removed the fence (wolves in your example) and have now discovered why the fence was there, and have now stepped in to build a new fence.

This isn’t quite accurate, though. Between removing the fence and getting fence construction inclinations, a lot of time has passed, and in the meantime, nature did lots of stuff we hardly understand.

Assuming otherwise is just repeating the same mistake again. Feral donkeys might be part of a new ecosystem now.

Maybe, but that's just an excuse to never do anything.

And we can be fairly sure about some things.

Rats in new Zealand, rabbits in Australia, cane toads in Australia, etc, etc.

Further it takes time to remove these populations, so you can observe what happens when they're removed from a local area.

The counterpoint to this is the real issue overpopulation of whitetail deer has caused in the eastern US over the past 30 years or so.

I grew up in Virginia so here's one specific example: https://dwr.virginia.gov/wildlife/deer/deer-management-progr...

> b) because natural predators have been eradicated in the previous centuries.

Sure, but it doesn't change the fact that the population really does need to be culled.

Or predators could be reintroduced.

With deer, the problem is often not an excessive population but rather their tendency to stay in one place, destroying young shoots and plantings and hindering the growth of the plants we care about.

In contrast, with predators they cannot stay in one place for long enough, allowing most plants to outgrow their vulnerable size and survive.

In most cases, we objectively do know. Unless there's a yet unheard argument for cane toads and feral camels.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com