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Comment by ehnto | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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?

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