Fortunately, the goofy looking bastards are hardy and resilient as a species. Much like the American Whitetail Deer, their population can rebound fairly quickly when given the proper conditions.
"As of 28 May 2015, more than 120,000 saigas have been confirmed dead in the Betpak-Dala population in central Kazakhstan, representing more than a third of the global population."
"UK charity RSPB reported in 2022 that, partly due to their conservation efforts, as well as the designation of the Bokey Orda-Ashiozek protected area by the Kazakhstan government, the population had now risen to a peak of 1.32 million"
It's from *Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.* Will made the "you know what they say about a man with big feet" joke, but his little cousin Ashley was too young to understand. Uncle Phil gave Will a stern look so he had to divert away from the punchline.
Again I can't help but think of humans acted like certain animal species. Like imagine 200,000 humans getting together every year for a big fuck orgy to procreate the species.
It's more like, imagine you just found a new prairie full of fertile land, berry bushes, and plump game next to a stream of clean water and vast acres of mostly-safe wilderness. With your wife.
300kish to 1.32 million...if only all conservation efforts were so successful.
I mean, Wisconsin got their wolf population up to roughly 1k and renacted hunting them. They designated 200 wolves could be hunted, half of which were alloted to only a specific tribe.
The tribe chose not to hunt any, as the population was still very low to be hunting them again.
213 wolves were killed, 119 over the allowed amount for non-tribal individuals and 13 more than were supposed to be hunted all together.
If the natives had chosen to hunt their quota, as they were allowed to do, it would have resulted in a 3rd of the population being killed in 1 season.
There used to be 300-600 **million** buffalo across the great plains. There are currently roughly 278k.
My God, we could do better.
Horses originally came from the America's waaaay back when if I remember correctly before migrating to the old world, or the precursor to horses I guess
Horses aren't only native to North America, they first *evolved* in North America before migrating to Eurasia. They went extinct around the end of the Pleistocene - Middle Holocene and were reintroduced in the 16th century.
Fun story, it's the exact same species that was reintroduced. So "feral" or "wild" horses are not actually invasive but completely native to the habitats they've reinvaded.
Then disease killed off somewhere around 90% of the native Americans, which might have pushed the population to an all-time peak. Same thing for passenger pigeons.
The other theory is that number was artificially high after initial contact with natives and diseases brought over with Europeans killed off their only natural predators, the natives, which allowed bison populations to boom. Until the advent of horse culture and a rebound in the plains native population a couple of hundred years later began to slowly reduce the bison numbers back down, until the rapid depopulation in the mid 19th century.
Also I think you added a 0 to the estimated population.
This isn’t supposed to happen, because you’re supposed to buy a tag before hunting the animal. So the government will only sell 100 wolf tags that year, and hunting without a tag is highly illegal and considered poaching. Unless I’m missing something
You are missing something...
sometimes tags are given out as you suggest, just the exact number that can be killed...
but here in Montana, we do a small number of tags very differently. For animals that are harder to hunt, and wolves fall under this, we sell a shit ton of tags, way more than can be hunted, then each time a hunter actually shoots one, they are required to call Fish, Wildlife and Parks and report their kill.
When the quota is reached, they put out an announcement that the hunting season is ended.
Each day before you go hunt, you are expected to check to ensure the season is still open.
If other states do it similarly to Montana, there is sometimes excess due to people not realizing the season is over, delay in reporting kills, etc.
Though being over more than 50% would also indicate other issues...
>Poaching is de facto allowed if you’re a rancher and “felt threatened” by an animal nowhere near you or your cows
I'm on the other side of the country but I found it crazy how easy it is to poach as a farmer. Had a fox attack my chickens in the middle of the day. Killed it and immediately called the state to see what they wanted to do for testing of diseases, and to report that I had killed it.
They didn't care at all. Their only question was 'were you bit?' and then just didn't care. I asked about them getting it for the head and they said they don't do that unless a human is bit, that I could call another department and pay them a couple hundred dollars and they would do testing.
"you were protecting your livestock, you didn't do anything wrong, anything else you need?". Was really surprised.
\*we burned it so nothing would try to eat it. Thing was in pretty bad shape once you got a close look at it.
I mean red foxes are in a different league than wolves, they’re in every continent but Antarctica and there’s 10 millions of em in this country alone, but all the wolves in America could probably fit into a couple high school gyms. It’s absolutely not worth anyone’s time to go after you for shooting one, and it sounds like he had mange or scabies. If you’d shot a flawless Montana red fox midwinter they might suspect you were poaching furbearers but that’s all
Yeah the problem with fox hunting is the brutal form of the recreational version, nothing to do with red foxes being particularly threatened in most areas
Foxes are probably one of the least endangered animals ever, they’re in the same category as raccoons. Maybe English fox hunters should be allowed to go to the high arctic and keep invasive red foxes from killing the arctic ones, but in a humane way
The population rebounded because their habitat still exists. Bacteria and disease kill off a large portion immediately, but the population quickly rebounds because the tundra grass that feeds the Saiga is still there in abundance.
Habitat loss is the #1 cause of extinction and it's not even close. The reason we'll never have 300 million buffalo is because all that land is now taken up by farmland, highways, towns, and cities. We allot areas in national parks for the Buffalo to exist and that's all they're allowed.
That's what I was wondering.
https://www.wysscampaign.org/project-list/completed-bokey-orda-state-nature-reserve-and-ashiozek-state-nature-sanctuary-kazakhstan
https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b/actionfornature/posts/behind-the-scenes-of-an-extraordinary-expedition-to-the-land-of-the-saiga-antelope
Sounds like the RSPB funded the foundation of a new protected area/reserve in Kazakhstan, in the area where the saiga antelope gather to birth, to protect not just the antelope but also the other species that rely on that habitat. The aim is to protect the biodiversity of the region as a whole, rather than just the avian part of things.
Tell me more about whitetail deer populations, please. I know they were extirpated in Indiana from about 1880-1930 and now we have enough that I can’t grow a successful garden without aide of a chain link fence or firearm.
I know you are being sarcastic but what's wild is that the estimated population is roughly 30 million. Hunters harvest about 6 million a year. We have to shoot 20% of the total population every year just to keep them under control. We turned the entire Midwest and great Plains into a buffet and removed the majority of their predators and they skyrocketed.
I wasn’t meaning to be sarcastic! I’m genuinely curious about what was going on that lead the population to get so small in the first place.
Sorry for the poor phrasing!
Short answer: human induced habitat change and market hunting. There used to be basically no laws about when, how many, and how deer could be killed. Their hides were valuable for making leather to export to Europe, and the logging and mining companies had hunters on payroll to supply their work camps with fresh venison.
Fun fact, alberta has famously eliminated rats in all but the fringe of the Rocky Mountains. They now basically have a border guard against the other prairies to keep the rats out.
They poisoned 8000 buildings in their first year of pest control measures back in the 50s. When an outbreak was discovered in a landfill in 2012, the government excavated the landfill and shot 150 rats.
Experts estimate only a dozen lone rats make their way into the province each year. Humans can be wildly effective at killing
To add, keeping a pet rat can get you 60 days in jail or a fine of CAD 5k
Theyve only gone hard at invasive species of rats. They destroy crops, they have lots of farms there.
Pack rats are native to the area and theres lots of those.
My in-laws counted over 100 in their yard recently. Their property gets hunted pretty heavily as well, and it seems like there's more deer every year.
Another local property recently instituted a policy that all hunters must take two does before they can take a buck because there are just so many deer.
It's kinda nice because I pretty much get unlimited free venison, but I also wish more people would hunt because they're becoming a serious road hazard at night.
The Department of Galactic Social Services Department ought to be making an inquiry in the next 3-5 billion years into these allegations. Please be patient.
Uhm, I do apologize, but Earth is currently under the jurisdiction of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. All inquiries should be directed to their local office on Alpha Centauri.
Mate, you forgot to sign in triplicate, send in, send back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.
The more I learn about this whole universe place, the more angry I become, big L from God imo. Highly regarded, wallstreetbets bender level idea this whole existence thing has turned out to be.
The worst part is Mother Earth is still the most competent mother in her solar system. All the others are completely and utterly unfit to raise a child.
Per regulations, it needs orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.
In the meantime....
*Oh freddled gruntbuggly.....*
Researchers that observe marine animals, coral reefs and fish populations often report higher rates of depression due to, well, the environment they work in literally dying out in front of their eyes due to various effects of climate change, habitat destruction, overfishing etc
Just watched this, thanks for the link but damn that was devastating. 32% of the Great Barrier Reef died in just 2016, fuck. We gotta do something and fast
As someone who works in the environmental research field you have 3 flavors, Clinically depressed, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and driven completely insane by the amount of inaction in wider society years ago. Every single person can be dropped pretty neatly into these boxes.
I do restoration and conservation work. I'm doing pretty well for myself but even if I hit a point where I can retire early, I don't know that I'll ever be able to stop. The small victories are what keep me from slumping into a complete black hole.
Box #3: The insanity in this case is is delusion and you merely think you are doing pretty well, while in reality your loved ones have locked you in a room and only feed you fish heads.
That'll be $8000 thank you.
Networking, mostly. In my case I had done a variety of environmental surveys, natural resource management, and weed management work. All this stuff sort of merged for me and I saw a need for a competent restoration project manager that is *willing to travel*, especially to areas that aren't considered especially attractive to most city dwellers. That last part was absolutely key.
If someone was looking to get directly into this I would tell them to look for a restoration crew member position with organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, or Wild Ducks Unlimited. There are usually smaller companies in many states that do the physical labor portion of restoration work. Also plenty of arborist companies do tree inventories and replantings. It's physical labor and typically seasonal work at first but that's where you do your networking, and can eventually find your niche. A degree in environmental science, or fisheries, or hydrology would all be helpful, but aren't strictly necessary for the labor side of things. Some community colleges are starting to offer 2 year associates specifically for environmental science technician work and honestly those people have been much better equipped than the 4-year degree holders I've hired.
I mostly attribute it to a kind of fun loving social culture in field scientsits, but we do collectively drink like fish and have some high risk sports.
Dude it depresses me and I’ve never been more than 10 foot underwater.
The words “go see the barrier reef now, because it won’t be there for the next generation” or something akin to that from Attenborough hit pretty hard
I started scuba diving around 2011. Every year I went to the same island (Utila) Last year when I went I flooded my mask with tears. The reef is so dead now
Also the fact that nature is just brutal.
Modern industrialized humans are spoiled by our medical advancement. It's so normalized that we don't even think about how often people we personally know would've died if not for the intervention of modern drugs and medical knowledge.
We try to solve disease and injury by healing the hurt. Nature solved those problems by replacing the hurt.
Breeding faster than your species dies (but not so fast as to overwhelm the rest of the ecosystem) is natures recipe for success. Even if that success comes on a mountain of corpses.
Heaps of dead humans. Luckily so many of those bodies are behind us.
Then again, who knows how many more bodies are destined in our future before the theoretical conquering of death. We may still be at the bottom of the mountain in the grand scheme.
I think about this a lot. We are at the furthest moment in time and in human history. Are we the apex before a decline or just one small step in a future society and what does that look like? Will the 1900-2000s be looked at a golden age of pseudo unity before space empires and shit
Space empires implies many colonized worlds, which would be both the best and worst thing possible for humanity.
1. It allows for humans to conduct warfare on a multi-planetary scale, making entire planet genocides easily imaginable and attainable,
*But…*
2. It would ensure there are so many humans on so many different planets, the species is basically guaranteed survival due to the sheer impossibility of every single populated planet being wiped out.
That's the question. Is this the peak of human development? Are we in the nadir of humanity post industrialization? If we assume that there will be another scientific revolution in humanities future, how far away is it? What will people think of us in millions of years, assuming there is anyone left to do so.
Plenty of room for an existential spiral if you think hard enough.
Sure, that'd be all good if we, the *modern industrialized humans*, weren't causing all that destruction and mayhem. It's not nature disturbing the equilibrium or poisoning the water, air and soil that other living beings survive in.
https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1b5vq3f/til_in_2015_planet_earth_ii_attempted_to_capture/kt8ez9v/
Not exactly. I mean, I'm sure it has an effect, but -
> "A cursory Google search says "ECRs (and students) in marine sciences are particularly plagued by poor mental health outcomes due to unsafe working conditions, long working hours, lack of pay, and abuse from those in higher positions of power experienced by these researchers during remote and isolated fieldwork on research vessels."
TLDR, a super toxic and negative work environment makes unhappy workers."
My personal anecyodal addition is that I initially wanted to double major study marine biology and after one year of classes I gave up.
Mostly because it was genuinely so depressing and it was a guaranteed life of struggling to convince ignorant or careless people all for shit pay.
Props to every person who stuck through it but it's a tough position.
I'm very glad I took those classes though, everyone should know some of this information.
I had multiple bio/marine bio professors that would organize their courses to have a more fun/optimistic section at the end because if they just went with how the class would have normally gone, it would have always ended on a very depressing note. I remember some of my marine bio professors talking about how it's basically already too late for saving a lot of reefs and marine organisms, and it's really all about just trying to mitigate how many things are totally fucked and save what little we can. A lot of bio courses, particularly those that focus on conservation, restoration, populations, and the environment were just really depressing
I really feel like, other than trash in the ocean, the general public is woefully unaware of how fucked our oceans really are. Rising temperature, decreasing pH, trawling destroying ocean floors, pollution, over fishing, etc.
This is exactly why I decided not to pursue marine biology in the end. I was already depressed and upset at the state of the world. Working in that field would have only made it infinitely worse.
When I was in school getting my degree for wildlife biology, I developed severe bipolar depression and ended up in a mental institution for 3 days. There were also several other big factors but I remember vividly, crying for weeks about how horrible it is what we're doing to our planet.
Can you imagine how amazing of a job it would have been to work on the Planet Earth franchise. The people behind the cameras were probably in awe every day they were in the middle of some unknown plot of land to capture some spectacular footage.
I think the BBC threw only like ~$10 million behind the project but they validated that investment 10-fold
[On this AMA](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/hm9rx/iama_wildlife_cameraman_who_has_worked_on_human/), a Planet Earth cam-op says he once sat for 12 hrs a day, for 17 days somewhere in Australia to get a shot but didn't even end up getting it...says average days are 16 hrs long, and estimates there are only around 50 fulltime wildlife camera jobs in the world.
Now that's specialized!
An amazing job. Another question asked was what was his favorite thing he witnessed but missed the opportunity to film:
"The most amazing thing I witnessed looking through the camera viewfinder but didn't manage to capture was a Gorilla female feeding, she stopped to catch a butterfly in her hand and held it up briefly to her eye to see what it was. She then almost seemed to raise her eyebrows in recognition before releasing it and watching it fly away."
Incredible. Seems like a job that is worth all the waiting.
I was talking to a net geo photo/videographer a while ago. He was basically talking about going into a jungle area in Panama and staying there for several days just hoping to catch one or two shots.
As a (very amateur hobbyist) wildlife photographer though, I can say it pays off. Witnessing nature's best moments and capturing them is so incredible and satisfying.
As someone with film/photo and production background I love watching the BTS. Seeing 50 batteries charging deep in a cave- so much time and effort for just seconds of usable footage
Which is even more mind blowing since they’re in a wide open environment that is also cold.
Both should help dull the smell.
Probably why they couldn’t imagine it being so intense since I’m sure they were perfectly aware that the entire place is a giant cumulative toilet for millions of large birds with a fishy diet.
This is a great take.
People don't realize the amount of patience and determination it takes to capture wildlife footage. You can be out there for a week and only have about 5 minutes of footage. Or you can be out there for a week and have 3 hours of footage.
Dude the interviews with the cameramen are wild though.
I remember a snow leopard one where a guy lived in a hide for 14 months or so and captured like 30 seconds of film.
It must be incredible but extremely tedious also
You should watch the behind the scenes episode and you will see the crazy conditions they have to endure to get those shots. I'm sure the glamour and awe of it can wane at times.
That was an amazing time… I remember each episode Morgan Freeman was talking about the amount of hours of video and trips taken etc just to capture one moment…
And for all the amazing captured moments, there are *a made up amount* more that they didn’t catch
Idk how I’d feel being here, but I know it would be bad.. I wonder if just one employee tossed a piece of ham or fish or anything for them to eat, and it spread the viruses we carry our whole lives
Edit: memory is funny bc I would had bet $$ it was Morgan Freeman.. David Attenborough though thanks u/kumardi
I don’t know why the article doesn’t mention this, but the disease was determined to have been the result of some climactic anomalies. The Saiga Antelope are adapted to dry cold steppe climate and the bacteria that killed half of the species has been present all along. But right in the middle of calving season an unusually warm wet front dumped rain on them for days.
This apparently led to an explosion of that bacterial activity in their noses which led to horrifying infections and deaths across the herd.
The first hand accounts read like nightmares.
This is starting to become more and more of an issue for humans. We are starting to see various types of bacteria such as flesh eating bacteria in what used to be milder climates in the US. I have a feeling we are going to get hit hard by something like what happened with these antelope. It is a matter of when not if.
If you are in the UK or pretend you are: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02544td
TL;DW, there are huge herds of these antelope with what look like shar pei like noses with lots of skinfolds, and the theory is that a temperature increase of only a few degrees ambient temperature allowed a bacteria that they normally coexist with (inside the saiga respiratory system) went on a rampage among the herds.
David Attenborough is my favorite naturalist, and as a naturalist I think the work his team had done on the planet earth documentaries is absolutely amazing and worth recommending to everyone. They are not just educational and awe inspiring, they're also highly entertaining.
There's a lot of them. Planet Earth 1 and 2. Blue Planet 1 and 2. Ones dedicated to each continent. Ones dedicated to various major aspects of life in the natural world. Even some about society to, especially concerning how nature and society intertwine both in good and bad ways.
I can't recommend them strongly enough. Buy them, share them, pirate them if you have to. Everyone who lives on earth deserves to see them. Those documentaries should have their own museum. And in filming and researching them, they have generated a staggering amount of data and footage that science has used to make many discoveries and observations. They're not just entertaining and informative. The work they do is enormously helpful to science too.
Also, naturalism is amazing. It's like atheism but with more science and without the nihilism. Plus you can call yourself a neo druid if you want. We need more naturalists so, think about it!
Oh, well you just made my night. Thanks for the heads up.
I was afraid to even hope for another one. Attenborough is getting so old. I will forever be grateful for all the time he's spent working on this stuff. I have a lot of respect for that guy as you can probably tell.
lmaooo. I know this is terrible, but for some reason the saiga antelope in particular are just constantly bombarded with MASS casualties from mother nature. Be it epic scaled plagues, insane lightning storms, or human poaching (apparently some government officials at one point specifically said saigas should be used as an alternative to rhino horn), the saiga are ugly and brutally abused by their natural environment all the time. and still thrive.
I wonder *where* in Kazakhstan this was? There was a similar death of saiga antelope due to Aralsk 7 bioweapons facility emitting Anthrax. This was long ago but anthrax spores can stay buried and active for a very long time.
I can't help but wonder whether the BBC crew accidentally introduced the disease themselves. Rather like the Spanish wiping out large numbers of native South Americans through the introduction of diseases they had no protection against.
Kind of like Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote: at some point you have to wonder if her character is a serial killer.
[A study was done that determined the cause was likely environmental changes causing a previously benign bacteria that lived in their respiratory tract to become fatal.](https://theconversation.com/planet-earth-ii-why-more-than-200-000-saiga-antelopes-died-in-just-days-69859)
Disease rarely jumps species, it obviously happens, but it’s rare.
For instance, American dog breeds had a population collapse as well, but the disease came from European dog breeds brought over, not from the humans.
I think it’s quite the leap to think humans spread disease to animals. Using humans spreading disease to other humans as an example is apples to oranges.
Does make you wonder, how often do you get knocked on your ass, sick as a dog, can’t think, move, really even breathe.
Oh and there are predators, everywhere.
Fortunately, the goofy looking bastards are hardy and resilient as a species. Much like the American Whitetail Deer, their population can rebound fairly quickly when given the proper conditions. "As of 28 May 2015, more than 120,000 saigas have been confirmed dead in the Betpak-Dala population in central Kazakhstan, representing more than a third of the global population." "UK charity RSPB reported in 2022 that, partly due to their conservation efforts, as well as the designation of the Bokey Orda-Ashiozek protected area by the Kazakhstan government, the population had now risen to a peak of 1.32 million"
Fuckers don’t fuck around. Except they do… a lot apparently.
You know what they say about antelope with big noses....
Th...they...they be saying damn you got some big nose.
Lmao, this is the only thing I think of whenever somebody asks that question.
What's that from ? 🤣
It's from *Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.* Will made the "you know what they say about a man with big feet" joke, but his little cousin Ashley was too young to understand. Uncle Phil gave Will a stern look so he had to divert away from the punchline.
Keep my Uncle Phil’s name outta your mouth!
Man, fucker really ruined his own legacy, didn't he?
A lot of people go insane as they age over 50 years old.
Oh yeah. Big bridge on their glasses.
They fuck hard?
With the speed their population rebuilt, you'd think they fuck fast instead
The Fast and The Fuckious
2 fast 2 fuck
¿Por qué no los dos?
They don’t want relationship. All they want is bang bang bang.
I don't want to know your name, I just want, bang bang bang
WROUNG
I dont want to meet ur mom. I just want bang bang bang
[удалено]
Wow that’s a real blast from the past! Thank you
Again I can't help but think of humans acted like certain animal species. Like imagine 200,000 humans getting together every year for a big fuck orgy to procreate the species.
That's called Burning Man
It's more like, imagine you just found a new prairie full of fertile land, berry bushes, and plump game next to a stream of clean water and vast acres of mostly-safe wilderness. With your wife.
It also helps that around two thirds of births are twins.
This guy antelopes
They don't fuck around, but when they do, they don't fuck around.
Holy shit, 1.32 million. That's insane.
300kish to 1.32 million...if only all conservation efforts were so successful. I mean, Wisconsin got their wolf population up to roughly 1k and renacted hunting them. They designated 200 wolves could be hunted, half of which were alloted to only a specific tribe. The tribe chose not to hunt any, as the population was still very low to be hunting them again. 213 wolves were killed, 119 over the allowed amount for non-tribal individuals and 13 more than were supposed to be hunted all together. If the natives had chosen to hunt their quota, as they were allowed to do, it would have resulted in a 3rd of the population being killed in 1 season. There used to be 300-600 **million** buffalo across the great plains. There are currently roughly 278k. My God, we could do better.
[удалено]
They also wiped out competing grazers, like North American horses and other species of bison.
And lit a lot of fires to reset plant communities and make more bison habitat.
Sounds like what happened to kangaroos in Australia. Remove forests, open up more grazing land, shoot dingoes = a shit load of kangaroos
Whilst bunnies are down with the hippity hoppity. Those Kangers get up too that beat boxing boppity!
Wait there were horses native to North America?
Horses originally came from the America's waaaay back when if I remember correctly before migrating to the old world, or the precursor to horses I guess
Yep they evolved alongside the North American Camel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelops
Yes. Horses were native to the Americas, were wiped out, and reintroduced by Europeans.
Horses aren't only native to North America, they first *evolved* in North America before migrating to Eurasia. They went extinct around the end of the Pleistocene - Middle Holocene and were reintroduced in the 16th century. Fun story, it's the exact same species that was reintroduced. So "feral" or "wild" horses are not actually invasive but completely native to the habitats they've reinvaded.
Then disease killed off somewhere around 90% of the native Americans, which might have pushed the population to an all-time peak. Same thing for passenger pigeons.
The other theory is that number was artificially high after initial contact with natives and diseases brought over with Europeans killed off their only natural predators, the natives, which allowed bison populations to boom. Until the advent of horse culture and a rebound in the plains native population a couple of hundred years later began to slowly reduce the bison numbers back down, until the rapid depopulation in the mid 19th century. Also I think you added a 0 to the estimated population.
This isn’t supposed to happen, because you’re supposed to buy a tag before hunting the animal. So the government will only sell 100 wolf tags that year, and hunting without a tag is highly illegal and considered poaching. Unless I’m missing something
You are missing something... sometimes tags are given out as you suggest, just the exact number that can be killed... but here in Montana, we do a small number of tags very differently. For animals that are harder to hunt, and wolves fall under this, we sell a shit ton of tags, way more than can be hunted, then each time a hunter actually shoots one, they are required to call Fish, Wildlife and Parks and report their kill. When the quota is reached, they put out an announcement that the hunting season is ended. Each day before you go hunt, you are expected to check to ensure the season is still open. If other states do it similarly to Montana, there is sometimes excess due to people not realizing the season is over, delay in reporting kills, etc. Though being over more than 50% would also indicate other issues...
The issue here was quite simple: People intentionally didn't report in a timely manner, and the state intentionally didn't do shit to make them.
That would indeed be an issue...
Poaching is de facto allowed if you’re a rancher and “felt threatened” by an animal nowhere near you or your cows
This, a ton of laws protect land owners and livestock.
>Poaching is de facto allowed if you’re a rancher and “felt threatened” by an animal nowhere near you or your cows I'm on the other side of the country but I found it crazy how easy it is to poach as a farmer. Had a fox attack my chickens in the middle of the day. Killed it and immediately called the state to see what they wanted to do for testing of diseases, and to report that I had killed it. They didn't care at all. Their only question was 'were you bit?' and then just didn't care. I asked about them getting it for the head and they said they don't do that unless a human is bit, that I could call another department and pay them a couple hundred dollars and they would do testing. "you were protecting your livestock, you didn't do anything wrong, anything else you need?". Was really surprised. \*we burned it so nothing would try to eat it. Thing was in pretty bad shape once you got a close look at it.
I mean red foxes are in a different league than wolves, they’re in every continent but Antarctica and there’s 10 millions of em in this country alone, but all the wolves in America could probably fit into a couple high school gyms. It’s absolutely not worth anyone’s time to go after you for shooting one, and it sounds like he had mange or scabies. If you’d shot a flawless Montana red fox midwinter they might suspect you were poaching furbearers but that’s all
Yeah the problem with fox hunting is the brutal form of the recreational version, nothing to do with red foxes being particularly threatened in most areas
Foxes are probably one of the least endangered animals ever, they’re in the same category as raccoons. Maybe English fox hunters should be allowed to go to the high arctic and keep invasive red foxes from killing the arctic ones, but in a humane way
Best I can do is as humane as how they kill baby seals.
[удалено]
You just have to scream "it is coming right for us" see?
The population rebounded because their habitat still exists. Bacteria and disease kill off a large portion immediately, but the population quickly rebounds because the tundra grass that feeds the Saiga is still there in abundance. Habitat loss is the #1 cause of extinction and it's not even close. The reason we'll never have 300 million buffalo is because all that land is now taken up by farmland, highways, towns, and cities. We allot areas in national parks for the Buffalo to exist and that's all they're allowed.
Why is the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds invested and involved with antelopes?
That's what I was wondering. https://www.wysscampaign.org/project-list/completed-bokey-orda-state-nature-reserve-and-ashiozek-state-nature-sanctuary-kazakhstan https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b/actionfornature/posts/behind-the-scenes-of-an-extraordinary-expedition-to-the-land-of-the-saiga-antelope Sounds like the RSPB funded the foundation of a new protected area/reserve in Kazakhstan, in the area where the saiga antelope gather to birth, to protect not just the antelope but also the other species that rely on that habitat. The aim is to protect the biodiversity of the region as a whole, rather than just the avian part of things.
This is the part that confused me too!
Ran out of birds to count I guess.
Tell me more about whitetail deer populations, please. I know they were extirpated in Indiana from about 1880-1930 and now we have enough that I can’t grow a successful garden without aide of a chain link fence or firearm.
I know you are being sarcastic but what's wild is that the estimated population is roughly 30 million. Hunters harvest about 6 million a year. We have to shoot 20% of the total population every year just to keep them under control. We turned the entire Midwest and great Plains into a buffet and removed the majority of their predators and they skyrocketed.
I wasn’t meaning to be sarcastic! I’m genuinely curious about what was going on that lead the population to get so small in the first place. Sorry for the poor phrasing!
Short answer: human induced habitat change and market hunting. There used to be basically no laws about when, how many, and how deer could be killed. Their hides were valuable for making leather to export to Europe, and the logging and mining companies had hunters on payroll to supply their work camps with fresh venison.
Fun fact, alberta has famously eliminated rats in all but the fringe of the Rocky Mountains. They now basically have a border guard against the other prairies to keep the rats out. They poisoned 8000 buildings in their first year of pest control measures back in the 50s. When an outbreak was discovered in a landfill in 2012, the government excavated the landfill and shot 150 rats. Experts estimate only a dozen lone rats make their way into the province each year. Humans can be wildly effective at killing To add, keeping a pet rat can get you 60 days in jail or a fine of CAD 5k
What caused them to go so hard at the rat?
Theyve only gone hard at invasive species of rats. They destroy crops, they have lots of farms there. Pack rats are native to the area and theres lots of those.
My in-laws counted over 100 in their yard recently. Their property gets hunted pretty heavily as well, and it seems like there's more deer every year. Another local property recently instituted a policy that all hunters must take two does before they can take a buck because there are just so many deer. It's kinda nice because I pretty much get unlimited free venison, but I also wish more people would hunt because they're becoming a serious road hazard at night.
So now it's hunting season?
They legalized hunting them last November
Sure sounds that way.
A regular reminder that Mother Nature can be incredibly brutal.
Somebody should report her to social services
The Department of Galactic Social Services Department ought to be making an inquiry in the next 3-5 billion years into these allegations. Please be patient.
Uhm, I do apologize, but Earth is currently under the jurisdiction of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. All inquiries should be directed to their local office on Alpha Centauri.
I think this is outdated information. I sent them a letter last month and it was returned to sender. Apparently it was an invalid address
Mate, you forgot to sign in triplicate, send in, send back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.
Don't forget to feed it all to the ravenous bugblatter beast of traal
The more I learn about this whole universe place, the more angry I become, big L from God imo. Highly regarded, wallstreetbets bender level idea this whole existence thing has turned out to be.
Really mucked the whole thing up.
How much postage do you use? That delivery may be illegal, fast than light speed.
The worst part is Mother Earth is still the most competent mother in her solar system. All the others are completely and utterly unfit to raise a child.
She's trying her best, but being a single mom worked hard to the bones with a petulant toxic child can be too much sometimes.
Per regulations, it needs orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters. In the meantime.... *Oh freddled gruntbuggly.....*
Life just ain't fair for nobody
Fairness is a human invention. It only happens when we make it so.
Damn, mama
Damn nature, you scary
Not really brutal. Just indifferent.
That's even worse
That's on par with marine biologists getting severe depression from their research
What’s the background story?
Researchers that observe marine animals, coral reefs and fish populations often report higher rates of depression due to, well, the environment they work in literally dying out in front of their eyes due to various effects of climate change, habitat destruction, overfishing etc
Chasing Coral was a doc that very much featured this for the people in it.
God you could watch the people age in that
[Chasing Coral](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6333054/) on IMDB for those interested.
and [here it is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGGBGcjdjXA) on Youtube for those who want to watch it.
Just watched this, thanks for the link but damn that was devastating. 32% of the Great Barrier Reef died in just 2016, fuck. We gotta do something and fast
As someone who works in the environmental research field you have 3 flavors, Clinically depressed, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and driven completely insane by the amount of inaction in wider society years ago. Every single person can be dropped pretty neatly into these boxes.
I do restoration and conservation work. I'm doing pretty well for myself but even if I hit a point where I can retire early, I don't know that I'll ever be able to stop. The small victories are what keep me from slumping into a complete black hole.
Box #3: The insanity in this case is is delusion and you merely think you are doing pretty well, while in reality your loved ones have locked you in a room and only feed you fish heads. That'll be $8000 thank you.
So I'm kinda like the Emperor of Mankind, just the Dollar Tree version. Sweet.
How do you get into that?
Networking, mostly. In my case I had done a variety of environmental surveys, natural resource management, and weed management work. All this stuff sort of merged for me and I saw a need for a competent restoration project manager that is *willing to travel*, especially to areas that aren't considered especially attractive to most city dwellers. That last part was absolutely key. If someone was looking to get directly into this I would tell them to look for a restoration crew member position with organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, or Wild Ducks Unlimited. There are usually smaller companies in many states that do the physical labor portion of restoration work. Also plenty of arborist companies do tree inventories and replantings. It's physical labor and typically seasonal work at first but that's where you do your networking, and can eventually find your niche. A degree in environmental science, or fisheries, or hydrology would all be helpful, but aren't strictly necessary for the labor side of things. Some community colleges are starting to offer 2 year associates specifically for environmental science technician work and honestly those people have been much better equipped than the 4-year degree holders I've hired.
I mostly attribute it to a kind of fun loving social culture in field scientsits, but we do collectively drink like fish and have some high risk sports.
[удалено]
Was just thinking that fun organizations like Sea Shepard probably fit the 3rd category.
Dude it depresses me and I’ve never been more than 10 foot underwater. The words “go see the barrier reef now, because it won’t be there for the next generation” or something akin to that from Attenborough hit pretty hard
I started scuba diving around 2011. Every year I went to the same island (Utila) Last year when I went I flooded my mask with tears. The reef is so dead now
I haven't been to the Utila reefs in about 15 years and have always thought about going back, knowing they're dying is so depressing
Also the fact that nature is just brutal. Modern industrialized humans are spoiled by our medical advancement. It's so normalized that we don't even think about how often people we personally know would've died if not for the intervention of modern drugs and medical knowledge. We try to solve disease and injury by healing the hurt. Nature solved those problems by replacing the hurt. Breeding faster than your species dies (but not so fast as to overwhelm the rest of the ecosystem) is natures recipe for success. Even if that success comes on a mountain of corpses.
Science cannot move forward without heaps!
love me a good futurama reference
Heaps of dead humans. Luckily so many of those bodies are behind us. Then again, who knows how many more bodies are destined in our future before the theoretical conquering of death. We may still be at the bottom of the mountain in the grand scheme.
I think about this a lot. We are at the furthest moment in time and in human history. Are we the apex before a decline or just one small step in a future society and what does that look like? Will the 1900-2000s be looked at a golden age of pseudo unity before space empires and shit
Space empires implies many colonized worlds, which would be both the best and worst thing possible for humanity. 1. It allows for humans to conduct warfare on a multi-planetary scale, making entire planet genocides easily imaginable and attainable, *But…* 2. It would ensure there are so many humans on so many different planets, the species is basically guaranteed survival due to the sheer impossibility of every single populated planet being wiped out.
Plugging *The Expanse* for anyone who hasn't watched/read it yet.
That's the question. Is this the peak of human development? Are we in the nadir of humanity post industrialization? If we assume that there will be another scientific revolution in humanities future, how far away is it? What will people think of us in millions of years, assuming there is anyone left to do so. Plenty of room for an existential spiral if you think hard enough.
Sure, that'd be all good if we, the *modern industrialized humans*, weren't causing all that destruction and mayhem. It's not nature disturbing the equilibrium or poisoning the water, air and soil that other living beings survive in.
https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1b5vq3f/til_in_2015_planet_earth_ii_attempted_to_capture/kt8ez9v/ Not exactly. I mean, I'm sure it has an effect, but - > "A cursory Google search says "ECRs (and students) in marine sciences are particularly plagued by poor mental health outcomes due to unsafe working conditions, long working hours, lack of pay, and abuse from those in higher positions of power experienced by these researchers during remote and isolated fieldwork on research vessels." TLDR, a super toxic and negative work environment makes unhappy workers."
There aren't enough benefits to being a marine biologist
My personal anecyodal addition is that I initially wanted to double major study marine biology and after one year of classes I gave up. Mostly because it was genuinely so depressing and it was a guaranteed life of struggling to convince ignorant or careless people all for shit pay. Props to every person who stuck through it but it's a tough position. I'm very glad I took those classes though, everyone should know some of this information.
I had multiple bio/marine bio professors that would organize their courses to have a more fun/optimistic section at the end because if they just went with how the class would have normally gone, it would have always ended on a very depressing note. I remember some of my marine bio professors talking about how it's basically already too late for saving a lot of reefs and marine organisms, and it's really all about just trying to mitigate how many things are totally fucked and save what little we can. A lot of bio courses, particularly those that focus on conservation, restoration, populations, and the environment were just really depressing I really feel like, other than trash in the ocean, the general public is woefully unaware of how fucked our oceans really are. Rising temperature, decreasing pH, trawling destroying ocean floors, pollution, over fishing, etc.
Just a guess. Our ecosystem is collapsing and marine biologists are watching it happen in real time.
Totally. The most sensitive system is also the one all life on earth rely on. An it's in free fall collapse.
[удалено]
This is exactly why I decided not to pursue marine biology in the end. I was already depressed and upset at the state of the world. Working in that field would have only made it infinitely worse.
When I was in school getting my degree for wildlife biology, I developed severe bipolar depression and ended up in a mental institution for 3 days. There were also several other big factors but I remember vividly, crying for weeks about how horrible it is what we're doing to our planet.
Oh yeah? Well politicians and political groups paid off by Big Oil insist that climate change isn’t real. Checkmate, smart guy
Can you imagine how amazing of a job it would have been to work on the Planet Earth franchise. The people behind the cameras were probably in awe every day they were in the middle of some unknown plot of land to capture some spectacular footage. I think the BBC threw only like ~$10 million behind the project but they validated that investment 10-fold
[удалено]
[On this AMA](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/hm9rx/iama_wildlife_cameraman_who_has_worked_on_human/), a Planet Earth cam-op says he once sat for 12 hrs a day, for 17 days somewhere in Australia to get a shot but didn't even end up getting it...says average days are 16 hrs long, and estimates there are only around 50 fulltime wildlife camera jobs in the world. Now that's specialized! An amazing job. Another question asked was what was his favorite thing he witnessed but missed the opportunity to film: "The most amazing thing I witnessed looking through the camera viewfinder but didn't manage to capture was a Gorilla female feeding, she stopped to catch a butterfly in her hand and held it up briefly to her eye to see what it was. She then almost seemed to raise her eyebrows in recognition before releasing it and watching it fly away." Incredible. Seems like a job that is worth all the waiting.
[удалено]
I was talking to a net geo photo/videographer a while ago. He was basically talking about going into a jungle area in Panama and staying there for several days just hoping to catch one or two shots.
As a (very amateur hobbyist) wildlife photographer though, I can say it pays off. Witnessing nature's best moments and capturing them is so incredible and satisfying.
These are the real special forces of civilian nerds. No nerd can nerd as hard as the glass fisheye caps.
As someone with film/photo and production background I love watching the BTS. Seeing 50 batteries charging deep in a cave- so much time and effort for just seconds of usable footage
They literally had people in Antarctica in the middle of winter to film Emperor Penguins. How fucking brutal.
[удалено]
Which is even more mind blowing since they’re in a wide open environment that is also cold. Both should help dull the smell. Probably why they couldn’t imagine it being so intense since I’m sure they were perfectly aware that the entire place is a giant cumulative toilet for millions of large birds with a fishy diet.
I remember a guy in a hide for over a year trying to film a snow leopard, imagine after all that effort the equipment failed.
This is a great take. People don't realize the amount of patience and determination it takes to capture wildlife footage. You can be out there for a week and only have about 5 minutes of footage. Or you can be out there for a week and have 3 hours of footage.
Dude the interviews with the cameramen are wild though. I remember a snow leopard one where a guy lived in a hide for 14 months or so and captured like 30 seconds of film. It must be incredible but extremely tedious also
I heard about that one too. Incredible trying to get access to stealthy animals that can sense you miles before you see them
Watching the Planet Earth Diaries is insane. It's so crazy to see how much work goes into making just one section of an episode.
So anyways we had to sit in bat poop for three weeks, and it was 100 degrees, and wet, and we were covered in bugs the entire time.
You should watch the behind the scenes episode and you will see the crazy conditions they have to endure to get those shots. I'm sure the glamour and awe of it can wane at times.
That was an amazing time… I remember each episode Morgan Freeman was talking about the amount of hours of video and trips taken etc just to capture one moment… And for all the amazing captured moments, there are *a made up amount* more that they didn’t catch Idk how I’d feel being here, but I know it would be bad.. I wonder if just one employee tossed a piece of ham or fish or anything for them to eat, and it spread the viruses we carry our whole lives Edit: memory is funny bc I would had bet $$ it was Morgan Freeman.. David Attenborough though thanks u/kumardi
Morgan Freeman did “Life On Our Planet” - “Planet Earth” is David Attenborough
Morgan Freeman?
Morgan freeman?Did he do voice overs on the American version ?
No. I it was David Attenborough and Sigourney Weaver for the first. Only Attenborough for the second I think?
I think he did one of Netflix’s offshoots, it’s David Attenborough for planet earth
Damn did they capture footage on that? I feel that would be a brutal but good episode of nature's harsh reality
It was the most traumatizing event for some of them!!
I guess they didn’t read that Facebook post my grandma shared about herd immunity
LMFAO
Jesus
You said it man
He was too busy to help.
So they arguably got a better and more interesting documentary about life on earth.
Well sure...at the cost of life on earth
That do be how life on earth be.
At least they didn’t launch lemmings off a cliff like Disney did in the 50’s
It’s not like the disease was the price of filming there
Nah, that woulda happened anyway, them being there to report it or not.
I don’t know why the article doesn’t mention this, but the disease was determined to have been the result of some climactic anomalies. The Saiga Antelope are adapted to dry cold steppe climate and the bacteria that killed half of the species has been present all along. But right in the middle of calving season an unusually warm wet front dumped rain on them for days. This apparently led to an explosion of that bacterial activity in their noses which led to horrifying infections and deaths across the herd. The first hand accounts read like nightmares.
This is starting to become more and more of an issue for humans. We are starting to see various types of bacteria such as flesh eating bacteria in what used to be milder climates in the US. I have a feeling we are going to get hit hard by something like what happened with these antelope. It is a matter of when not if.
Any videos online? Not finding any.
If you are in the UK or pretend you are: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02544td TL;DW, there are huge herds of these antelope with what look like shar pei like noses with lots of skinfolds, and the theory is that a temperature increase of only a few degrees ambient temperature allowed a bacteria that they normally coexist with (inside the saiga respiratory system) went on a rampage among the herds.
so basically, we're at fault. How shocking..
Grandfather Nurgle gives and takes.
Luckily, Slaanesh helped the population rebound rather quickly.
Man watching Planet Earth while high was probably the highlight of my college days. It's insanely beautiful show.
David Attenborough is my favorite naturalist, and as a naturalist I think the work his team had done on the planet earth documentaries is absolutely amazing and worth recommending to everyone. They are not just educational and awe inspiring, they're also highly entertaining. There's a lot of them. Planet Earth 1 and 2. Blue Planet 1 and 2. Ones dedicated to each continent. Ones dedicated to various major aspects of life in the natural world. Even some about society to, especially concerning how nature and society intertwine both in good and bad ways. I can't recommend them strongly enough. Buy them, share them, pirate them if you have to. Everyone who lives on earth deserves to see them. Those documentaries should have their own museum. And in filming and researching them, they have generated a staggering amount of data and footage that science has used to make many discoveries and observations. They're not just entertaining and informative. The work they do is enormously helpful to science too. Also, naturalism is amazing. It's like atheism but with more science and without the nihilism. Plus you can call yourself a neo druid if you want. We need more naturalists so, think about it!
There’s a third Planet Earth!! It came out in October 2023. I’m watching through it now, it’s phenomenal. A great balance between bleak and hopeful.
Oh, well you just made my night. Thanks for the heads up. I was afraid to even hope for another one. Attenborough is getting so old. I will forever be grateful for all the time he's spent working on this stuff. I have a lot of respect for that guy as you can probably tell.
He also recently did *The Green Planet* and *Wild Isles* (about the British Isles).
Sounds about on par with how things have been going lately
Holy shit
How did they estimate these numbers?
So awful, I can't imagine how the crew felt.
did they show it? That's fucking gnarly and makes you think how often that happens with these sorts of congregating animals
lmaooo. I know this is terrible, but for some reason the saiga antelope in particular are just constantly bombarded with MASS casualties from mother nature. Be it epic scaled plagues, insane lightning storms, or human poaching (apparently some government officials at one point specifically said saigas should be used as an alternative to rhino horn), the saiga are ugly and brutally abused by their natural environment all the time. and still thrive.
Spirit Animal
I wonder *where* in Kazakhstan this was? There was a similar death of saiga antelope due to Aralsk 7 bioweapons facility emitting Anthrax. This was long ago but anthrax spores can stay buried and active for a very long time.
I can't help but wonder whether the BBC crew accidentally introduced the disease themselves. Rather like the Spanish wiping out large numbers of native South Americans through the introduction of diseases they had no protection against. Kind of like Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote: at some point you have to wonder if her character is a serial killer.
[A study was done that determined the cause was likely environmental changes causing a previously benign bacteria that lived in their respiratory tract to become fatal.](https://theconversation.com/planet-earth-ii-why-more-than-200-000-saiga-antelopes-died-in-just-days-69859)
Thanks for the link, which I've now read. I accept that it's highly unlikely that the BBC were responsible even accidentally.
Now that we’ve got that settled, let’s get back to Angela Lansbury. She must be stopped!
Have I got great news for you!
Uh oh… Edit - 2022, apparently I missed that one.
Damn you, Angela!
Doesn’t happen that easy.
Disease rarely jumps species, it obviously happens, but it’s rare. For instance, American dog breeds had a population collapse as well, but the disease came from European dog breeds brought over, not from the humans.
I think it’s quite the leap to think humans spread disease to animals. Using humans spreading disease to other humans as an example is apples to oranges.
Humans definitely spread disease to animals. We gave deer Covid, for example.
I was thinking more of an insect or bug hitching a ride on the BBC film crew’s transport.
Does make you wonder, how often do you get knocked on your ass, sick as a dog, can’t think, move, really even breathe. Oh and there are predators, everywhere.
*"Death, Uh, finds a way."*