# How do we live with wild animals?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Or more precisely, how do they live with us? More and more, we're encroaching on the habitats of animals that are happy to kill and eat us. Just today a mountain lion killed one mountain biker and injured another in Washington state. This is a case very similar to a recent death here, just a few miles from my home in Southern California. And it seems like I'm seeing a bear attack story every couple of days.

It's pretty much always the case that a wild animal that attacks humans is hunted down and killed. But in some cases there aren't that many left! Almost every mountain lion in SoCal is already identified and tagged. Pretty soon there won't be any left at all, while the human population continues to grow by leaps and bounds.

Will our grandchildren live in a world without these animals? What's to be done?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44186998


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I shed a little tear every time I hear about a wild animal being shot. Cougars and bears are shot frequently here in British Columbia. We're encroaching on their land, and the animal gets shot. We humans think we have dominion over the entire planet. If we keep removing species from the web of life, eventually the whole thing will fall apart, perhaps it already is. Wouldn't we feel threatened if there were 7 billion cougars?

How do we live with wild animals, I don't know. But it's their land only. And maybe it's not land that can be claimed? 
Remember the line from Crocodile Dundee? Regarding humans claiming land - it's like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog.

We humans have a lot to answer for. The cougar was in his territory, humans went onto his territory.


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

*cries, 

I would say that humans get hunted. (there are far too many of them.) Destroying the natural envionments and such. LONG LIVE THE FORESTS! LONG LIVE NATURE! 

*cries, there isn't much left of it... humans will end up having a world wide easter island thing happen... but worse, earth's atmosphere will be similar to venus's, and the ground would be similar to mars. (isn't there water on mars?)

Sadly, humans are increasing and animals are decreasing... which in turn increases cattle, pigs, turkeys, and chickens which are modified to produce and grow at an absurd rate in time, so humans can eat their meat. 

These cute little animals are only attacking because humans have invaded their territory! and even humans know how to react when someone invades their territory. IT IS THE SAME! 

sadly though... humans think of animals as a lesser species... NO! humans are a young species only a dozen thousand years old... or so... 
which the other animals have survived a lot longer... 

people who are inclined to have fish a lot are dwindling the sea live... soon we will be with out any fish... 

i miss the days when there were less than a billion humans world wide... Birds would trust me enough to flutter on over and land on my finger. Bears would simply walk around where if you were in their territory or decided to try to steal their children... they would attack you. 

Mountain Lions were the same. But some of them are much like the warrior who just finished a battle and hasn't had time to cool down. 

Cougers... sadly have been made into a human form... (which could be a conspiracy in and of it's self... which follows along the lines of the OP.) 

*cries, i request that humans hunt humans. because humans are the same as animals to me. but i am just a humble goddess who has lived a long time... what do i know?


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

senza sordino said:


> I shed a little tear every time I hear about a wild animal being shot. Cougars and bears are shot frequently here in British Columbia. We're encroaching on their land, and the animal gets shot. We humans think we have dominion over the entire planet. If we keep removing species from the web of life, eventually the whole thing will fall apart, perhaps it already is. Wouldn't we feel threatened if there were 7 billion cougars?
> 
> How do we live with wild animals, I don't know. But it's their land only. And maybe it's not land that can be claimed?
> Remember the line from Crocodile Dundee? Regarding humans claiming land - it's like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog.
> ...


yeah, yours is more kind than mine. :3


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## Guest (May 20, 2018)

The sixth great extinction is underway, essentially due to the activities of Homo Sapiens. Somewhere down the road, as the biosphere is denuded, polluted and destroyed, the bald great ape will be extinct too. Encroachment of habitats of other species is just one example of our ignorant psychological disconnection from the rest of nature. Oceanic acidification, global warming, air pollution, ground pollution, human over-population, over-consumption....take your pick.

What's to be done? 
Too late to ask that question.


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## Guest (May 20, 2018)

It is fine for the odd adventurer to get killed by a wild animal now and again if he is aware of the risks before he sets out. Most activities carry a risk of some sort, I don't think that we should seek to eliminate risk no matter what the price.

If we are going to be consistent with wild animal slaughter perhaps every time a motorist kills a ped we should kill the motorist. There is much more danger to us from motorists than there is from wild animals and we have much less choice about exposing ourselves to the danger of the former.


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

Tulse said:


> It is fine for the odd adventurer to get killed by a wild animal now and again if he is aware of the risks before he sets out. Most activities carry a risk of some sort, I don't think that we should seek to eliminate risk no matter what the price.
> 
> If we are going to be consistent with wild animal slaughter perhaps every time a motorist kills a ped we should kill the motorist. There is much more danger to us from motorists than there is from wild animals and we have much less choice about exposing ourselves to the danger of the former.


exactly my point.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Actually there are things that could/should be done. One would be to reinvigorate discussion of the metastatic growth of human populations. Back in the 1960s, people such as Paul Ehrlich and Garrett Hardin made and kept that issue front and center. Today, stories of habitat loss, climate change, mass extinctions of wildlife, and recurring famine abound, but there is no contextual discussion of the role of metastatic population growth--it is almost a forbidden topic. The world population has more than tripled in my lifetime. When this is conjoined with massive increases in materials consumption and the production of vastly more pollutants, the results are becoming catastrophic.

A second front would be a frontal attack on factors denying women full equality and full freedom to privately, secretly limit their fertility. These two things can be done, and would be done in a rational world. Whether they will be done has come up in discussions about whether any sentient beings evolving on any planet can break through this crisis point and survive along with a biologically rich environment, or whether all universally fail to transition to full maturity and go into extinction.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

enter the anthropocene

250 babies born each minute and the world's population projected to reach 11 billion by 2100. Where will we all fit? I don't know, but there is no more room for cougars or rhinos or elephants.


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

Clearly the solution here is to build a wall separating the humans from the wild animals. The wild animals should have to pay for this wall. 



Strange Magic said:


> Actually there are things that could/should be done. One would be to reinvigorate discussion of the metastatic growth of human populations.


Wild animals don't buy classical CDs or concert tickets. Humans do. Well, some of them do at least. What's the problem here then? More humans means more opportunities to expand the classical music industrial complex.


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## Guest (May 20, 2018)

I'm currently reading Sapiens by YV Harari. Coincidental to this thread's creation, Harai is detailing the movement and expansion of H.Sapiens around the globe out from Africa. What happened on each landmass once it became colonised by Sapiens? In a few thousand years the megafauna were driven into extinction. It's what we do.


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

dogen said:


> I'm currently reading Sapiens by YV Harari. Coincidental to this thread's creation, Harai is detailing the movement and expansion of H.Sapiens around the globe out from Africa. What happened on each landmass once it became colonised by Sapiens? In a few thousand years the megafauna were driven into extinction. It's what we do.


We do seem to be giving the fish more water though. It won't help the mountain lions, bears, or humans, but maybe some species will win out by being able to swim in Florida, Texas, and California. Disney World would make for a nice artificial reef. 

Oh, and I assume the cockroaches would still survive somehow. Cockroaches survive everything.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Tulse said:


> f we are going to be consistent with wild animal slaughter perhaps every time a motorist kills a ped we should kill the motorist.


Well, certainly if the motorist starts to eat the pedestrian he has hit. That would be excessive!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Strange Magic said:


> Actually there are things that could/should be done. One would be to reinvigorate discussion of the metastatic growth of human populations. Back in the 1960s, people such as Paul Ehrlich and Garrett Hardin made and kept that issue front and center. Today, stories of habitat loss, climate change, mass extinctions of wildlife, and recurring famine abound, but there is no contextual discussion of the role of metastatic population growth--it is almost a forbidden topic.


Yes, I'm afraid that the only "cure" may be some sort of biological dieback. When I was young, the earth's population was 2 billion; now it's 7.5 billion, almost quadruple that.

There are huge areas where the rate of population growth has been astonishing. For instance, Africa's population in 1950 was 229 million. By 1990 it was 630 million and in the thirty years since then it has doubled again to over 1.2 billion. Small wonder a lot of Africans are looking for new homes to the north!

This is clearly not sustainable, and the population of humans may already be above what the planet can support in the long term. And yet, unlike some years ago, there is little discussion of population management of any sort.


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

KenOC said:


> This is clearly not sustainable, and the population of humans may already be above what the planet can support in the long term. And yet, unlike some years ago, there is little discussion of population management of any sort.


You're preaching to the choir, aren't you? Listening to classical music is automatic birth control. :lol:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

There are several species of hominidae, or the great apes. They are we humans and our closest relatives. All the species are either endangered or critically endangered…except for one.


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

KenOC said:


> Well, certainly if the motorist starts to eat the pedestrian he has hit. That would be excessive!


:O the motorist was a zombie? :O


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

KenOC said:


> There are several species of hominidae, or the great apes. They are we humans and our closest relatives. All the species are either endangered or critically endangered…except for one.


sadly, this is related to a conspiracy... (religious one indeed... so i cannot explain it fully...) 
but all in all... humans scare me... due to their increased numbers over the years...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

More on population growth, where countries populated mostly by people of European descent seem to be losing the Darwin Games.

"The Europeans who are declining to become parents are only following the example of their leaders. Of the six founding members of the European Union (Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) today only one of them (Belgium) is led by someone who has had children.

"Britain and the European Commission are also headed by childless leaders. Amazingly, these eight core leaders of modern Europe have a total of only two children among them.

"Contrast this demographic collapse to the situation of the leaders of this same group of countries in 1951, when they founded what became the European Union. At that time, the eight leaders of these countries had 32 children."

More in the article: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018...e-having-fewer-children-than-ever-before.html


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## Guest (May 21, 2018)

Fox news. ..........


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

KenOC said:


> More on population growth, where countries populated mostly by people of European descent seem to be losing the Darwin Games.
> 
> "The Europeans who are declining to become parents are only following the example of their leaders. Of the six founding members of the European Union (Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) today only one of them (Belgium) is led by someone who has had children.
> 
> ...


:O that is surely scary.


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## Guest (May 21, 2018)

When restraining population growth is talked about there always seems to be an implication that the problem is due to countries like China or India. However, population density is as high or higher in England, The Netherlands and Israel for example.

So if there is to be a control on population growth, then these three countries should lead the way.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Tulse said:


> When restraining population growth is talked about there always seems to be an implication that the problem is due to countries like China or India.


India, shortly to be the world's most populous country, is certainly a "leader" in population growth. China is not.


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## Guest (May 21, 2018)

Yes, for sure in terms of growth, but I see it as them just catching up the west to some extent.


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