Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: Neil Lynch on 16/03/2023 13:55:49
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Growing up, 40-odd years ago, my household had over the years: 2 cats, 2 terrapins, numerous hamsters and a load of fairground-won goldfish. The cats and the hamsters had few health issues and lived long lives. Unfortunately, the terrapins and the goldfish usually soon met their demise.
Those cats were amazing. They had so much personality.
Sadly, we now live in a time where the ecocide (/ climate change) is a daily topic of conversation. Because it's so obviously threatening nature, these days. How much - if at all - is pet ownership part of the problem? Does it need addressing? Is there an easy fix?
Firstly, I can't get over the fact that owning a conventional pet (say, cat / dog / hamster / budgie) encourages the ownership of more exotic animals (eg. tarantulas, snakes, frogs, stick insects). This in turn can be said to prop up the illegal trafficking of endangered species as pets.
Naturally, the vast majority of animals sold as pets will have been reared in the region / country they're being sold but there'll always be individuals who, with the money, want that extra unique pet that they just should not be acquiring. Not when so many illegally trafficked individuals die in transit. Not if we cherish the planet's biodiversity and wish to limit the number of species facing extinction on our watch.
All this together with: dog dirt, dog attacks, nuisance barking, songbird predation by cats and the fact that pets need feeding. More agrochemicals getting sprayed in their name. More livestock reared, too.
If you could magically trade an individual pet's life for a similar sized individual of a species endangered by humankind, would you? Would you not? Would you not rather see a wolf in the wild (or even in a zoo) than the domesticated monstrosities you can buy that often have been reared under horrible conditions and which can have defects as a result of genetic in-breeding? For example. (Not a great example - as I'm fairly sure wolves are not that endangered - but the point remains.)
Sure, they offer companionship to the lonely old person / the timid child, but is that not a shameful reflection on society? Treat the symptom instead of the cause logic?
I know this is going to be an unpopular post but I just can't see how any conscientious adult in this day and age could disagree with me, here. Maybe I'm just a miserable old killjoy, though!
What do you think?
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Dogs are now considered a separate species from wolves and have the distinction of being the only species with which we collaborate on a large scale. You might add a few dolphins and hawks, but carrier pigeons, cattle, bees etc are exploited rather than employed. I'm not even convinced that horses enjoy their work, but sniffer dogs, farm dogs, retrievers, guide dogs, military dogs, search and rescue dogs, even sledge dogs, seem to go about their business with genuine enthusiasm. Watching pet dogs teararsing around the local park for fun even suggests that greyhounds might enjoy racing. What these dogs do have in common, of course, is a fairly natural habitus with a long nose and a short thick coat.
Not sure I'd want to adopt some endangered species as pets. A good friend has spent her life trying to protect wild rhinos and elephants, but I've never understood the objection to just breeding them in a poacher-free environment (there's plenty of wilderness in North America and these species in particular are happy to live in temperate rather than tropical areas) and destroying the ridiculous market for their keratin. Either way, not best suited to a domestic garden, nor terribly useful as a dog substitute (imagine a sniffer elephant at an airport, or a guard-rhino in a police van?).
As for ecology, it turns out that a domestic dog probably emits as much carbon dioxide (by the time you have reared the cows and chickens to feed it) as a small car, and domestic cats just destroy every small native species.
I don't think tarantulas are endangered. The barmy market in endangered species is just an obnoxious aspect of art insanity: something is deemed worth a lot of money because it is rare. Apart from pangolins (only purchased as an admission of incurable impotence - why advertise the fact?) I'm not sure that the trade is all that harmful, but I'm open to statistical argument.
But humans do all sorts of environmentally unfriendly things for entertainment. I'll admit to having enjoyed hot-air ballooning - about as fuel-hungry as a small jet engine but you don't actually get to go anywhere useful. Landscape gardening? Gardening in general (i.e. importing or breeding exotica to replace whatever grows naturally in a given locality)? Hot tubs and heated swimming pools? Building ski-lifts to the top of a mountain so you can slide back down again?
I forget which US President asked "what does the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory contribute to national defense?" but the answer was "It is what makes the nation worth defending." Pretty much the same applies to all my previous and present canine companions (including one trainee guide dog, now retired). I can't apologise for dogs that attack without being legally employed to do so, or for those that bark incessantly (usually due to loneliness and boredom - why have a dog if you aren't around to work or play with it?) but as someone who never travels for pleasure (a holiday is a week when I don't get in a plane or train) I think I'm entitled to explore the woods and rivers with a happy mutt, and given the quantity of cow, sheep, horse, rabbit, badger and fox poo that we encounter, I wonder why I bother to to pick up her small contribution to the invertebrate life of the countryside?
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I would say there's no need to question it.
I am against owning "exotics".
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During Wilson’s testimony, senator John Pastore bluntly asked, "Is there anything connected with the hopes of this accelerator that in any way involves the security of the country?"
"No, sir, I don’t believe so," Wilson replied.
"It has no value in that respect?"
"It has only to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of man, our love of culture. It has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things we really venerate in our country and are patriotic about. It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending."
From: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201804/history.cfm
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Cats do a lot of damage to natural wildlife in Australia.
Endangered animals should not be collected as domestic pets (where they would have almost no chance to breed), but taking some from the wild to form a zoo-based breeding population could be used to return animals to the wild.
- This is important for Tasmanian devils, where wild animals are likely to contract the deadly facial tumour disease. Building a zoo population of healthy animals will assist later reintroduction to the wild.
- I saw an example of this recently, where young animals were not fed directly by keepers (which would make them dependent on humans and encourage them to seek out humans), but by models of their own species.
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I'd just like to Not see birds in small cages & fish in small bowl.
That's All.
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@Neil Lynch
Just noticed, Nice signature line.