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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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dirtbag
climber
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Well Ron, you have a point about some areas having too many elephants. I was actually referring to the black market pukes who do it indiscriminately.
I was trying to make the point they are not hunters, since the issue got pretty muddied up thread.
But in some areas (including places I've visited) there are too many elephants and they are mowing down forests. It's a complicated problem, but I don't like the idea of using ivory from animals that are taken for these purposes because it creates conflicting motives and messages.
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dirtbag
climber
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And to illustrate the problem, I took this shot several years ago in an area of Zambia where elephant over population is creating problems.
It should be mostly forested, as you can see in the background.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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The poaching problem with rhinos is not just caused by the demand from asia.
Unfortunately there are some hardcore Sunnis, mostly in Yemen, for whom it is a rite of passage to receive a special type of dagger with a handle of rhino horn. Nothing else will do, because it is what the Koran says Mohammed carried.
As a result there is a subspecies of rhino in Kenya that, although guarded by wardens, simply does not have a population large enough to remain viable.
One conservation agency I know of has abandoned their efforts there, deciding that their resources could be better used elsewhere.
One interesting thing though; the president of that organization once confided in me that, after they had to destroy a rogue rhino (to keep the locals from taking matters into their own hands) they gave the meat to the locals, and he got to eat a steak cut from the hump behind the head.
He said it was far and away the best meat he had ever tasted.
I think it would have been great fun to go on Teddy Roosevelt's safari BITD.
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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I was in Kasane Botswana a few years ago. The elephant population in the Okavango region is high.
A friend was trampled to death walking out of the food store in downtown Kasane, while I was on the Chobe River (taking pictures of elephants).
Southern African elephants should be managed to promote the whole ecosystem.
-Q-ball
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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A friend was trampled to death walking out of the food store in downtown Kasane
Were the Who or the Pope doing a gig there?
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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Toker-
No, I was doing research on the big cats. I had a day off and hired a local to show me the river (Chobe).
Our friend was killed by a herd of elephants in downtown Kasane that day.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Sorry to joke, I don't know what kind of town that is. Does it have trees or something to attract a herd? That sounds crazy. Like some kind of horrible african version of Blazing Saddles.
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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Toker and Ron-
No worries.
Kasane is a small town near the Chobe River. The vegetation around is severely depleted. It is not uncommon for this to happen. I only have the one experience and will not pontificate on others I have read about.
-Q-ball
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Yeah, people have to understand that populations go through cycles that are complexly dictated by season, food base, predation and numerous other factors.
Anybody see that footage on Nat Geo of the pride of lions taking down a large elephant?
Horrible but awesome.
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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Toker-
That footage is from the Savuti Channel, Botswana.
I remember trying to change a flat tire where that footage was filmed.
Should I yell at the lions or the elephants? Very interesting predator/prey dynamics there.
-Q-ball
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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Just to let you know what the floodplain looks like.
-Q-ball
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dirtbag
climber
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Chobe is at the top of my list of places to visit!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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I personally think that everyone who is not a vegetarian should be required to hunt, kill, and butcher an animal at least once. We'd have a lot more vegetarians, I can guarantee you that. If I'm going to eat an animal, I'd rather it have lived a free and natural life, rather than stuffed full of drugs and confined to a filthy and smelly feedlot for their entire existence.
I agree with this completely. I just need to learn how to clean an animal. That's a skill that more people, like me, should learn.
And I hear squirrels are pretty good eatin' too!
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Feb 10, 2014 - 07:21pm PT
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Well there may be some truth to the cat killers…
I know this is off topic, or at least the OP’s original topic
But the past few posts have been mentioning this, so...
Cats killing billions of animals in the US
By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC World Service
Cats are one of the top threats to US wildlife, killing billions of animals each year, a study suggests.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21236690
Cats Kill Billions of Animals Annually, Study Finds
Jan. 30, 2013
By DANIEL CLARK
Cats are responsible for the deaths of 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds and 6.9 to 20.7 billion mammals every year, according to research conducted by the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The study, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, highlighted the impact that both un-owned cats and owned cats have on wildlife populations in the United States.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/cats-kill-billions-animals-annually-study-finds/story?id=18357853
Killer Kitties? Cats Kill Billions Of Creatures Every Year
by VÉRONIQUE LACAPRA
The battle between cat lovers and bird lovers has been going on for a long time. Cats and birds just don't mix. But trying to get a handle on how many birds and other animals are being killed by cats isn't easy. Just figuring out how many cats there are is tough enough.
"Cats are really hard to count," says Pete Marra, an animal ecologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. He and his colleagues actually got a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to try to estimate the number of animals being killed by people, including through the effects of human activities, buildings and pets. They looked at things like wind turbines, cars, pesticides and — domestic cats.
Marra says Americans own about 84 million of them. "And of those, about 40 to 70 percent are allowed to go outside," Marra says. "And we estimate that about 50 to 80 percent of those are actually hunters."
That means as many as 47 million pet cats are out there killing prey. Marra says they also looked at cats he calls "un-owned" — feral cats, barn cats and strays. Based on previous studies, he estimates there could be anywhere from 30 million to 80 million of those in the U.S., most of them out hunting.
http://www.npr.org/2013/01/29/170588511/killer-kitties-cats-kill-billions-every-year
Cats kill more than one billion birds each year
New estimate suggests hunting felines take bigger bite than expected out of wildlife
BY SUSAN MILIUS 5:35PM, JANUARY 29, 2013
Domestic cats kill many more wild birds in the United States than scientists thought, according to a new analysis. Cats may rank as the biggest immediate danger that living around people brings to wildlife, researchers say.
America’s cats, including housecats that adventure outdoors and feral cats, kill between 1.3 billion and 4.0 billion birds in a year, says Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C., who led the team that performed the analysis. Previous estimates of bird kills have varied, he says, but “500 million is a number that has been thrown around a lot.”
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cats-kill-more-one-billion-birds-each-year
Also, although again off topic…
How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you
http://theoatmeal.com/misc/frame/cat_kill
it’s a bit funny
And yes we have a cat, Boots, and yes he does bring things in, but to his credit, when we moved in this house down in the sticks, it had been unoccupied for some time (but in good shape). Boots bagged two rats in the loft and one in the hallway, and mice, in the first week.
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the albatross
Gym climber
Flagstaff
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Feb 10, 2014 - 08:41pm PT
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Thanks Patrick for the article on cats.
Maybe we should start thinking about banning cat ownership?
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Feb 10, 2014 - 09:03pm PT
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And I hear squirrels are pretty good eatin' too!
Not really. A little stringy, not much meat, can be a little "musky", and you can only take them during the cold weather because they have parasitic cysts in warm weather season...at least the gray squirrels in the east do. But there are plenty of them, easy to harvest, and in tough times they kept plenty of my ancestors alive.
FortMental, do any of those activities involve taking the life of another living being?
But feel free to keep constructing your army of strawmen, maybe you can butcher and eat them?
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Lennox
climber
just southwest of the center of the universe
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Feb 10, 2014 - 09:10pm PT
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Capt.
climber
some eastside hovel
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Feb 10, 2014 - 09:16pm PT
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A deer killed my dad.And no,I'm not lying.
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