
The Race to Save the Axolotl - onychomys
https://daily.jstor.org/the-race-to-save-the-axolotl/
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userbinator
_The iconic creature is Mexico’s national symbol, and, because it breeds
easily in an aquarium, a beloved pet around the globe. So many axolotls live
in captivity that certain restaurants in Japan serve up the axolotl as a fried
snack. Many thousands of axolotls a year are also used in scientific research:
Because of their miraculous regeneration abilities, axolotls are studied in
labs the world over. But in the Xochimilco canals around Mexico City, the
axolotl’s only remaining natural habitat, pollution and the loss of water
habitat mean that the axolotl has become a rare sight._

Wouldn't that mean it's the _wild_ axolotl which is threatened, but otherwise
it has been essentially domesticated? Of course the body of the article
explains more, but the headline is quite sensational, implying that _all_
axolotls are disappearing.

~~~
wanderr
The article mentions that captive axolotls are in bad shape due to severe
inbreeding.

~~~
userbinator
It mentions an inbreeding coefficient of 35 (or 0.35 in the fractional scale),
which although high, is not unusual; a quick search reveals
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21076095](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21076095)
where some lines of domesticated chickens go as high as 61.

~~~
vanderZwan
I don't think that taking the most used and cheapest of our three main food-
producing domesticated animals is a good data point to decide what is and
isn't "unusual" in this context. Given that it is an animal whose relationship
to humans includes the most extreme of exploitations, meaning trade-off to
push this to extremes to get a specific benefit is more extreme than anywhere
else[0], it likely represents the most extreme outlier.

This is a very different context than the health of wild/pet axolotls.

[0] Well, short of lab animals who have been deliberately inbred to
effectively be clones. But that kind of breaks the purpose of this coefficient
by definition.

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Semirhage
Amphibian species are thought to be the proverbial canaries in the coal mine
of extinction. Frog species have been crashing, salamander species are
crashing, insect numbers have been crashing, reef systems are dying.

When it all falls down on our heads, we won’t be able to say we didn’t have
massive flashing warning signs.

~~~
edflsafoiewq
What can we do?

~~~
sharp11
Support conservation orgs. The best ones are not just focused on nature but on
sustainable systems that include humans.

~~~
ars
Like who? Every conservation org I've come across has been misanthropic.

Just as an example, people who advocate for getting rid of parking, to make it
harder to drive.

~~~
zaksoup
The example you cite sounds reasonable and not misanthropic to me.
Disincentive personal car user/ownership and incentivize public transit use.
Can you expand more on why you find that problematic?

~~~
ars
Because you are doing that by making life harder for people.

Instead, make life easier, so they want to use public transit.

And that means not making existing solutions worse, but rather focus only on
making the new stuff better. And if that turns out to be impossible to do,
then public transit is simply not a solution.

~~~
KozmoNau7
It's not really possible to improve public transport beyond a certain point
without impacting parking and personal car transport.

If you want to improve buses, you need more of them, you need dedicated bus
lanes, you need to give buses priority at intersections, and you need to
modify road layouts in regards to things like one-way streets. All of these
markedly improve quality of life for bus passengers, but also reduce the
quality and convenience of personal car transport.

Similarly, if you need to expand a rail or subway network, you need a lot of
roadworks and construction, which inconveniences drivers. For streetcars, you
combine the impacts of bus and rail improvements.

Simply put, car drivers have been receiving preferential treatment in cities
for far too long, and it's about time they were relegated to second-class
transport, behind buses and rail.

~~~
ars
And if I don't want to improve public transport, because I think it's
worthless? Why should I allow you to make my preferred transport worse, just
because you think yours is better?

If you think it's better, go for it, make it so good people want it, and maybe
I'll go for it. But do so without making things worse for anyone else.

I know what you are thinking "but my way is so obviously so much better, that
of course we should give it priority". Except I disagree, I think public
transit is horrible.

And I'm saying this because I tried it, using it _exclusively_ in a city with
probably the worlds best public transit. It was horrible, I would never trade
my car for that. And I would never live in a city that required me to.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Because public transport _is_ objectively better on a number of very important
points. It reduces pollution and congestion. It frees up space otherwise used
for parking for better purposes. It is massively cheaper for the individual.

Like I said, after a certain point, you will have to choose to downgrade other
forms of transport, in order to optimize the ones you choose.

Why do you think public transport is horrible and worthless?

Where did you live? Because I live in Copenhagen, which in my experience has
the very best public transport system in the world. Usage and popularity is
very high, and a lot of people bike as well, also great for easing congestion.

Is it annoying when the bus is packed full and you get squeezed a bit? Yeah,
but it generally only happens when there's an unforeseen delay on one of the
main lines in the middle of rush hour. Another bus will come in 5 minutes,
with fewer people on it.

Are some routes a little odd? Yeah, it takes me 35 minutes to get to my
girlfriend, compared to 15 minutes by car. But on the other hand I don't have
to look for parking, and it takes less than half the time to get to work from
her place, compared to driving.

Since selling my car, I am saving so much money, it's a little bit silly. I
pay DKK 375/month for the two main zones, and that covers 90% of my monthly
travel. With my car, I filled the tank twice a month for around DKK 600 each
time, not to mention parking fees, insurance, yearly tax, plus repairs and
maintenance.

I'd much rather use that money for more traveling and other experiences.

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ian0
For those interested, Julio Cortazar gave an "in depth" account of Axolotl in
a short story:

[http://southerncrossreview.org/73/axolotl.html](http://southerncrossreview.org/73/axolotl.html)

Set in an aquarium :(

~~~
glup
I always think of this story when I see axolotls.

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madengr
Now I know where the Axolotl tanks in a Dune got their name. The Thelieux grow
ghoulas in Axolotl tanks.

~~~
Maultasche
That was my first thought when I saw the headline. I thought it was a
reference to Dune, and not to an animal species.

~~~
ntheon
My first thought was neither of those, I thought the headline was referring to
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm)

~~~
toofy
That’s precisely what I was thinking.. “oh no! What broke!?”

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jpetso
I read the title and was thinking someone want the original crypto ratchet
back, before it got rebranded by Signal/Moxie and kept from mass adoption by
means of a GPL lawsuit threat.

