
To Save Endangered Species, Should We Bring Them into Our Cities? - cgoecknerwald
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/save-endangered-species-should-we-bring-them-our-cities-180970611/?no-ist
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baxtr
I’ve advertised this before: one viable option is to have “sanctuaries”, large
areas _where humans are strictly forbidden to enter_. The case of Chernobyl
shows that wild life recovers from humans pretty quickly once they’re gone.

[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-
wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science/)

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fireattack
But is the "recovery rate" in Chernobyl significantly better than normal
conservation sites?

My point is, why "strictly forbidden to enter" if conservation areas are
successful enough?

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drb91
> My point is, why "strictly forbidden to enter" if conservation areas are
> successful enough?

Why allow humans in at all? We have plenty of room, and no need.

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jhauris
One reason may be that for most people to care about conservation they need an
opportunity to see or experience what they're conserving. It's the reason most
conservation funding in the US comes from hunters.[0][1]

0: (PDF)
[https://www.fishwildlife.org/application/files/3615/1853/869...](https://www.fishwildlife.org/application/files/3615/1853/8699/The_State_Conservation_Machine-
FINAL.pdf) (page 9)

1: [https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-
hunters-...](https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-
threatens-how-u-s-pays-for-conservation)

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manicdee
One option is to change our cities to be less hostile to the creatures that
used to live there.

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baddash
Why should we save endangered species from going extinct?

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derekp7
Multiple reasons, one of which is that once a species is gone there is no way
to get it back. Also, consider reasons that people want to save historical
structures, or preserve old / rare works of art. Or why someone would pay
money to a vet to save their pet.

If you saw a fire spreading and was threatening someone's house, would you
call the fire department, or otherwise attempt to stop it? Why or why not? Do
you back up the data on your computer? Do you wonder why anyone takes pictures
in order to preserve a moment in time, and would be upset if all their family
photos got destroyed?

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chr1
Would storing genomes be enough, similar to backing up data until it is
needed?

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KineticLensman
> Would storing genomes be enough, similar to backing up data until it is
> needed?

I don't think so, because many of the endangered animals are representative of
entire ecosystems. Consider orang-utans and the forests they inhabit (many of
which are being destroyed to collect palm-oil). If the animals have gone, it
is even harder to make people want to preserve their environments in the face
of relentless commercial pressure. Some endangered animals also help shape the
ecosystems, e.g. when they are apex predators.

Once the animals are gone, recreating their communities is significantly
harder. As stated elsewhere, most animals are better raised by their own
species rather than humans outside the cage. For primates (e.g. woolly
monkeys) individuals that have been raised in isolation in captivity also
don't make good parents when they do eventually breed, sometimes abandoning
viable young.

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Dolores12
George Carlin on saving the planet

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeSMPESpxdA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeSMPESpxdA)

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frereubu
I agree with the part about people who worry about _everything_. But the bit
Carlin misses is that what's troubling is the increase in the rate of
extinctions[0]. Of course species go extinct on a regular basis, but when so
many are going extinct in such a short space of time, it creates issues like a
reduction in biodiversity, which in turn leads to a higher risk of a disease
outbreak in a dominant species being catastrophic for an ecosystem. I agree
with Carlin about most things, but like Bill Hick's blind spot about smoking,
I think he's wrong here.

[0] [https://www.britannica.com/science/conservation-
ecology/Calc...](https://www.britannica.com/science/conservation-
ecology/Calculating-background-extinction-rates#ref272668)

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burfog
Well, the non-city people don't want endangered species. Reintroducing wolf
packs has ruined elk hunting, made pets unsafe, made kids unsafe, and caused
problems for livestock.

Since city people tend to love wolves, it looks like we have a win-win
solution here. I have a feeling though, that city people will have a change of
heart upon walking into a subway restroom and suddenly facing a wolf pack.

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kwhitefoot
> made kids unsafe,

That's what anti-wolf people say here in Norway even though there isn't a
single report of a wolf attack on a human in Europe in centuries and that
there are only 30 wolves in the whole of Norway.

So do you have any objective evidence?

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DoreenMichele
Not wolves per se and not Europe, but when I lived on a remote military base
in California, coyotes were known to kill pets and we were told there had been
three attacks on children in the previous 5 years, so don't let kids go
outside alone after dark. This was probably in a safety briefing given to my
ex who was in the army.

They didn't attack adults who were walking alone at night, but they would
attack smaller creatures, such as pets and kids.

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smackay
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attack)
has a wealth of information on the topic. It seems likely that the attacks are
due to animals becoming habituated to being in close proximity with humans and
is probably exacerbated by being fed.

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newman8r
Yeah a lot of people are clueless about coyotes. I have some land in the
desert and one of my neighbors actually feeds the damn things, it's insanity.
He Also tried to claim that coyotes don't carry rabies. Needless to say he
does not have internet access.

They're the biggest coyotes I've ever seen and they're not fearful of humans.

