I somewhat agree with Sabastian. I think feral animals which are destroying the natural environment should be removed in a humane way, not with traps or having their homes covered over so they die of starvation.
We need to preserve the natural environment and animals we have here in Australia.
As long as they are killed in a humane way because they potentionally pose a risk to our natural scapes then i agree with it.
BTW - I didn't read this whole thread because it's too long.
I somewhat agree with Sabastian. I think feral animals which are destroying the natural environment should be removed in a humane way, not with traps or having their homes covered over so they die of starvation.
We need to preserve the natural environment and animals we have here in Australia.
As long as they are killed in a humane way because they potentionally pose a risk to our natural scapes then i agree with it.
BTW - I didn't read this whole thread because it's too long.
If that's the only option but i am sure they have the technology to chemically castrate the populations of rabbits and other feral non-native animals if they wanted to spend the money, but they would prefer them to die today then in a few years i guess.
as i siad I know it not perfect, I use my own eggs as much a possible, which are truly free range, but I cant all the time. My chooks dont lay enough eggs, largly because they have been brought to such low number by FOXES. We also have cattle on our farm (hobby) which we use as little chemicals on as possble. We dont use nay fetilizer, jsut let the grass grow naturally.
Sorry for branding you as thinking that guide dogs were slave, it jsut that the thought did not come up to a huge amount of oppisiton.
I do my best for the enviroment, I know I could always do better. I also eat a lot of rabbit (I only though kill out if they are not edible) Killing foxes and keeping their number in check is alos soething I do that I think is important for the enviroment. I have seen the damage they cuase to native wildlife and livestock alike. they are truly horrbile creatures.
I agree they need to be dealt with Seb but we need to consider they are a living thinking creatures like us just trying to fill their tummies. I think we are advanced enough to think of a better way of reducing their numbers than heading into the bush with a gun.
Obviously hunting isn't controlling the problem too well as you are still losing chooks/livestock etc...
We had a fox come onto our property and take one of our chooks at night, we since fox proofed the pen (which they are only confined to at night) and we have not had a problem since. Still plenty of native birds around too
We made upgrade after we lost out second chook, but basil can be very cunning sometimes. We also find it hard to get foxes on our property, we seem to have much more succses on others.
If their are still plenty of native birds around, then why do we need more nationa parks
Also, when you can fnd a better method for controlling foxes, then go to a scicentest about it.
They devolped the diease mixomatosis (spelling?) for rabbits. That is a trully horrible disease and i will not go onto the deatails of it, but if you want to what it does just do a google search. Not pretty. Also rember that the rabbits can be alive for days in that state. Its the shooter that puts it out of it s misery.
It's not that the scientists don't have another more humane way, it's that the government does not want to assign money to the issue.
Of course we need more national parks, plenty of native birds is not enough and like you said we are still losing species because of introduced species stress and man caused loss of habitat and global warming
I dont htink their are any other more humane ways to controll rabbits (watched a programe on the abc, 'land watch' or something. any way they said that they were looking for new methods to controll rabbits.
some links would be nice
Just had a brief read of this it's from 2000 so 11 years ago... http://www.jstor.org/pss/2655714
Abstract
1. Research is currently underway to develop genetically engineered viruses that can sterilize pest animals. The technique, known as viral-vectored immunocontraception (VVIC), promises to control mammalian pests such as the European rabbit, the house mouse and domestic cats. 2. Using host-parasite models we explored the degree of control of the host population that can be attained when hosts that recover from infection become permanently infertile. The models assume some demographic compensation for reduced fertility in the host population, and are tailored to address issues raised by the use of the myxoma virus as an agent to sterilize rabbits. A `pay-off' function is developed, which defines the degree to which host density is suppressed by a sterilizing agent. 3. The results show that sterilizing viruses can reduce host abundance, and that hosts with low birth rates and moderate mortality rates are the best targets for VVIC. High transmissibility increases the pay-off from VVIC, but because virulent parasites kill most of the hosts that they infect, the pay-off is highest if benign parasites are used as the vector of contraceptive antigens. We argue that appropriate pay-off functions should be developed as a basis for research and development on genetically modified organisms. 4. The host-parasite models are extended to include a competing strain of virus that does not sterilize the host. We analysed these models using a general approach to the analysis of competition, which has not often been applied to epidemiological models. The extended model shows that host sterilization per se does not affect the competitive ability of viruses, a result that applies to a broad class of models in which the per capita growth rates of competing parasites are linear functions of limiting competitive factors.
I somewhat agree with Sabastian. I think feral animals which are destroying the natural environment should be removed in a humane way, not with traps or having their homes covered over so they die of starvation.
We need to preserve the natural environment and animals we have here in Australia.
As long as they are killed in a humane way because they potentionally pose a risk to our natural scapes then i agree with it.
BTW - I didn't read this whole thread because it's too long.
If that's the only option but i am sure they have the technology to chemically castrate the populations of rabbits and other feral non-native animals if they wanted to spend the money, but they would prefer them to die today then in a few years i guess.
The goverments are useless, didn't they introduce cane toads to kill the cane beetle? :-/
Killing does not stop a pest. A pest is a pest because it adapts so well to the new environment that it breeds and eats everything.
The only way to effectively stop a pest is by biological control, including chemical castration and infertility. This causes the males to shoot "blanks".
Killing does nothing, If you kill 10 rabbits, 20 more are being born somewhere else. Only mass genocide would help, but that would involve alot of people, alot of resources and rabbits are too versatile for this.
I follow the Buddhist way of "not killing any sentient being" so I myself will never take a life. I believe the only way to stop the stress and worry or everything, including pests are to think from a different perspective.
To me taking a life is a big deal. You are taking away a life. its like blowing out a candle, once it is gone it will not come back. Even the meanest (but sane) people on earth would feel something when taking a life, and that something is knowing it is wrong.
As an environmentalist and also a future zoologist I do realise the implications of Australia's "pests" and especially how they are affecting out native species. Slowing birth rates is more affective than raising death rates. Any scientist will tell you that.
OKAY MATE SEE I DONT AGREE WITH WHAT MOST THESE FORUMS SAY AND IVE ARGUED MY POINT BUT IF YOUR GOING TO POKE FUN AT THEM AT LEAST HAVE YOUR FACTS RIGHT AND YOUR SPELLING YOU COME ACROSS AS JUST AN IDIOT .
OKAY MATE SEE I DONT AGREE WITH WHAT MOST THESE FORUMS SAY AND IVE ARGUED MY POINT BUT IF YOUR GOING TO POKE FUN AT THEM AT LEAST HAVE YOUR FACTS RIGHT AND YOUR SPELLING YOU COME ACROSS AS JUST AN IDIOT .
what facts have I had wrong? I'm not a great speller by the way
OKAY MATE SEE I DONT AGREE WITH WHAT MOST THESE FORUMS SAY AND IVE ARGUED MY POINT BUT IF YOUR GOING TO POKE FUN AT THEM AT LEAST HAVE YOUR FACTS RIGHT AND YOUR SPELLING YOU COME ACROSS AS JUST AN IDIOT .
what facts have I had wrong? I'm not a great speller by the way
Neither am I Sebastian, but on the Internet people see only your text and guess what? there's a wonderful thing about typing. You can check your spelling before you press ENTER. Bad spellers never make it in life, you cant write an essay with bad spelling and grammar. Talking on the Internet reflects yourself and your speech. I know it's hard being a Y-gen kid when schools don't even teach grammar and spelling but you have to still learn. Use spell check.
In my opion red meat is an importnat part of our diet, it's not something we cna just get rid of.
I have NEVER eaten red meat in my life. NEVER. Not even I tiny bit. And I'm very healthy and very happy.
I suppose you eat tofu? I cant stand the stuff, nor can i stand many other meat supplements. red meat is part of mmy diet and I plan to keep it that way. I belive we can still be envirotmently sustanble and still eat red meat
allot of people feel that way. Beef if probably the least cruel meat since it isn't factory farmed and one animal can feed many people.
I think the most environmental thing we can do is to stop increasing population.
I think the most achievable ethical thing we can do for animals is to stop factory chicken farming. Egg production first.
Beef are factory farmed, maybe not in Australia (that I'm aware of) but in other countries they are. It takes something like 4x the amount of water to make 1kg of beef than it does to make a kilo of rice and a kilo of rice will go a lot further than a couple of steaks! Beef is the least environmentally friendly meat due to extensive land clearing/degradation and methane emissions not to mention the massive amounts of fecal waste they produce! There is currently enough plant foods in production to feed the entire global population and then some. Does it make sense that more than half of the available food goes to livestock that only feeds less than half of the population? It certainly doesn't make sense to me! I understand that people like the taste of meat, I used to myself, but what is it really costing? The environment... The animals... The population... Health... I think the real question is; What doesn't it cost?
