Four endangered gorillas found shot dead 'Huge loss' for population that numbers just 700

MSNBC ^ | 7/26/2007 | MSNBC

[Red in Blue PA]

Re: even if they are poachers—are worth more than the animals they are killing.

Nonsense.

Are you telling me a gun toting thug is worth more than a guide dog who lovingly helps his crippled master?

Or a poacher is more valuable than an endangered shark he is killing for fins?

This is simply IMMORAL:

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20021012/bob10.asp

Someone had hauled in the 6-foot gray reef shark, sliced off all its fins, and then tossed it overboard. To cover up the act, the plunderer had tied a 15-pound piece of coral to what remained of the tail to ensure the carcass would sink.

The grotesque load represents the slaughter of at least 30,000 sharks and the discard of some 1.28 million pounds of fish, observes Paul Ortiz, a senior marine-fisheries-enforcement attorney with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

[Red in Blue PA]

Well said. Amazing that everyone cannot agree on that as a simple baseline.

[isom35]

gambling debts? drug deal gone bad?

[dmz]

your fellow humans, who—even if they are poachers—are worth more than the animals they are killing.
___________

What bookstore did you find the animal pricelist at? I’ve been looking everywhere for one, but they are sold out at Barnes and Noble and Borders.

Or are animals just like the dollar store - where everything is priced the same.

[Red in Blue PA]

Re: And yet the beef industry is still a thriving, multi-billion dollar business.

Not because of me.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Diseased chimpanzees do pose more of a risk than diseased 'other animals' because of their similarities to humans (obviously you view it as relation; personally view it as similarity: humans and great apes generally share similar ecological niches and therefore are similar genetically/physically).

However, by the same token, using your reasoning, why stop there? Should there be a ban on pig flesh (pork)? Pigs are more similar to humans than fish, cattle, or even dogs (that's bound to cause something of an uproar in the dogs' rights crowd: eating dogs, disgusting).

As it is, sufficiently reducing chimpanzees' lifespans (or the time it takes for them to reach maturity) would be difficult enough--it's more of a hypothetical issue. Though if they could--and if restarted eating meat--would eat a chimpanzee steak as much as would eat a beef one (taking into account cost and availability, etc., of course).

[Oratam]

a la Mr. Burns?

"See My Vest!!!"

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

It definitely isn't a good thing that some species (or even genera) are going extinct because of humans killing them, and over the rarity thing, if the animal is a rarity (and not just a slight one: i.e. it is a subspecies with a very similar sibling subspecies that is not even close to going extinct.) then effort should be made to preserve it. As for intelligence, that shouldn't be so much a factor (opinion--obviously). Intelligence is not sentience.

It is conceivable that a robot could be created with an intelligence far (FAR) surpassing even the most intelligent human creature. That wouldn't give the robot [inherently] more of a right to life than a squirrel (or a gorilla). It is because of the robot's usefulness that gives the robot the 'right' to stick around.

This could seem callously cruel, but animals, including gorillas, are in the service of man. Mankind has a duty to be a good steward (such as not wantonly killing animals on a whim), but it comes down to usefulness.

For the great apes, since their ecological niche is (somewhat) already taken by humans, from a 'cold' and rational viewpoint, it is not vital to keep them alive. That is not to type that they should be killed without reason or that humans should not try to keep their species alive--within reason. But if they do go extinct, given the current information about ecology, the world will keep on going without great apes in the picture.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

personally view it as similarity: humans and great apes generally share similar ecological niches and therefore are similar genetically/physically).

Why would this cause great apes to share more DNA with humans than any other species? Why do baboons, who arguably share our ecological niche more completely than chimps, share less DNA with us than chimps?

However, by the same token, using your reasoning, why stop there? Should there be a ban on pig flesh (pork)? Pigs are more similar to humans than fish, cattle, or even dogs (that's bound to cause something of an uproar in the dogs' rights crowd: eating dogs, disgusting).

Because in all such arguments there is a point at which risk exceeds reward. I would be very nervous about eating the flesh of apes or monkeys - primates are a potential reservoir of diseases which we haven't even discovered yet, but which can very easily cross over to our species. This applies not only to actual consumption of their flesh, but also to handling of their meat - AIDS is almost certainly present in humanity via apes or monkeys killed for food.

[swain_forkbeard]

“Is there no difference between a gnat and a gnu in your belief system?”

He answered the question. The answer was “no difference”.

[Centurion2000]

Well, if the conservation people were smart they would be tagging and getting genetic samples from as many of these gorillas as possible.

[DJ MacWoW]

"A man's soul can be judged by the way he treats his dog." -Charles Doran

Seems to me that that would include anything that's helpless, child or animal.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

That was not the answer.

Don't put words in other people's hands. (mouth).

[twonie]

Right on. There is no country that these people have control of that is run in any sort of decent or orderly way. And Bermuda doesn’t count.

[twonie]

Thank you, Red, thank you. Needed to be said, and bears repeating.

[twonie]

You are pathetic.

[The KG9 Kid]

Perverted and weird. No wonder the churches are empty in this modern age.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Normally, I wouldn’t care about your dumb opinion either, but when it’s one that if widely adopted will spoil things for thinking people I take note.

[L,TOWM]

You two should be ashamed of yourselves.

I and my kids just returned from a missions trip to Swaziland. The comments from both of you are disgusting.

You have never looked into the eyes of another human being—no matter how poor, how sick, how different from you—that does not matter to God.

I saw more humanity in the grandmothers on the poorest homesteads in Motjane, struggling to feed their grandkids, than in either of you.

[L,TOWM]

You two should be ashamed of yourselves.

I and my kids just returned from a missions trip to Swaziland. The comments from both of you are disgusting.

You have never looked into the eyes of another human being—no matter how poor, how sick, how different from you—that does not matter to God.

I saw more humanity in the grandmothers on the poorest homesteads in Motjane, struggling to feed their grandkids, than in either of you.