this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2024
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It's exactly what happens, and we have about as good a natural experiment on this as it gets:
https://www.gi.alaska.edu/alaska-science-forum/when-reindeer-paradise-turned-purgatory-0
tl;dr: a Reindeer herd was setup on an uninhabited Alaskan island as a potential food source during WWII with no natural predators. The war ended before anything came of it, so the herd was left on its own. Within a few decades, they had stripped the island bare of all vegetation the deer could possibly reach, and then they all starved to death.
Also, see predator reintroduction programs, such as how wolves change rivers.
Elephants and rhinos don't breed the same way a lot of other animals do. If they did, evolution would very quickly do what happened in Alaska to those deer. Animals like deer and rabbits breed in great numbers with the evolutionary expectation that predators will keep them in check.
If you think this process is brutal, well, yes, it is. The conservative thing would be to say that this is "natural" and therefore the correct and only way to run human society. This is wrong; we can choose a better path for ourselves while also accepting that nature works this way all the time.
So your eco-fash hottake can literally be disproven by the fact that elephants exist, yet you are so desperate to cling onto it that you try to peddle forcing deer into becoming an invasive species on an island they have never adapted to as proof?
You're aware that Elephants are not Reindeer, right?
You are aware that elephants exist, correct?
So because Elephants exist, Reindeer can go on without Predators? Dude, this is the most uncontaversial take in conservation. Predators are a necessary part of the cycle. That had nothing to do with how human society should run.
So, again. Your Malthusian eco-fash hottake can literally be disproven by the simple fact that elephants exist. Animals can and will evolve to live within the means of their environments. Even humans have been thoroughly documented to be capable of such. So your pretensions that a "Reindeer Apocalypse" is imminent is... what, exactly?
You're an idiot.
Better an idiot than eco-fash.
You're an idiot.
Are you absolutely positive you're a leftist? Because people who are left of center don't typically call each other "eco-fascists" for pointing out easily verifiable facts about ecology that do not involve human interference in any way.
There is such an ecology?
Really?
There are statements about ecology that don't. Also, you didn't answer my question.
They addressed the elephant issue in their comment. I recommend you read it again. The summary is elephants evolved without predation, so they don't bread in large numbers. Prey animals breed with the assumption a not-insignificant portion of their population will die prematurely due to predation. If this doesn't happen then their population balloons until it consumes all available resources, then it collapses.
This happens fairly frequently where we've removed predators from the ecosystem. Its why we promote deer hunting, for example. We've removed their natural predators, and if they aren't culled then they will grow until they collapse. This is well understood and not controversial.
I guess we could engineer the planet until this isn't an issue, but that'll take a few millenia and probably isn't the best idea. Let nature be natural. It'd be fascist to assume it's our domain to conquer and dominate into submission.
Really? They just jumped from rabbit-sized mammals to elephant-size with zero predation?
This is the first time I've heard of a deer "assuming" anything.
Evolution doesn't stop simply because predation stops. Yes, deer population will expand if predation stops, but that expansion will not result in some "Reindeer Apocalypse" as the colonialist brain-trust on here is trying to pretend it would. No, it will not result in the consumption of all available resources, as reindeer's natural environment is vast frikken northern hemisphere continents. If that could be possible, you might as well try to prove that bison hoovered up all the world's grasslands before humans even managed to become humans.
We closed that door permanently about two centuries ago. We did...
...this, remember?
I'd say it's pretty eco-fash to assume that this isn't the exact thing we've already done.
You’re trying so hard.