<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for Wild Asian vultures going the way of the dodo]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by caniscandida http://www.grist.org/article/vultures/ Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:42:10 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/vultures/1 The meat industry

once again causes an environmental problem.

There is no reason otherwise why these vultures should suddenly have started to drop dead.

Probably the sudden decline of some species of bats in the Northeast of this country is also to be blamed on the recent introduction of some new chemical, related to agriculture -- in the bats' case, perhaps a pesticide targeting moths.

]]> The meat industry

once again causes an environmental problem.

There is no reason otherwise why these vultures should suddenly have started to drop dead.

Probably the sudden decline of some species of bats in the Northeast of this country is also to be blamed on the recent introduction of some new chemical, related to agriculture -- in the bats' case, perhaps a pesticide targeting moths.

]]> Comment #2 by wiscidea http://www.grist.org/article/vultures/ Thu, 01 May 2008 07:49:54 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/vultures/2 random thoughts

(1) Condors once ranged from the west coast to the east coast of North America. The disappearance of the condors correlates with the disappearance of large herbivores, perhaps due to humans hunting them to extinction. Imagine how many other creatures dependent on rotting carcasses have also gone extinct. For those who insist on saving only what you find immediately valuable... ecological services lost forever. More than vultures will disappear in India and humans will have to pay for and live with the consequences.

(2) A drug might help one business -- the livestock industry -- save money, but the cost of doing business is inevitably passed onto someone. Who is going to pay for services the vultures once freely provided? If it was happening over here, businesses would complain that they have to use the drug to keep costs down and preserve jobs and no one would consider who will pay for it in the long run. This must stop. WHY DON"T ECONOMISTS PRESENT THIS IN SOME UNDERSTANDABLE FORM TO THE AVERAGE VOTER???!!!

(3) This is why it should be illegal to control rodents with poison bait. Raptors, owls, and other critters eat the toxic rodents and die. You're poisoning rare birds when you try to poison rats and mice.

(4) I had forgotten all about the compassionate Indians who respect their cows by not eating them... but don't mind using them as a source of leather for export. There is an enormous amount of animal abuse occurring over there. Funny how religious beliefs are held so dearly, except when they stand in the way of capitalism.

]]> random thoughts

(1) Condors once ranged from the west coast to the east coast of North America. The disappearance of the condors correlates with the disappearance of large herbivores, perhaps due to humans hunting them to extinction. Imagine how many other creatures dependent on rotting carcasses have also gone extinct. For those who insist on saving only what you find immediately valuable... ecological services lost forever. More than vultures will disappear in India and humans will have to pay for and live with the consequences.

(2) A drug might help one business -- the livestock industry -- save money, but the cost of doing business is inevitably passed onto someone. Who is going to pay for services the vultures once freely provided? If it was happening over here, businesses would complain that they have to use the drug to keep costs down and preserve jobs and no one would consider who will pay for it in the long run. This must stop. WHY DON"T ECONOMISTS PRESENT THIS IN SOME UNDERSTANDABLE FORM TO THE AVERAGE VOTER???!!!

(3) This is why it should be illegal to control rodents with poison bait. Raptors, owls, and other critters eat the toxic rodents and die. You're poisoning rare birds when you try to poison rats and mice.

(4) I had forgotten all about the compassionate Indians who respect their cows by not eating them... but don't mind using them as a source of leather for export. There is an enormous amount of animal abuse occurring over there. Funny how religious beliefs are held so dearly, except when they stand in the way of capitalism.

]]> Comment #3 by caniscandida http://www.grist.org/article/vultures/ Thu, 01 May 2008 22:46:23 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/vultures/3 religion and randomness

The New World vultures (Cathartidae) offer a beautiful example of convergent evolution.  With regard to appearance and behavior, they resemble very closely the Old World vultures; but in fact, the latter belong to the Falconiformes, the diurnal birds of prey, while the former (according to most experts now) belong to the Ciconiiformes, the storks, herons, egrets, ibises, etc.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulture.

(But elsewhere, in Wikipedia's article on Falconiformes, the contributor there seems to be leading a recent movement to reinstall Cathartidae in Falconiformes! -- most confusing.)

Unfortunately, convergent evolution does little to argue against Intelligent Design: the ID folks can always argue that the Designer repeats a good design wherever it fits.

Anyway, I like the detail that the Egyptian vulture-shaped hieroglyph stands for the glottal stop, and that in Southern African languages, the word for "Nubian vulture" is also used for "lover," because those birds are so often seen in pairs (but usually a mother/child bond, apparently).

Notice that diclofenac in India has already received a paragraph.

I do not know enough about South Asian religions to understand there to be generally an abhorrence of cruelty to animals, or at least of cruelty to cattle.  The "sacred" cows wandering the streets of Indian cities are famous; and it is also true that groups in India actually raise money to try to save cattle in THIS country, even as Americans raise money for charitable contributions to human-directed causes in the developing world.

Nevertheless, I have seen a video shown by the HSUS, documenting clandestine transport of cattle in India, full of abuse and cruelty, for the purpose of selling their hides in the leather industry.  Formally, that seems to be illegal in India, probably reflecting a religious pro-cattle value.  But quite clearly, not everyone in India shares that religious scruple.

Here is a rule of thumb: No religious system or tradition deserves to be criticized or condemned because of the ill-informed, ill-educated, ignorant, self-centered conduct of any of its alleged followers or practitioners.

On condors: It is possible that the reduction of their range, formerly across North America, has something to do with the demise of the Pleistocene megafauna.  But there were probably other factors at work too.  The California and Andean condors, while not matching the size of Teratornis, seem to get by on animals smaller than mastodons.

And although it has been said that in Africa, the group of animals who eat the most meat, biomass-wise, are the vultures (?; I can believe it, but I do not remember where I heard it), I do not know that there is a definite niche for scavengers of that sort.

During the Mesozoic Era, the pterosaurs were a very diffuse taxon.  Because of the vagaries and incompletenesses of the fossil record, most forms that we know of seem to have had a gull-like, pelican-like, cormorant-like or albatross-like lifestyle.  But in the late Cretaceous of the US Southwest, the huge Quetzalcoatlus was discovered, the largest flying animals, around 25 years ago; and its behavior is reconstructed as having been condor-like, with a preference of the carcasses of large dinosaurs.

If there were indeed a secure vulture-like or condor-like niche in vertebrate-dominated terrestrial ecosystems in which flying vertebrates are present, one might have expected there to be more signs of vulture-like pterosaurs throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous.

But then again, it is very possible that they indeed existed, but their remains never got fossilized.  Or they did, but have not yet been discovered.

]]> religion and randomness

The New World vultures (Cathartidae) offer a beautiful example of convergent evolution.  With regard to appearance and behavior, they resemble very closely the Old World vultures; but in fact, the latter belong to the Falconiformes, the diurnal birds of prey, while the former (according to most experts now) belong to the Ciconiiformes, the storks, herons, egrets, ibises, etc.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulture.

(But elsewhere, in Wikipedia's article on Falconiformes, the contributor there seems to be leading a recent movement to reinstall Cathartidae in Falconiformes! -- most confusing.)

Unfortunately, convergent evolution does little to argue against Intelligent Design: the ID folks can always argue that the Designer repeats a good design wherever it fits.

Anyway, I like the detail that the Egyptian vulture-shaped hieroglyph stands for the glottal stop, and that in Southern African languages, the word for "Nubian vulture" is also used for "lover," because those birds are so often seen in pairs (but usually a mother/child bond, apparently).

Notice that diclofenac in India has already received a paragraph.

I do not know enough about South Asian religions to understand there to be generally an abhorrence of cruelty to animals, or at least of cruelty to cattle.  The "sacred" cows wandering the streets of Indian cities are famous; and it is also true that groups in India actually raise money to try to save cattle in THIS country, even as Americans raise money for charitable contributions to human-directed causes in the developing world.

Nevertheless, I have seen a video shown by the HSUS, documenting clandestine transport of cattle in India, full of abuse and cruelty, for the purpose of selling their hides in the leather industry.  Formally, that seems to be illegal in India, probably reflecting a religious pro-cattle value.  But quite clearly, not everyone in India shares that religious scruple.

Here is a rule of thumb: No religious system or tradition deserves to be criticized or condemned because of the ill-informed, ill-educated, ignorant, self-centered conduct of any of its alleged followers or practitioners.

On condors: It is possible that the reduction of their range, formerly across North America, has something to do with the demise of the Pleistocene megafauna.  But there were probably other factors at work too.  The California and Andean condors, while not matching the size of Teratornis, seem to get by on animals smaller than mastodons.

And although it has been said that in Africa, the group of animals who eat the most meat, biomass-wise, are the vultures (?; I can believe it, but I do not remember where I heard it), I do not know that there is a definite niche for scavengers of that sort.

During the Mesozoic Era, the pterosaurs were a very diffuse taxon.  Because of the vagaries and incompletenesses of the fossil record, most forms that we know of seem to have had a gull-like, pelican-like, cormorant-like or albatross-like lifestyle.  But in the late Cretaceous of the US Southwest, the huge Quetzalcoatlus was discovered, the largest flying animals, around 25 years ago; and its behavior is reconstructed as having been condor-like, with a preference of the carcasses of large dinosaurs.

If there were indeed a secure vulture-like or condor-like niche in vertebrate-dominated terrestrial ecosystems in which flying vertebrates are present, one might have expected there to be more signs of vulture-like pterosaurs throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous.

But then again, it is very possible that they indeed existed, but their remains never got fossilized.  Or they did, but have not yet been discovered.

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