A thought on trophy hunting.

[wacki]

In Darwin's time the biggest and baddest suvived. However, in modern day trophy hunting the biggest and the baddest are the prized possessions. The sickly deer is left to walk on by, the small and weak fish is let go. Already geneticists are seeing signs of this effecting genetic lines. The biggest and the strongest fish are being replaced with smaller and often more sickly animals.

Now I totally understand the need to hunt animals such as deer. I am not stating an opinion on whether hunting is right or wrong, I'm merely making an observation on the way hunting is done.

I would provide a link to some papers, but that takes too much work right now and I doubt many would read it. This should be common sense anyway.

Feel free to discuss.

[wacki]

ehh

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v426/n6967/abs/nature02177.html;jsessionid=74CDEAC538FB67ADBA4AF5 FAF9FDAE00

[RJT]

Why do you think most of us post here?

It is because when we are able to prove David S. (the trophy,and to a lessor degree other folk smarter than ourselves) wrong or catch a brief mistake, we can hang it (the post, the metaphorical trophy) on our wall.

Some really vicious posters like, in fact, to skin the target alive.

No need to cite papers - you moderating the board is enough, the forum is your proof.

[Olof]

I wonder if this is the case with humans as well (though gene manipulation might perhaps soon make evolution irrelevant?). Well-educated people with successful careers wait longer than average before having their first child and they have fewer children in total (at least in Sweden). At the same time, due to the welfare state, low infant mortality rates etc. their children aren't more likely to survive than those of less successful parents.

[Maddog121]

Just because the selection is for smaller animals with smaller horns does not mean that the survivors in that population subset would be the sickly ones. You could end up with a healthy population that does not have the desirable trophy traits.

[Trantor]

A couple more examples of selection for weaker/smaller


weaker eg HIV virus:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4290300.stm

smaller eg cod in North sea

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4281171.stm

It's amusing that the posters here aren't quite as awed at your observation as they are in OOT.

Check out the dates some of these world record animals were taken , you might be surprised... Boone&Crockett (http://www.boone-crockett.org/)
... Pope&Young (http://www.pope-young.org/)
Killing trophies only kills the genes if the animal fails to reproduce.

polltard

[benkahuna]

[ QUOTE ]
Why do you think most of us post here?

It is because when we are able to prove David S. (the trophy,and to a lessor degree other folk smarter than ourselves) wrong or catch a brief mistake, we can hang it (the post, the metaphorical trophy) on our wall.

Some really vicious posters like, in fact, to skin the target alive.

No need to cite papers - you moderating the board is enough, the forum is your proof.

[/ QUOTE ]

Eh, speak for yourself.

I post here for a few reasons, none of which you've mentioned:

1. Boredom
2. Keep intellectually active (poker alone just isn't enough).
3. Learn something
4. Dispel my own misconceptions
5. Keep my debate skills on point.

If anyone ever catches me getting excited over having proven someone (that I consider more intelligent than myself) wrong and essentially turning the post/thread in which I do it into a trophy, not only will I know I'm wasting my life, but you seriously have permission to shoot me.


More on topic, I like people's replies to the OP. Hunting population selection would only matter if you killed the animal before it was able to reproduce. And, if said hunting did prevent such animals from reproducing thus affecting the population, it would only matter if that trait was helpful for surival. Because that trait made certain animals a target for hunting, it would be unhelpful for survival (assuming those animals were unable to produce fertile offspring before hunters bagged them).

I'm going to infer from the OP's comments that the articles assert the quantity of hunting is sufficient to make a difference.

[sexdrugsmoney]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">En respuesta a:</font><hr />

I post here for a few reasons, none of which you've mentioned:

1. Boredom
2. Keep intellectually active (poker alone just isn't enough).
3. Learn something
4. Dispel my own misconceptions
5. Keep my debate skills on point.

If anyone ever catches me getting excited over having proven someone (that I consider more intelligent than myself) wrong and essentially turning the post/thread in which I do it into a trophy, not only will I know I'm wasting my life, but you seriously have permission to shoot me.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is no emoticon for an ovation sadly.
/images/graemlins/wink.gif
To address Wacki's original post, I think this is a very good topic about what effect humans are having on the planet especially since Industrialization.

I'm not talking in terms of "Good" and "Bad" per se, but addressing things like our change from once living closer to nature and and the natural order of things, to manufacturing 'unaturalist techniques' for lack of better term, and in that vague bracket one could include anything from industry and things like antibiotics.

Here is the picture which I imagine spawned Wacki's post:

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/4108/moose16ds.jpg

This picture tells us alot.

The most noticable thing I believe is the bow in the hunter's hand. The first bow would have been extremely crude, naturally that technology progressed to composite bows and so forth, and now today we have the "walmart bow"* in an age where a bow seems defunct in favor of a gun.

This 'better tech' obviously allows for a bigger kill, thus if I get what Wacki is saying is leaving the smaller more sickly ones to instead of being the first to be killed as it is in nature, the 'fittest' are being killed as the trophy is bigger.

The question is though from an evolutionary point of view, and this also applies to us, is that if the weaker are the 'new select' based on reliance (either on tech or lack of predator) then what impact does this have on the species, both animals ie - more genetic hereditary diseases being passed on due to ability to breed? (where nature would have picked them off before) and us. (if our tech is ever "lost" either momentarily or long term)

Interesting thread Wacki, need more like it.

* I don't know if Walmart sells bows, never been there.