Between a quarter and a third of the world’s wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London.
Populations of land-based species fell by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29%, it says.
Humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and one of the “great extinction episodes” in the Earth’s history is under way, it says.
Pollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting are blamed.
BBC News Website: Wildlife populations ‘plummeting’
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
25% of land based species havae become extinct.
As the only evidence of extinction is the fossil record, where is the evidence?
Or is this another instance of silly computer modelling.
Between 1974 and 2008 the human population has increased by almost a third. Is their some correlation between the humans and other species?
Louis, it’s pretty hard to count the live ones.
Much easier to count the deaders.
I once asked a wildlife stats man where he got his list from and he said, “mostly from the debris in dog faeces”.
Then you extrapolate and adjust.
Ever tried to count platypus in a creek?
Beano, there’s more likely a better correlation between over concern with AGW instead of the real problems.
>As the only evidence of extinction is the fossil record, where is the evidence?
So animals that have died since 1970 must leave evidence in the fossil record to be recognised by yourself as extinct?! What about animals being both in the fossil record and still alive, or is that a figment of your over-active imagination?
Is this just another example of how good the green movement is at Mathematics? The WWF’s Living Planet Index that they get the London Zoo to update was based on 1477 species in 1970, 813 Terrestrial, 344 Freshwater and 320 Marine. All adds up so far.
However it then gets a bit complex, Table 3 of the LPI, states that 27% of these have been lost, that’s 399 species. However no names are given just a upper and lower limits and a split up into each environment.
For terrestrial the 1970 figure is split into Temperate 591 and Tropical 237, that’s 828 an increase of 15. Freshwaters same split is 344 + 293 an increase of 6, with Marine split into four ocean groupings North Atlantic/Arctic Ocean 185, South Atlantic/Southern Ocean 48, North Pacific Ocean 84 and South Pacific/Indian Ocean 52 that 369 an increase of 49.
E.g. the fist part of the model, splitting the species into regions increases the number by 70. To this increased number a range of percentages are applied and some how we get to a loss figure of 27%.
At least the LPI ignores insects and micro organism etc as the additions and subtractions of just the birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals is more than enough for my calculator.
Also interesting given the recent listing of the polar bear as threatened by the USA, is that the index selected to measure trends in population is dens per 100 square km, rather than actual numbers that have been reported on this blog as increasing!
Perhaps it’s a case of again quoting Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli . There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
Silly, the evidence of extinctions is up the same bum that they plucked the numbers from. If you can still see daylight then you are clearly not looking deep enough.
Don’t be surprised if you find the remnants of the doomsday cult, Bimbolopithicus climatensis, in there too.
I’ll have to tell all those deer I see at the plant every day and the foxes, squirrels and coyotes that are running around our neighborhood in suburban Denver that they are actually dead.
Well what do you expect when food prices (namely edible oil prices) are hyperinflating and food shortages exist. There is an obvious lack of appreciation on this blog that agriculture is the largest determinant of what happens to the world’s land base otherwise there would be a great deal more discussion.
Land is being cleared not for its timber but so it can be planted to oil palms, soybeans and wheat and at rates not thought imaginable. The most effective way you can slow this renewed affront is to ensure that the land that is already cleared is producing as much food as it can, eg worldwide adoption of genetically modified crops. And that will also mean a nuclear renaissance to fire a global desalination move to increase the productive capacity of cleared lands that are water insecure world over. Oh I can hear the anti GM camp and anti nuclear miffs mobilizing their thoughts already.
The fact is we don’t live in a perfect world and I don’t see any of you volunteering for the global die-off that is needed to bring human influences down to ‘sustainable’ limits. I don’t necessarily believe nuclear and GM are the future but I am rational enough to see we are at a resource limit crossroads with a world unwilling to compromise on population. Something has to give …
Why are the figures that have been given here so inconceivable and apparently offensive to some? Over 90% of animal life on this earth consists of invertebrates, most of which people here have never heard of, let alone give a damn about. It is totally realistic that human practices are wiping out 1% of all other species every year, especially when they are not deer or squirrels or coyotes, but small organisms living in specific niches.
Aaron I agree with you about population, but it just gets ugly. You are talking about the dominant species regulating itself in order for it and all others to continue on. It’s not gonna happen and more species/cultures will be added to the list.
True JB. We’re all a bunch of deniers.
I do wildlife data daily and when my count is down so am I.
This morning I had a multi-species hit.
My denial has been reinforced.
The simple facts are that wildlife popiulations in Australia have a natural variation of up to 80% decline and back again due to climatic and seasonal variation. The same would also apply to all the woodland ecosystems.
But these WWF numbers are totally unrealistic because the majority of wildlife are still in undisturbed ecosystems. Only 13% of the Amazon has been cleared over the past four decades and half of that has regrown to deliver a major portion of the original habitat services.
So the WWF needs to explain how any more than 7 or 8% of amazonian wildlife could be killed off when 93% of their habitat is still entirely intact?
They blame “Pollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting” but these impacts are only felt on a minor part of the ecosystem. Ditto for the Congo basin, PNG, Irian Jaya and to a lesser extent Borneo. And lets not forget Siberia, Alaska, Northern Canada, Northern Australia and all of Antarctica, all ecosystems that are almost entirely intact. Neither pollution, farming, urban expansion nor hunting is taking place at anywhere near a threat level in these places.
So the only way the world population of wildlife could have declined by 33% is by a greater than 66% decline over the remainder of the planet. This is a totally preposterous proposition.
Here in Australia the Flannery/Archer estimate of Kangaroo populations in the 1980s was only 10 million. This was used to justify major curbs on culling. But subsequent infra-red scans revealed the real population to be about 100 million. They both agree that this is a major increase on the pre-settlement population but the shmucks didn’t even have the good grace to apologise to those who were disadvantaged by their erroneous input.
Of course, to the twisted nutters of the WWF, the notion that many species actually benefit from the intervention of mankind in the landscape, is completely beyond their feeble, ideologically perverted intellect.
Remember thinking once that there were a lot of roos in the bush paddock. It was completely dog netted to protect the sheep.
When we mustered and pushed everything out of the mulga into an open corner there were 25,000 roos and 5,000 sheep!
The previous year I wouldn’t have thought there were 1,000 roos.
As Ian says; benefitting from mankind.
Mind you, then we had to shoot ’em….
Spangled,
There are no platypusses in the creeks here at Halls Creek.
Your comment about the roos in the paddock reminds me of Jack Absolom’s account when he was a roo shooter – no end of roos as you point out.
There is one view that species which experience catastrophic reductions in population numbers tend to compensate for the next culling by increasing their numbers catastrophically.
I wonder if humanity is doing the same – expecting another global catastrophe that will reduce human numbers.
To this there is a fundamental question. How many species are there? If there is a percentage decrease then you must be able to state and prove how many species there are. The rub is that the total number of species is not known. In other words they are talking BS.
I’m curious – what are the bona fides of all the contributors here who disagree with the findings of the ZSL?
Just wondering.
Excellent question Barnard J, but you likely wont get an answer. I’d say these experts are off on another adventure, collecting and observing, analysing data, writing reports and having their findings published in peer-reviewed journals. You’d be amazed where their armchairs can take them.
The UK’s Independent is also reporting this environmental crisis as:
“An epidemic of extinctions: Decimation of life on earth”
The Independent claims:
“Species are dying out at a rate not seen since the demise of the dinosaurs, according to a report published today – and human behaviour is to blame.” and
“Scientists say the current extinction rate is now up to 10,000 times faster than what has historically been recorded as normal.”
They have some graphical evidence of these claims at
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/an-epidemic-of-extinctions-decimation-of-life-on-earth-829325.html
Cinders this says some species have been lost 27% of what number? What does “Historically recorded as normal” mean? It is a rehash anyway and not new. Who recorded species loss in historical times the Romans, Druids, Pharaohs or King Arthur who was worrying about the loss of Unicorns? Fairies seem to not be extinct, plenty still believe in them.
Not ‘wondering’ Bernard, just ‘wanking’. Instead of responding to the actual substance of what people are saying, all you and Travis can do is imply some sort of infallibility on the part of the Zoological Society of London. It might have been acceptable if you had actually considered some of the points raised but you took the favoured option of the lazy mind.
A popular method for inflating the number of extinctions is inflating the number of species.
Inflating the number of species can be accomplished by geographic location, genetics, or both.
In the case of the former, I could say that the polar bear has gone extinct in New York, due to the retreat of ice at the end of the most recent Ice Age. This can be counted as an “extinction”, even though there are polar bears further north.
In the case of the latter, one can study genetic variations. However, the precision of this method is its greatest failing. Individuals in any given (non-microbial) population, if they are not clones, will be genetically distinct from each other. This makes each individual a potentially separate species.
Both types of species inflations occur when biologists abandon the notion that species are differentiated on the basis of interfertility.
We in the US made this mistake with the famed “spotted owl.” As it turns out, the greatest threat to this “species” was its tendency to mate with, and to have fertile progeny with, “other” owls.
For an excellent example of both types of species inflation (giraffes), check out this article:
“Extensive population genetic structure in the giraffe”, BMC Biology, Dec. 21, 2007,
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/5/57
The authors find giraffe populations to be “genealogically distinct” and that further genetic analysis suggests the existence of *eleven* species.
They also go so far beyond abandoning the interfertility criterion as to call interfertility a problem!
“In highly mobile species that are distributed across continuous habitat, persistent gene flow can stifle genetic differentiation and speciation”, they say.
Their new analysis, which multiplies the number of species, leads them to easily conclude that “[s]everal of these previously unrecognized genetic units are highly endangered”.
I could go on about this, but you can see how easy it is to inflate the number of extinctions by inflating the number of species.
Yes Mott, whatever. How about answering Bernard’s question instead of getting your dirty knickers in a knot? Is that because you have zip, zilch, nada expertise to comment in this area? Bernard asks a valid question and you have to bring your sex life into it. Still frustrated I see.
Show us where the fallibility of the Zoological Society of London is Mott. Prove that their figures are not correct and do so without your usual bias, abuse and tapeworm Alex.
What an interesting response from Ian Mott! Some poor chap politely asks a reasonable question and he is accused of masturbating. Needless to say the question wasn’t answered. Could that be because Mr Mott really has no expertise in this area but rather a bias towards wildlife organisations? It’s ok to admit that Ian, but nobody likes an ignorant bully.
So 200000 species of beetles have gone extinct?
“It might have been acceptable if you had actually considered some of the points raised but you took the favoured option of the lazy mind.”
This coming from someone who relies heavily on others to get links for him and when they refuse he has a tantrum claiming they are not playing fair. Who when provided with links doesn’t even read them if they are of an opposing view to his.
“Pollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting” but these impacts are only felt on a minor part of the ecosystem. Ditto for the Congo basin, PNG, Irian Jaya and to a lesser extent Borneo. And lets not forget Siberia, Alaska, Northern Canada, Northern Australia and all of Antarctica, all ecosystems that are almost entirely intact. Neither pollution, farming, urban expansion nor hunting is taking place at anywhere near a threat level in these places.”
So feral species have kept Northern Australia intact? No hunting for the wildlife trade that could possibly be a threat in Irian Jaya? No deforestation, hunting or fighting in the Congo that could possibly place *any* species under threat? Wildlife in Borneo is not under threat? No species of albatross that can be considered Antarctic fauna under threat from fishing? You are aware all the bugs in Northern Canada are quite safe?
“the majority of wildlife are still in undisturbed ecosystems.”
Rubbish. Most ecosystems are now disturbed in some way.
The fact that Australians are dismissing dropping numbers in biodiversity here and globally shows that you never learnt your own white history and will continually repeat mistakes – not through ignorance but arrogance.
DHMO asks of what number is the 27% applied to? Excellent question!
Especially as Schiller Thurkettle states “A popular method for inflating the number of extinctions is inflating the number of species”
The UK’s Independent story quoted above claims
“Tracking nearly 4,000 species between 1970 and 2005, the team has not only revealed the destruction of the Earth’s wildlife, but also pointed the finger at the perpetrators of this devastation.”
This number compares with the WWF Living planet Index of 1477 species in 1970, 813 Terrestrial, 344 Freshwater and 320 Marine (see my first effort on this subject)
The validity of this Index is a key question as the WWF plan to lobby the countries of the world when they meet in Bonn this week for the latest meeting of the Convention of Biological Diversity
The WWF’s plan to use their report to show that governments are not on track to meet their target to achieve by 2010 a ‘significant’ reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss and demand even more resources and more reservation.
Many will remember that the CBD sets a target of 10% reservation to conserve biodiversity; Australia’s has achieved over 10% with 13% forest reservation and with Tassie’s forests almost 50%. Yet the WWF demanded more and the Government delivered with its Budget, diverting millions of real dollars from education, from pensions and from health care to fund even more reserves to “save” ‘modeled’ species.
The LPI is downloadable at http://www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/2010_and_beyond.pdf
The same thing is going on here in Australia Schiller. The Little Tern is listed as rare and threatened but the main threat appears to be its penchant for mating with Fairy Terns. Ditto for Brown Bears and their salt water bleached cousins, the Polar Bears.
The main advantage of listing two halves of a species as two distinct species is that the recorded population of each is then much smaller and appears more vulnerable.
And here comes the rent-a-diatribe. How dare I criticise someone for demanding deference to the Environment Lords. Mere mortals should never presume to cast doubt on the pontifications of Environment Lords, should they?
Note that Travis feels the need to defend this infallibility, as if it were an end in itself. If he had retained only a small portion of my earlier posts he would have noted that the fallibility in the ZSL lay in the fact that they have declined to even recognise that many, many species have actually thrived after their habitat has been modified by humans.
This serious misrepresentation by omission not only strips away their precious infallibility but also condemns them as fraudsters bent on misleading public policy.
Meanwhile, Alicia would portray Bernard as some poor chap asking an innocent question when the actual question related to “bona fides”. It was not a request for qualifications etc, it was clearly an implication that the very act of doubting the ZSL was illegitimate.
And then Travis posts again as Roger to split hairs. Yes, some species are in decline but the presence of some in decline does not mean the habitat is, for the most part, intact and maintaining populations of most dependent species.
I actually had to pinch myself to confirm that I was not dreaming, that the main objection of a bunch of eco-droogs was my supposed blasphemy in doubting the infallibility of some environmental NGO on a mission from captain planet.
Ian,
It gets worse than what I have described.
When “sampling” for species biodiversity, the “efficient” biosampler uses small plots for sampling.
By “efficient”, I mean, taking big money for small plots.
The smaller the plot for the “biodiversity survey”, the more likely it is that you will find a species endangered, or even, completely absent–i.e., “extinct”.
And everyone knows, extinction studies pay better than anything related.
Try to get some funding for determining “beneficial impacts of human presence” and you won’t get a dime.
So, the smart studiers of ecology subdivide populations as small as they can get away with, to minimize the labor involved in the studies, and to maximize the impact of their “disappearing species” claims.
It’s a business.
Wow Mott, so now I’m Roger? That’s interesting as a while back you were saying Libby was me. You can’t seem to fathom that there are a number of contributors here who think you’re an idiot. No ‘rent-a-diatribe’ required Mott, people naturally can’t stand you.
>my supposed blasphemy in doubting the infallibility of some environmental NGO on a mission from captain planet.
Actually it’s your lack of expertise Mott, and your consistent panning of any organisation or individual that doesn’t fit your screwed up view of the world. No style or substance, just blatant ignorant prejudice. Yawn…
So who cares about what a species is – so long as they can interbreed with others all is good with the world. So no wildlife reserves, gene banks, underground plant seed bunkers or red/white/blue listings needed anymore. There is nothing wrong with the state of the natural world and as Roger (or was that Travis, or was that Libby?!) quoted Mott as saying ‘the majority of wildlife are still in undisturbed ecosystems’. Pffttt!
>they have declined to even recognise that many, many species have actually thrived after their habitat has been modified by humans.
Mott I swear you have OCD. Once you get on a bandwaggon you ride it till the horse is flogged dead. For those species that ‘thrive’ after habitat modification by humans, how ‘many, many’ decline?? I’d like some research to back up your claim. You can even use Wiki and Tim Lowe as sources since actual scientific publications are a bit hard for you. Time to deliver.
Speaking of Stupid – Schiller next you’ll be telling us that human cultures don’t really need to exist and that genocide isn’t such a bad thing. If humans can interbreed there is no need to respect cultures and races so to hell with Iraq, Burma and not to mention the Palestinians. That seems to fit with your simple view of the world. LOL!
Well, Travis,
I must say, there’s more than adequate precedent for your position on species and “genetic pollution” across certain lines.
When you consider Iraqis, Burmese and Palestinians to be separate species, you’re following in the footsteps of Hitler and the KKK in proclaiming the importance of “racial purity” in spite of evidence that interfertility between “races” is completely feasible.
Which makes it easy for you to equate extinction and genocide. You want to create artificial species, condemn interfertility (“mongrel races”) and balkanize the biosphere with the notion that anything less than balkanization is “genocide.”
But your claims of genocide are as artificial as your claims of speciation amongst humans. Your ultimate preference is to subdivide populations to the point where they appear small and weak, but it’s all sophistry.
Life on the planet is widespread and robust–aggressively so. Your contrary pretensions are unimpressive in light of the facts.
The notion that ‘the majority of wildlife are still in undisturbed ecosystems’ is a non-starter. As every whacko knows, if a human enters an ecosystem, it’s automatically “disturbed”. Which means that all undisturbed ecosystems are those which haven’t been studied.
There is an equally disturbing corollary to this madness, but it’s been established as an empirical fact: endangered species cluster around human development projects. If you want to build a hydroelectric dam, a windmill farm or a shopping mall, the endangered species show up!
Of course Schiller. They keep them in the freezer so they can be found again as roadkill at every new project. (is that born again roadkill?).
And of course, the main role of seedbanks is to produce a ready supply of rare flora whenever the courts overrule their bull$hit objections. But whenever they have the opportunity to take some serious effort to ensure the recovery of populations, well, gosh, is that the time, gotta go, catch ya later, chow.
>When you consider Iraqis, Burmese and Palestinians to be separate species,
Where did I say this Schiller??
>You want to create artificial species, condemn interfertility (“mongrel races”) and balkanize the biosphere with the notion that anything less than balkanization is “genocide.”
You really are a nutter.
>your claims of speciation amongst humans
Again Schiller, where did I say this? You have a nasty little habit of misrepresenting Schiller, and an even nastier one of not apologising for it.
>Your ultimate preference is to subdivide populations to the point where they appear small and weak, but it’s all sophistry.
Yes Schiller, and I am stroking a white Persian cat as I proclaim my ‘ultimate preference’!!!
>Which means that all undisturbed ecosystems are those which haven’t been studied.
Sheeshk. So if a section of the Daintree hasn’t been studied it is ‘undisturbed’, despite the fact the water in the creek has passed through other areas and has been and carrying potential pathogens to the frog populations?
>Your contrary pretensions are unimpressive in light of the facts.
Facts are an endangered species where you are concerned Schiller.
>Life on the planet is widespread and robust–aggressively so.
Yeah, I’m sure the Toolache would agree with you.
So tell us, Travis, why did the ZSL not mention the fact that many species have undergone major population increase after their habitat has been improved by human intervention?
Proper accounting is, after all, a system of double entries, debits and credits. Certainly, some species would regard human modification as an impairment but to others it has been an unambiguous habitat improvement.
And we need to ask the environment Lords why, and on what authority, did they decide that species that benefit from human habitat modification don’t get a vote on questions of the value of habitat change?
Why do the votes of 100 million Kangaroos have less value than the votes of a few Little Terns with a keen eye for Fairy Tern bootie?
Ian Mott.
I am sincerely curious to know what your credentials, and those of your barrackers, are.
You see, I am a population biologist, and for over a decade I have worked with endangered vertebrate species, from amphibians to mammals. At both ends of the vertebrate scale I have surveyed/assessed/counted/monitored (pick whatever term spins your bottle) animal numbers, and I have watched species-wide population sizes of very disparate taxa drop to 20% or less of their size, compared with sizes even a mere 15 years earlier. And I can assure you that this has nothing to do with an “80% natural variation” – the species I study are historically stable with respect to population size, compared with the declines now seen, and I can almost guarantee their extinction within another decade or two.
You and others here have made some rather sweeping claims in the face of peer-reviewed and accepted science, and I wonder upon what experience you are able to contradict the people who really should know about what it is that they speak of.
I AM asking about your qualifications to say what you do, not because I think that the “very act of doubting the ZSL [is] illegitimate” (I am an enthusiastic proponent of scientific, as opposed to dogmatic, scepticism), but because if you are going to claim superior knowledge over the ZSL you need to show your ‘authority’ to do so. Otherwise any wingnut could claim expertise where none exists.
And after you have estabished that you are properly capable of assessing and interpreting the scientific literature on species decline, rather than just working at the level where you swallow stuff you heard from the postman, how about YOU get to the point of scientifically showing where the ZSL is wrong, instead of asking for substance from others when you provide none yourself? I hardly think that it is my job to educate YOU here when you have taken it upon yourself to be an arbiter of population biology: it is not my responsibility to ensure that you know what you are taking about, but yours.
If you are going to bring down the ‘edifice’ of population biology, you’re going to have to have the creds, and the evidence to support your claims, or otherwise you’re just a gibbering pretender.
And all I hear from you is a lot of incoherent chatter.
>So tell us, Travis, why did the ZSL not mention the fact that many species have undergone major population increase after their habitat has been improved by human intervention?
So tell us Mott, how ‘many, many’ species have undergone ‘major population increase after their habitat has been imporved by hunman intervention’? Back it up with some facts and figures. We’re waiting for you to deliver.
Bernard, any person who can claim to have been studying species over the past decade, and claim that the observed change in population during that time has had nothing to do with the fact that we have just gone through a 1 in 100 year drought, is not fit to be called a population biologists armpit.
Drought, even 1 in 100 year droughts, are part of the natural variation in climate. And it follows that population responses to such drought are very much part of the natural variation.
And given some of the literature about, it would seem that you have also spent that time with your head in a paper bag.
Sharpe, recorded an 80% decline in Squirrel Glider population over a mere three months of dry weather in Bungawalbin National Park (NSW) in 2000.
” During the winter of 2000 there were more than 30 gliders present, including juveniles, which was a five-year high. E robusta and B integrifolia flowered heavily during that winter and were important food resources. E robusta had not flowered in the previous four years, while B integrifolia is a reliable winter nectar resource. Despite the availability of nectar, reproductive success appeared to be low due to the loss of pouch young. Gliders rapidly lost weight between July and September 2000 which coincided with extreme dry conditions and a lack of flowering in E siderophloia, an important nectar source. The number of gliders on the (38ha)grid fell by almost 80% between September and November 2000. However, the total population declined by 55% and the adult population by 42% when compared to their numbers averaged across the previous four years. Between September 2000 and March 2001, only seven squirrel gliders were known to be resident. Glider numbers remained low during 2001, indicating that recovery was slow. The observed decline appeared to be widespread throughout the region. therefore, there was little opportunity for migration to assist population recovery. The squirrel glider appears to be sensitive to flower failure in key winter/spring flowering species.”
My qualifications are that I was born and raised in a native forest and have spent large parts of the past 53 years tending that forest and managing the bees that relied on that forest. This has given me a detailed understanding of both the ebb and flow of flowering events and the variation in growth rates due to both human intervention and natural seasonal and cyclical variation.
I am a current member of the Qld SLATS advisory committee, a past national councillor of Australian Forest Growers, past chairman of the SE Qld Regional Forestry Committe, a past member of the SEQ Regional Vegetation Management Committee, a past member of the AGO’s Consultative Panel on Land Use Change and Forestry, and one of only four non-scientist delegates at the CSIRO workshop on regrowth forest management (Orbost). The list of my submissions on all aspects of forest management and ecology requires more than two closely typed A4 pages. My list of formal appearances at conferences, workshops and public forums is of similar length.
In short, I have been riding shotgun on the output of assorted experts for more than two decades and, it must be said, the “shotgun” is the most appropriate term.
I gave you a very good example of a whole class of species (large macropods) that has significantly increased population due to human habitat modification. But you chose to pretend that I gave nothing specific and followed it up with a bogus demand for substantiation.
I repeat my request for you to explain why, and under what authority has the ZSL declined to mention the species that have increased population due to human habitat improvement?
Ian Mott.
The decline of the species I work with has NOTHING to do with drought. Can you understand this?! You are confabulating proximal factors to create a strawman, and if I am not fit to be a population biologist’s armpit, then you are rather less fit to be a logician’s botty.
I too can give you a large – nay, a very VERY large – list of species whose numbers have increased due to human activity, but this is not the point of the original argument, which focussed on the LOSS of species. In this regard the increase of other species is irrelevant, especially when one considers ecosystem integrity and function. Your second strawman attempt, to imply that the increase in some species negates the importance of loss of others making said losses unimportant, is purile and is completely off the point.
You might want to calm down your reference to (admitedly ‘non-scientist’) forestry involvement too. I myself have previously been employed by a state forestry organisation for eight years, and I have some familiarity with the nature of non-scientific representation that can darken the doors. Such involvement is NOT an automatic qualification to comment on scientifically substantiated research, no matter how vehemently you might disagree with the data on an ideological basis.
Ian Mott, there is an unprecedented decline of species in recent times. You seem to dispute this. This decline has, to date, very little to do with the change in climate, the existence of which bothers you so much, although such low correlaton may alter in the future.
If you consider yourself qualified to validly contradict the ZSL there are fora in which you may do so – their own journal, or alternatively many other independent scientific journals whose only requirement is that you can demonstrate appropriate understanding, and competence to withstand relevant peer scrutiny. If you truly believe what you spout here you would repeat it in a proper forum and scuttle the misapprehensions of these population biologists once and for all, be done with the whole sad story, and win the admiration of millions for your efforts.
Heck, if you wanted even a semblance of engagement with the scientists whom you so disparage, and if you aren’t inclined to move out of the blogosphere, there are still many places more credible than Jennifer’s that you could make your point…
You have so far demonstrated a lot of wind, and the capacity to shift arguements, but not one iota of ability to comment relevantly upon species decline.
Perhaps this is why you only have your say in backwaters like this blog, where your chances to turn the unsuspecting wanderers who happen upon it are infinitely greater than they would be if you stood up to present your case in front of folk who know rather better.
If this is a backwater Bernard, then what are you doing here?
And frankly Bernard, you are a liar. I will not outline how it is that I know you are a liar because that will only assist you, and others, to become a better one. But I could go to any number of people who’s jobs involve the detection of deception, like senior police, tax auditors, executive recruiters etc, and they would all recognise the key indicators that you have exhibited.
Back to the topic. The theme of the initial post was the decline of populations of species, not the decline in the number of species. And in that context the increase in one population is just as valid as a decrease in another population. But the ZSL has chosen to be selective with the facts. They have only spoken about half the ledger.
More importantly, they have made statements about the change in populations over a particular time period that has ended in an extended El Nino drought. This climate system impacts on wildlife populations over a very large part of the globe. And any time series that compares past mean population sizes with those in a final extended El Nino population must, inevitably, show a marked decline.
The period in question also coincides with a warm dry portion of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which has also had an impact on wildlife populations on a global scale.
Any discussion on wildlife populations that ignores these two major inputs is worse than unprofessional, it is incompetent.
And if the Grand Poo Bahs in the ZSL, or any other pretentiously named collection of metrocentric punters in places that have zero wildlife, feel the need to take issue with any of this then they are quite free to air their views here, on one of the very best environmental blogs on the planet.
Ian Mott.
I read widely in the professional literature and in the blogosphere, ensuring that I cover a spectrum of fora that includes attitudes, beliefs and dogmas with which I disagree, in order to obtain an informed perspective of the wide variety of opinion. I choose to NOT self-select only for the stances that correspond with my personal philosophies, nor to frequent only professional sources, because I hold to the idea of balance and representative sampling.
That’s why I endure the irritation of reading some of the bizarreness on blogs such as this one. And occasionally, when I see ignoramuses twisting the truth of matters into Gordian knots of deception, I might chip in with a bit of objectivity. Usually it’s a forlorn effort though, given that such folk are generally very much of the self-selecting sort…
Which reminds me – upon what criterion or criteria do you determine that Marohasy’s blog is “one of the very best environmental blogs on the planet”?
As to the issue of the decline of species diversity versus the decline in raw numbers of individuals – both are important, and correlated, and are in fact a part of a larger overall consideration of depauperation of biodiversity; and I say again your fixation on the increase in the numbers of a small cadre of species in response to human activity is a complete strawman, or otherwise a sign of absolute ecological ignorance upon your part.
And your fixation on trying to tie decreasing population size (which necessarily should include species numbers) to climate, or even to weather, simply skirts around the incontrovertible fact that these very declines DO exist, and that they are thoroughly and defensibly detected, and that they have a very great deal to do with the wide range of human impact upon the biosphere.
Oh, and you are out of line in calling me a liar. However, the fact that you found it necessary to do so speaks volumes to me about your frame of mind. If you want to make such accusations and hide behind lame, cowardly excuses for not justifying yourself because “that will only assist [me]”, so be it, but don’t think that you are reinforcing your credibility by doing so.
I am off to take some forestry maps back into the office to record where in several forestry coups I have spent the last week and a half monitoring a precipitously declining species, and I will derive more than a little amusement passing on your comments to both the forestry and the government scientists with which I work.
>I repeat my request for you to explain why, and under what authority has the ZSL declined to mention the species that have increased population due to human habitat improvement
And I repeat my request Mott for you to give some facts and figures on the ‘many, many’ species that have undergone ‘major population increase after their habitat has been improved by human intervention’.
Your complete failure to do so only reinforces the fact you can’t find the literature to back up your ‘many manys’ and you deliberately create diversions in order to detract from the issue and your pathetic ignorance. Time and again you demand this sort of evidence from others here, but when called you can’t deliver.
>And frankly Bernard, you are a liar. I will not outline how it is that I know you are a liar because that will only assist you, and others, to become a better one. But I could go to any number of people who’s jobs involve the detection of deception, like senior police, tax auditors, executive recruiters etc, and they would all recognise the key indicators that you have exhibited.
Well done Mott. That has to be one of your best yet!!! A major dummy spit by the sad old man who reverts back to boyhood when challenged in any way. If you want to make such a statement in a public forum Mott, how about you back it up so the rest of the readers can judge for themselves. Of course the standard reply will be something about a rent-a-diatribe. You are as predictable as you are pathetic.
Bernard, thanks for trying. Mott does not want anyone with an ounce of knowledge to contribute to this blog. He has managed to bully many people with genuine expertise and deter them from contributing. I know of a number of biologists who want to contribute in order that readers can get some sort of balance and informative discussion, however they simply decide that self-amputation would be a better use of their time. Mott and his ego-inflated mates are only interested in dominating every debate with wiki-‘facts’, prejudices and abuse. That is the reason why Marohasy’s blog is NOT one of the ‘very best environmental blogs on the planet’. What a laugh to even suggest otherwise. Classic.
I was wondering when we would get Bernie’s “down there on a visit” line. Right on cue. So how about telling us exactly which coupes in which forest you have observed a “precipitous” decline in which species, Bernard?
Or did we just see the exit strategy of a bull$hit artist who found himself in a corner?
The ZSL pumps out some self serving hype for the world media to lap up but old Bernie here wants any criticism to be sent in the back door without any public scrutiny. The amazing thing is that he thinks he isn’t transparent.
But surprisingly, he is part right. For almost all of the leaf, bud, flower and sap based food chains in forests that have recently been taken out of production and handed to the goons at Parks and Wildlife, there is likely to be significant declines in populations. That is because the regrowing stems are forced into greater and greater competition for moisture and nutrients as each gets larger. As trees grow, the numbers in any given area must decline so the remaining trees have the space commensurate with their size.
If there is no competent forester in charge to ensure the continual adjustment of spacing through partial harvesting/culling then the trees enter the debilitating process of killing each other off. And that is what the Park plodders are doing to forests all over Australia (when they aren’t letting them burn to a cinder).
It is a slow process under which trees are placed under more and more stress. Soil moisture is sucked up faster and faster, soil gets dryer sooner and soil microbes cease fertilising sooner. Trees switch to survival mode leaving less reserves for extended dry periods. This reduces the volume and diversity of understorey vegetation with obvious impacts on species that depend on it.
Competition also speeds up the point at which leaf moisture content falls below 65%, and nitrogen falls below 1.5%, the levels at which Koalas, for example, can no longer digest these leaves. This also triggers the release of polyphenyl toxins into their remaining leaves to further protect them from browsers. Flowering is retarded, sap flow is reduced and all the species that form the related food chain suffer in the way described by Sharpe above.
But contrary to the turgid pulp being produced by most of the research community, the resulting declines in forest dependent species has nothing to do with farming, urban development or even drought. This is a direct consequence of culpable management that was put in place by a corrupt policy process based on fraudulent science.
The relationship between tree age, spacing, growth rates, and moisture and nutrient supply and the health and survival rates of forest dependent species has been thoroughly documented for more than 30 years. But the green movement held themselves out as superior custodians of forest ecosystems and the wildlife they acquired are now paying the price, big time.
And of course, if Bernie has been monitoring populations in any of the 2 million hectares of green tenured forest that was burned to cinders in 2003 and again in 2006/7 then, surprise, surprise, the populations have most certainly declined. But blaming it on farming, urban development and all the usual suspects is way off the mark. The greens are just getting the forests and wildlife values they deserve.
And I repeat my request Mott for you to give some facts and figures on the ‘many, many’ species that have undergone ‘major population increase after their habitat has been improved by human intervention’.
I noticed Ian Mott has conveniently ignored my comments and played the hand of ad hom. I can assure you Mr Mott, I am not Travis, but it provides a way for you to escape responsibility for your ill-informed commentary. If you are going to make such grandiose announcements Ian, the least you could do is provide some support material.
There are some cases of species which have faired well after their habitat has been modified by humans, but to imply that these are significant compared to populations that have been reduced is highly misleading, which seems to be your MO. To make the claim that the majority of wildlife is still in undisturbed habitat reflects the true extent of your knowledge base, which you try to put forth as something superior to the “Grand Poo Bahs in the ZSL, or any other pretentiously named collection of metrocentric punters in places that have zero wildlife”. Such academic class Mr Mott! Your words do illustrate a certain degree of higher intellect.
Your example of the squirrel glider is ironic. It is classified as a Vulnerable species in NSW and Threatened in Victoria. The threats listed for this species include “Steady attrition of quality and extent of habitat remnants due to removal of timber for both sawn products and firewood; lack of suitable hollows in most habitat remnants on the inland slopes; lack of regeneration of trees and shrubs due to grazing by stock, rabbits and macropods and inappropriate fire regimes; removal of habitat during prospecting and mining for gold; tree decline in rural lands and outbreaks of leaf-skeletonising caterpillars in riverine forests; and further coastal development in NSW and south-east Qld” as well as “Loss and fragmentation of habitat, loss of flowering understorey and midstorey shrubs in forests, individuals can get caught in barbed wire fences while gliding.” Its numbers have been reduced by multiple examples of human disturbance, but you neglected to let the readers in on this piece of information.
So clearly the squirrel glider is not one of your many species that has benefited from human disturbance Ian, but perhaps you would like to answer Travis’s question and provide the readers of one of the very best environmental blogs on the planet with a similar list to that of the ZSL. A list that documents all those species on the planet that have benefited from human disturbance. Although according to your expert knowledge, there are obviously not going to be any from “Congo basin, PNG, Irian Jaya and to a lesser extent Borneo. And lets not forget Siberia, Alaska, Northern Canada, Northern Australia and all of Antarctica”!
Time and again we must read the expert opinion of Ian Mott on every subject that is posted on this apparently world-class blog. So let’s see some real facts from Mr Mott, not anecdotes or name-calling or chest-thumping, to help us readers decide for ourselves. Let’s see how Mr Mott is better than those Grand Poo Bahs of the ZSL.
Come on, get real.
Everyone knows that if human intervention in any ecosystem whatsoever, if it proves to have a measurable impact, proves that the environment has been damaged, and that humans caused the damage.
Enviro-whackos proceed on the notion that zero change from a quantity they have established is the ideal. Any deviation from zero will be blamed upon someone, and the enviro-whackos will always find a scapegoat.
If you argue that deviation from zero is normal, you will be accused of taking money from Exxon.
So tell me Schiller where did I write what you attributed to me earlier, or are you going to apologise this time?
Bernie has clearly had his head in a paper bag for some time now. The entire suite of woodland and grassland species has benefited from the additional watering points that now dot most land under freehold and leasehold tenure.
But note that Bernie and Travis are not contesting that some species have benefited from human habitat modification. They are now arguing that wildlife have suffered more losses than gains and are trying to imply that I disagree. I have never disputed the fact that wildlife have given way to domestic animals in the landscape.
Yet, Bernie and Travis actually recognise that there have been winners and losers, something that the ZSL apparently do not. Their continual demand for a list of animals that have benefited from human intervention, that they will presumably trump with a larger list of those that have not, is nothing more than a massive side step of the key issues.
Remember, the ZSL claimed that wildlife populations have declined by 33% since the 1970s. But they did not make any mention of the population rises amongst winners. And they did not make any reference to the portion of population decline that is attributable to the drought phase of ENSO and PDO cycles.
Both Bernie and the nutters at ZSL have claimed that all (100%) of this claimed decline in populations is structural rather than cyclical. This is not only an erroneous statement, it clearly has no basis in reality.
To claim some sort of higher credibility based on credentials alone while completely discounting and actively trying to obscure the range of variation in wildlife populations due to seasonal and cyclical climate variations is the height of ideological delusion.
More importantly, these stupid ideologically based pronunciamentos are bad science and even worse policy because they divert focus from trends and ecological processes that ARE taking place and ARE effecting wildlife populations.
It would not surprise anyone who actually lives in and observes the non-urban landscape on a daily basis that total wildlife populations might be down by 33% at the end of a 1 in 100 year drought. Most would be surprised that numbers have not dropped further.
But as usual, Travis/Bernie has lost the plot. They just want to win a personalised political argument and don’t mind shifting the goalposts in a sad attempt to do so.
Note that even when presented with sound, verified research that demonstrates how the failure of a flowering event of a key tree species has first sent body weights plumeting and then seen 80% of squirrel gliders starving to death, Bernie and most of the research community persist with this stupid metrocentric and anthropomorphic notion that species decline because they lack adequate housing. The housing monomania of the barbieworlders is projected onto wildlife.
A detailed critique of the tree hollow fetish can be seen at “Whats wrong with the forestry code of practice” http://ianmott.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html
Let me just pick myself up off the floor and calm my aching sides…
>Yet, Bernie and Travis actually recognise that there have been winners and losers, something that the ZSL apparently do not. Their continual demand for a list of animals that have benefited from human intervention, that they will presumably trump with a larger list of those that have not, is nothing more than a massive side step of the key issues.
LOL!! Sidestep?? If you haven’t sussed it yet Mott, the key issue here is LOSS OF SPECIES – ie those that have not benefited. The side stepping is by yourself, as you draw attention away from this issue and announce for all such pearls of unsubstantiated wisdom as the majority of wildlife remaining in undisturbed habitats and your many, many species that have benefited. So according to you, the issue should be that species have benefited from humans and we are not so bad after all! Don’t worry Mott, maybe we can blame the loss of species on something other than humans, like wayward whales with nuclear weapons. Poor training I’d suggest.
>But they did not make any mention of the population rises amongst winners.
Are you f*cking serious? LOL!!!You now want the ZSL to write what YOU want them to write about?! Their topic is loss, not gain! Maybe dear Mott, if you wrote to them in your capacity as a world expert and a past member of the SEQ Regional Vegetation Management Committee and asked them nicely (yeah, forget that!) to include a list of species that has benefited, they will do so, because you certainly can’t provide such a list no matter how many times you are asked. Talk about side stepping!
>the nutters at ZSL
Nutters and Grand Poo Bahs. Roger Grace will love that!
>But as usual, Travis/Bernie has lost the plot. They just want to win a personalised political argument and don’t mind shifting the goalposts in a sad attempt to do so.
This from a guy who posts videos of himself on YouTube which makes even an LJ Hooker commercial sound informative, and has a massive rant about people involved in the detection of deception in an attempt to harass a poster who clearly has some qualifications and usefulness on this planet. But we are changing the goal posts, not Mott, who wants the ZSL to CHANGE THEIR PAPER’S CONTENT, because he said so (and he can’t deal with the real issue)!!!
When I read Roger Grace’s post it contained a list of threats to squirrel gliders, of which one was ‘lack of suitable tree hollows’. Conveniently ignoring the other threats are we Mott? Who wooda thunk it? And er, why are squirrel glider numbers so low?? A 1 in 100 year drought – but of course they weren’t low before said drought!
I’m sure we’ll all go to your blog Grott, because there lies a wealth of information, just like here, on one of the very best environmental blogs in the world! I gotta go take a pee, before I wet myself with mirth.
Travis,
Tell me where I wrote what I attributed to you, and what I said when I said it, and I’ll consider whether are worth even that much consideration.
19 May 12:20
Travis posts as Roger Grace and Bernie in the hope that he and his imaginary friends can reach a consensus on what the ZSL paper was all about.
So lets just refresh their memories with;
“Between a quarter and a third of the world’s wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London. Populations of land-based species fell by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29%, it says”.
Just once more, “populations of species fell ..” it is not a reference to the number of species.
And thanks for reminding me because it was claimed by Travis Inc that there was no decline attributed to drought. That is, there was no impact on the population of FRESHWATER SPECIES in a drought where big licks of the Burdekin, Darling and numerous other major rivers were BONE DRY?
Little wonder he had to shut down expert Bernie and drag out Roger, because his credibility was already in tatters. But I suppose we should thank him for at least making us fully aware of what a second rate bunch of tossers the ZSL really is. Remember, it is they who have also claimed that the ENSO PDO global drought had no impact on the populations of fresh water species nor of land based species.
>Travis posts as Roger Grace and Bernie in the hope that he and his imaginary friends can reach a consensus on what the ZSL paper was all about.
Pleeaasssee Mott, Im going to crack a rib with all this. Sure, Roger Grace is Bernard J and Bernard J is me and I am Libby!!! LOL! Is that honestly the best you can do? Paranoia is setting in old man. Childish response from Mott (and side step) number one.
>And thanks for reminding me because it was claimed by Travis Inc that there was no decline attributed to drought.
Ooo, scary. Now I am thinking Grott is Schiller. You both can’t help but attribute things to me that I haven’t written. Childish response from Mott number two, and further proof he is getting dementia.
>a second rate bunch of tossers the ZSL really is
Childish response from Mott number three.
Now if I were Roger I would put that one alongside nutters and Grand Poo Bahs. OMG, I AM ROGER!!! LOL! You are so delusional Mott, but don’t worry, you could tell on the You Tube video too.
So Mott, when will we get your list? Or are you sooo superior you don’t need to supply it? Poor little squirrel gliders, they were doing fine before that bloody drought, and we all know, thanks to you, that the majority of species live in undisturbed habitats. Disturbing!
Smoke and mirrors. No part of a decline in freshwater populations is attributed to a 1 in 100 year drought? Not even a tiny bit? No part of a decline in land based populations is attributed to a 1 in 100 year drought? Not even a tiny bit?
And never mind the marine estimates, they probably included the Greenpeace Krill story and they certainly didn’t include the 10% annual growth in Humpback population.
The full name of the band of bozos responsible for this serious misleading of the public is the Zoological Society of London. Don’t laugh, they do have pigeons and rats. And the BBC takes them (ZSL not the rats) terribly seriously.
So Ian Mott you are continuing to claim I am someone else. I do not need to resort to such immature games as you and I certainly don’t need to provide you with evidence I am honest with my identity. All you have done is perfectly illustrate what an ignoramus you are, and that you have a very, very big inferiority complex.
Dr Roger Grace
For Pity’s sake, Ian Mott, do you vigorously practise at dissemblance and plain stupidity, or does it just come naturally to you?
For your information I have worked with two State Forestry organisations, and with one private forestry company. The scientists employed in forestry are generally very balanced, and keen to ‘get it right’, and they don’t baulk at admitting to declines (for whatever proximal and/or distal reason(s), where such occur.
Ian, I have never claimed that 100% of species decline is structural. I know full-well about population cycles, and I often have to explain such to those of your ilk who like to blame inconvenient peaks or troughs of their species-to-love(or-to-hate) on the actions of scientists or scientists’ “recommendations”. You might think that you’re clever in attempting to patronise me and to put words into my mouth, but you’re way out of line – again.
And whilst I’m at it, if you read carefully you will notice that I have NEVER denied the benefit of watering points for native species, nor have I denied the impact of vegetation modification on the increase (and decrease) of species. I certainly do not have my head in a bag in this regard, although I am certainly starting to wonder where you keep yours…
You are putting words into my mouth yet again to create another strawman. Get over yourself.
Another thing: watering holes are a very small part of a much larger woodland and grassland story, and it is estimated that there is an extinction debt of up to half of Australia’s bird species in these regions, resulting from a range of non-water, non-drought related factors. The presence of watering holes is no salvation in this regard, and it is disingenuous to promote them as a benefit if one does not also note that there are many other factors involved that hava negative as well as positive effects on species numbers and diversity.
Get over your drought fixation as well. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again – the amphibian and mammal species with which I work have declined for other reasons: specifically, because of disease and through (anthropogenic) habitat modification.
And when you said “Bernie and most of the research community persist with this stupid metrocentric and anthropomorphic notion that species decline because they lack adequate housing”, you are putting words yet, YET again into my mouth – “housing” is the least of the worries for many declining species. And please note (if it is possible for any idea that doesn’t conform to you’re a priori dogma to enter your head), that “housing” does not equate with “habitat modification’.
Oh, and I am a country boy, so you can scrub the metropolitan insinuation off your venom list also.
Nice one.
And I am the last person on earth on anthropomorphise animals – I have a reputation amongst my friends and colleagues for being a callous and inhumanly impartial bastard in this regard, so you are only showing yourself to be clutching at unwarranted and unjustifiable straws in an effort to smear my name. You are conflating a scientific concern for the ecosystems of the planet with emotive motivation, and by doing so you are only demonstrating your own clumsiness (or mendacity, or even just plain ignorance) in attempting to distract from the real issues.
As to your particular bee-in-a-bonnet stance on den hollows and habitat trees; well, only God could possibly know how you can hold the specific position that you do, because it ain’t founded in logic or reality. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a great believer in artificial nest boxes myself, but these are NOT a panacea, and the fact that they need to be used at all should be saying something to you that is obviously sailing by.
I was breathless with astonishment at your endless capacity to twist ecological science to your own worldview until I realised that you are a member of a vested-interest lobby group. I should have cottoned onto this sooner, seeing as you’re haunting the halls here… It’s all well and good to promote the arguments of your compadres, Ian, but science doesn’t support you as much as you seem to think that it does, and it is certainly NOT the case that the only science that is ‘good’ is the science that agrees with you and your barrow of beliefs. You do yourself and your cause no favours in the long-term by twisting the science for your own short-term ends.
Oh, and I was not pretending to be “down there on a visit”. If it weren’t against the company’s policies, I’d happily send a copy of my coup-entry authorisation pass to you to prove it. In fact, if you’re willing to take Tim Lambert’s word for it, as a blogmaster whom I trust, I will happily forward a copy to him to confirm for you that I did indeed work on forestry land this month. I’m happy to tell Tim too which coups I was in and what species I was studying, but as you should full-well know, this info is not something that the Forestry company that I work with would want to be cavalierly advertised on the Internet. And if I were to thus advertise it I can guarantee you that it would be the last time I get permission to enter their estate to conduct surveys.
I am happy to show to Tim with datasheets and permits that confirm my surveying work and my Forestry involvement, and I fully expect an immediate, subsequent apology from you for calling me a liar.
You know, Ian, you can twist and turn as much as you like, and try to focus on the increased populations of a handful of species, but you still fail to address the consensus scientific position on the seriousness of species numbers and population declines. That was the point of Paul’s original post, and yes, “[p]ollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting” are involved, as are introduced species and diseases, habitat modification and removal, and as much as you might thrash around denying it, climate change is starting to poke its finger into the pie too.
At either extreme of the normal curve there will be folk who seek to exaggerate the numbers – ‘greenies’ whom you loathe so much, who count too many; or those such as yourself who seek to count too few, for your own particular agendas, but the bottom line Ian is that species decline, in whatever guise one cares to define it, is happening. It happening at a rate above the ‘natural’ background, and it is happening as a consequence of human activity.
There are no two ways about it.
Oh, and Ian, I am me, just me, only me, and I am certainly no-one else contributing to this blog.
I don’t need a sock puppet, and I am sure that none of the others whom you thus accused would feel the need for sock puppets either.
Once more you are showing your irrationality and your incapacity to analyse.
Perhaps it is time for you to retire.
Hmmn. Roger gets 6 out of 10, and Bernie gets 7 out of 10 for “mock outrage as a distraction device”.
The issues here have always been that the ZSL and their defenders on this thread have consistently refused to accept that the extended El Nino, and associated weaker monsoons of late have played any part in any observed decline in populations since the 1970s.
Initially, they even refused to accept that there were any winners due to human habitat modification but slowly shifted ground to claim that there were more losers than winners. But the ZSL still did not record any winners, just losers.
And when it was pointed out that several major world habitats were still largely intact, and certainly not subject to complete destruction in the order of 30% since the 1970s, I was accused of denying there had been any modification at all.
But the classic was Bernies little number on watering points. He asked me to identify species that have benefited from human habitat modification. I responded by mentioning “the full suite of species that use artificial watering points”. A simple Q&A but Bernie then launched into a spittle session about how complex the issue was with winners and losers, the very point I have been making all along about the ZSL report.
So we have a mate of Tim Lambert, with lengthy form in state forest shut downs, who wants us to accept this as evidence of his “balance” and need to “get it right”? Give us a break.
And if Bernie had actually gone over my link properly, and retained only a small portion of it, he would understand that all the data on habitat tree retention levels and animal density reveals an unambiguously inelastic curve. That is, there is no relationship between hollow supply and animal density above the fraction/hectare range.
He would know that the actual numbers of animals/ha, divided by their degree of multiple use, co-habitation, and capacity to construct their own Dreys, reveals an actual need for less than 0.1 HBT/ha. The much touted point at which species collapse might occur due to inadequate den numbers is in the lower fractional range, not the 4 to 12 trees/ha that the captive science community has focussed on.
He would also know that despite a vast resource of state owned regrowth forest with no HBT retention, there are no studies that will even confirm that species collapse has even taken place without HBTs. And if he had bothered to talk to any foresters who were not born yesterday he would know that the highest density of animals is often found in locations that have been subject to very extensive modification (ie no HBTs).
But instead, we are expected to accept his extrapolation from his frog studies onto all other species. We are seriously expected to believe that the populations of fresh water species is not impacted by drought, ie, by the absence of fresh water!!!
For the record, there is not a single forest dwelling species of extinction that has been caused by the most prevalent form of human modification of forests, the managing of forests for timber production.
But I must apologise for calling Bernie a liar. He is clearly a complete dropkick, beholden to the dark side.
There are consistently more species discovered every year, than there are species found to be extinct.
And in the latter category, species found to be extinct are consistently found to exist nonetheless.
This forms a pattern: the harder humans look at the environment, the more biodiversity they find, rather than less.
People who won’t take that clue seriously can quickly be traced to multinational green-extortion conglomerates. If they can’t, they’re just the deluded ones which the multinationals depend upon, i.e., The Clueless.
>Hmmn. Roger gets 6 out of 10, and Bernie gets 7 out of 10 for “mock outrage as a distraction device”.
Well at least they are now separate entities. Childish response from Mott number four.
>Initially, they even refused to accept that there were any winners due to human habitat modification but slowly shifted ground to claim that there were more losers than winners. But the ZSL still did not record any winners, just losers.
Yawn. Mott beats horse into a pulp. How dare the ZSL not include Mott’s demands.And tell us Mott, where did the ‘defenders on this thread’ initially refuse to accept that there were any winners due to human habitat modification?? I never made any claim, and I don’t see that anyone else here did either. You are accusing us of saying something we did not. Childish response from Mott number five. What I took exception to stupid is that you were claiming the ‘many, many species’ that had benefited- insinuating that the number that benefited from human disturbance was some significant number comparable to that which had been lost, and was worthy of the ZSL including this in their report (how dare they not). No one here denied some species have not benefited. How about a retraction Mott? If the best you can do is make things up Mott, as Bernard suggested, it’s time to retire.
>And when it was pointed out that several major world habitats were still largely intact, and certainly not subject to complete destruction in the order of 30% since the 1970s, I was accused of denying there had been any modification at all.
Yeah Mott, you really provided a factual basis for this! In reality you side stepped it, and now you are claiming some sort of glory. Childish response from Mott number six.
>launched into a spittle session
This from the idiot who claims Bernard is a liar, is me, and ranted about tax auditors! Childish response from Mott number seven.
>And if Bernie had actually gone over my link properly, and retained only a small portion of it,
Hang on, this is coming from someone who refuses to read links provided by ‘the other side’ and can’t even do his own research? And you expect others to read your ‘balanced’ view? LOL! Childish response from Mott number…pah, there are waaayyy too many of them to keep count!
>and capacity to construct their own Dreys
Presumably you are not talking squirrel gliders here Mott, you know, those threatened species?
>For the record, there is not a single forest dwelling species of extinction that has been caused by the most prevalent form of human modification of forests, the managing of forests for timber production.
Crap Mott. Finland has a beetle fauna of 3640 species, 12.1% of the species are classified as nationally extinct largely thanks to forestry practices and you can include fungi and other organisms there that have terminally suffered as a result of your supposed angelic forestry management, endemic forest-inhabiting dung beetles in Madagascar have become extinct due to logging, numerous species of butterfly, birds and mammals have become extinct in Singapore due to deforestation including logging. And what was the endemic forest fauna of Easter Island Mott? Your world view is as narrow as the sphincter where Alex hides.
>But I must apologise for calling Bernie a liar. He is clearly a complete dropkick, beholden to the dark side.
Tsk, tsk, someone has a bruised ego! LOL! Thank goodness you are here for a good laugh Mott. The world is too serious. And now for the next class clown…
>There are consistently more species discovered every year, than there are species found to be extinct.
>This forms a pattern: the harder humans look at the environment, the more biodiversity they find, rather than less.
Really SChiller? I trust you can back this up with some sort of stats from the available literature. You and Mott can maybe share your homework and combine the human disturbance benefits information with the abundance of newly discovered species info.
I see you’ve conveniently ignored the seals now Schiller, as you have been called upon to defend your ludicrous claims with actual evidence. Who would have thought? LOL!Who would have thought that Schiller really is an ignoramus? At least there is ample proof of this here.
>People who won’t take that clue seriously can quickly be traced to multinational green-extortion conglomerates. If they can’t, they’re just the deluded ones which the multinationals depend upon, i.e., The Clueless.
Such contributions from Schiller and Mott are what makes this one of the very best environmental blogs in the world, a bit like The Bold and the Beautiful being the most popular soap in the world due to its believable scenarios!!
Schiller and Mott – two pathetic little boys that name call because they don’t understand. Two dunces at the back of the class that keep distrupting learning with their pipsqueak yahooing. As a worthy contribution to science boys, go play with a chainsaw and man-eating badger and contribute to the Darwin awards.
LOL!
Ian Mott.
I see that you keep shifting the goal posts, and that you continue to attribute to me, falsely and most deliberately, statements that I have most certainly NOT made. It’s getting to the point where I can’t even keep up with the rubbish that you promulgate, and I am starting to see why other serious scientists would contemplate self-amputation rather than waste their time with the likes of the blinkered idealogues such as yourself that lurk on this site.
However, if you are prepared to step up to the plate and present your thesis (that the actual need for a habitat tree is “less than 0.1” per hectare) in a one hour seminar at the zoology department at the University in my capital city, I will personally pay for your interstate ticket to here. I can guarantee a large audience of university, government and forestry scientists who will attend from 1.00pm to 2.00pm on a Friday with a very great level of interest in your ideas.
And at the same time, they will be delighted to discuss in detail your dismissal of population and species decline, and also your fixation with the increase in numbers of what is a small group of animals compared with those that are declining.
Provide the synopsis of the talk to me and I’ll have it passed by the seminar series coordinator, and you’ll be winging your way across Australia to change the course of population biology and ecology. And believe me, I will record the event and its subsequent discussion for presentation here for all to see and consider.
Schiller Thurkettle, the fact that ‘new’ species are found every year simply shows how much we have yet to identify in terms of taxonomy. It has NOTHING to do with the true generation of new species – the actual process that would be the converse to the species loss that science is observing and recording. Speciation does occur, but at a much lower rate than that at which we discover new species.
If you disagree with this, perhaps you would care to identify for me which of those newly discovered species have evolved (or ‘speciated’) within the last century. I’ll make it easier – how about you count the number of species that have evolved within the last 500 years. Or even easier still – can you show us how many have be around only since the birth of Christ?
Strawman, Schiller Thurkettle, strawman.
And a very lame one at that.
“[M]ultinational green-extortion conglomerates”? It seems that conspiracy theory and paranioa are thriving amongst more than one of the denialists here.
I’d pay to see that Bernard. Mott obviously has so much to say and likes nothing more than educating us here with the huge expanse of his wisdom and expertise. It seems a waste that only those that tune in to one of the very best environmental blogs in the world get to learn from him, and not the young and malleable who could make this a better world with just a little of Mott’s knowledge.
There are so many undergrads out there that he could positively influence so that they don’t finish with their degree and become a guvmint spiv, green barbiebimbocentric or worse still – Grand Pooh Bah at the ZSL. He could earn a small fortune on the lecture circuit, and being the kind-hearted and generous soul that he is he could donate some takings to helping homeless and thirsty squirrel gliders. He could set up a learning institution dedicated to churning out bigots, complete with media training for that clip on YouTube, and a course on espionage to tackle issues head on such as blowing up bilby burrows, torpedoing anti-whalers in the Southern Ocean and tracking down those with fraudulent identities.
It would be a disgrace if Mott does not take up your generous offer. He has nothing to lose and all power to gain, and even just one public appearance for the benefit of your colleagues is a totally feasible and realistic suggestion that will finally let Mott have a go at helping others outside of the vacuum that is one of the very best environmental blogs on the planet. All I ask is that you consider Schiller Thurkettle for your Friday lectures too, as he is another whose knowledge base is so inhibited here, who is just itching to tell those scientists that they are wrong, so very, very wrong, resplendent in standard-blue powerpoint with a long list of supporting references.
“Hmmn. Roger gets 6 out of 10, and Bernie gets 7 out of 10 for “mock outrage as a distraction device”. – Ian Mott.
There’s no mock outrage from me Mr Mott. There is genuine disbelief that you are so desperate to wriggle out of a serious debate that you have to resort to misrepresenting people’s identities and distracting from the real issues being discussed with ad homs, lies and baseless rubbish. If you think that clearing one’s name after being accused by you of being someone else is designed to cause a distraction, you must be under the delusion that others here are as juvenile as you in not taking responsibility for what they write. You really do appear to have the intellectual capacity of a five year old.
Dr Roger Grace
Good Bernie. You can present my entire submission on the issue to your mates as the material to be presented. Parts 1, 2 and 3 on my blog. But I insist on having the entire proceedings filmed by Bushvision for the record. And I expect to have input on the location and time of presentation. A joint AEF session would be good.
I await times, dates and travel authority.
But be warned, neither the NSW nor the Qld policy process were willing to undergo a proper regulatory impact assessment on their codes of practise. And the DG in Qld refused to supply me with a copy of their internal assessment of the issues I raised. Indeed, he was so eager to ensure that there was no evidence of deliberate avoidance of his statutory obligations that he almost stormed out of the meeting, held in his own office.
Schiller, you know you have done well when you get a free character appraisal in response. But they are as valuable as the money you paid for them. Zilch.
And don’t kid yourself Travis. When I get three copies of Drivers license from each of Grace, Bernie and yourself, I will continue to conclude that you are all the same person.
In fact, Bernie, it would be very good if you could invite the Director Generals of the relevant regulatory departments in Victoria, NSW and Qld, and the relevant ministerial advisors, and the upper elements of the relevant departmental chains of command in each state.
But take a big bucket with you when you do because they will all $hit themselves when they find out what you have done. And make sure Lindenmeyer is there.
>And don’t kid yourself Travis. When I get three copies of Drivers license from each of Grace, Bernie and yourself, I will continue to conclude that you are all the same person.
Aren’t I only 14 years old according to you Grott? Not changing your story AGAIN are you? Maybe you can get one of your investigator heavies to retrieve them. Such threats to your red-necked utopia. Poor Grotty.
Yeah Schiller, don’t worry about supplying researched info to back up your claims here. Mott never does and between you and him it’s what makes this one of the very best environmental blogs in the world. LOL!
You really do command an audience Mott. Randwick Racecourse has nothing compared to the grandstand you demand! Let’s see how many pilgrims you get. Pffftt!
I look forward to meeting Travis, Grace and Bernie at my pending presentation.
Oh Beeerrrrnnie?
[12.54 pm Friday 23rd, subject was last seen slinking out the back door of the Marohasy premises with a fake beard and dark glasses.]
Ian Mott, take off your fake beard and dark glasses and come back.
And don’t be a goon and offer up 26 single-spaced A4 pages of politically-slanted rant as a ‘synopsis’. One or two pages, preferebly 1.5 spaced, constituted of an abstract representative of your science-based talk, and about half a dozen of the peer-reviewed scientific references that focus on the requirements of species for habitat trees is infinitely more appropriate.
Oh, and do you really think that greater gliders are the only species that require habitat trees? Really?? Are you making your representations on this one species alone?!
You know, I like the idea that David Lindenmeyer hears you speak on this subject. I am seriously thinking of asking HIS department if they would host your talk. What do you think Ian – if they’d have you, would you present to them?
Post your synopsis here and I will chase Lindenmeyer down to see if he’ll oblige. If not, I’ll still head over to the local zoology department.
Ian, I understand that you have to work hard to represent your stakeholders. I work with exactly these sort of folk myself in one of my jobs, and although I often disagree with their ideas on ecology I listen patiently to their perspectives, and I rely on provable science where we diverge on points. I find most primary industry people to be very receptive to provable science, and they are frustrated when they are misled by people on either side of a debate. Your slanting of the issue of habitat trees does everyone a disservice in the long-run.
And don’t forget Ian, that the distraction of habitat trees and possums/gliders is not changing the fact that species numbers and diversity are declining, and it is STILL largely the result of human activity.
Or are you now going to tell us that all forestry practises are beneficial to biodiversity, and that they increase the population sizes and speciation rates of all taxa?
And I am still only me, and just me, Ian. There’s NO WAY on God’s earth that I would give you a copy of my driver’s licence to prove it (dream on), but I would certainly provide one to Tim Lambert to verify. I reckon that Travis and Roger Grace would oblige too. Although I note that you avoided my last offer to use Tim to verify a fact – are you afraid to be exposed for the false accuser that you are?
And where will you shift the goal posts to once we prove that you are spouting drivel faster than water spilling over the Niagra Falls.
I live in NZ Ian Mott and have no intentions of listening to your sermon, just like you have no intentions of delivering it.
>Oh, and do you really think that greater gliders are the only species that require habitat trees? Really?? Are you making your representations on this one species alone?!
He probably thinks they build dreys too. Bernard this issue was covered previously on this, one of the very best environmental blogs in the world:-
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002387.html
As you can see, Lindemeyer is the type of expert that gets Mott all hot and shaky. You will also see that Mott was just as much of a charmer then with the way he addressed researchers, but then he has since claimed I am Libby, or is that Libby is me. I’m sure Libby would be flattered!!
>And don’t forget Ian, that the distraction of habitat trees and possums/gliders is not changing the fact that species numbers and diversity are declining, and it is STILL largely the result of human activity.
He hasn’t forgotten, he has just completely ignored this issue. It doesn’t fit in with his bright, rosy view of how useful to the natural world humans are, because as Roger (or was that me, or was that you Bernard?) suggested, he takes no responsility for his own actions, let alone the human race. Greenies can NEVER be right. The blame lies elsewhere.
>Or are you now going to tell us that all forestry practises are beneficial to biodiversity, and that they increase the population sizes and speciation rates of all taxa?
No, he’s ignored that too, now that he has been presented with evidence to the contrary. Can you see a pattern occurring here?
>I reckon that Travis and Roger Grace would oblige too.
Sorry Bernard, no can do. I am only 14 years old according to Mott. It’s his fantasy, so I will keep pretending! LOL!
Bernie, you can simply copy and paste my summary or simply list each of the major points of concern. It is right there on the blog whenever you want it.
And as I have already seen the way Hundlow rounded up his rent-a-crowd for Blomborg, and spent a boorish half hour on ideological pre-conditioning before Bjorn even got to speak, the presentation must be off-campus. The introduction must be delivered by a neutral speaker and the Q&A must remain until after the presentation.
You could also invite the NSW threatened species panel that dealt with the issue of hollows.
And each of you are free to forward copy of ID to Jennifer with a statdec that confirms that you have been posting under whatever name you use.
Great technique, fellas. Bernie sets up the straw man on Greater Gliders and Travis knocks it down. Must be about the only way you guys could ever win a point.
Pffttt! Priceless.
Oh Schiller – Earth to Schiller – where is the seal information? Why are you hiding? Are you with Alex? Are you all in Imagination Land?
Thanks for the heads-up, Travis. It made for some interestng and dismaying reading, and it has put things into a larger perspective for me.
Now, Eenie, a few things.
Firstly, I CANNOT “simply copy and paste [your] summary or simply list each of the major points of concern”. That would be presumptuous of me, it would be bordering on plagiarisation, and it shifts the responsibility for the content of your talk from you to me – and it certainly is NOT my responsibility. YOU are responsible for telling the audience about what it is that you intend to speak.
I can’t believe that anyone with even a once-off experience of public speaking would countenance this idea, and it suggests to me that you are not earnest about the process.
And are you seriously asking for a statutary declaration to discriminate between myself and the others?! What happened to the licences? I am amazed that you cannot discriminate between three people based upon the idiosyncrasies of their writing styles, but this perhaps reflects you incapacity to perceive subtly in any circumstance…
Further, I told you that I will trust Tim with my private information. He is impartial in this, and with respect, I would hesitate to say the same of others.
And you know full-well that I was attempting to arrange a (scientific…?) seminar at a university, and this didn’t seem to phase you earlier. However, I can possible organise one for the Department of Primary Industries where I work, and I can assure you that the audience will be largely the same crew who’d attend a university seminar anyway. Although with a few more Parks staff and Forestry scientists, and a whole lot more Threatened Species staff from PI.
I have a whole list of issues with animal use of regrowth forest that I would dearly love to raise with you, but I will hold off in the hope that I can ask them of you in person after your talk.
I should tell you though that I am a landholder myself, that I have regrowth forest as well as old growth on my land, and that I am an enthusiastic amature furniture-maker and carpenter. I do in fact intend to make this my full-time work in ten or so years’ time, because as I grow older I am more inclined to be my own boss, and I am getting thoroughly sick of dealing with wingnuts who do not understand science.
The point is that I do actually have sympathy for forestry, that I understand the burdens of buring-off, of weed control, of repairing bloody fences after fires or nincompoop tourists take them out, and that I am not coming from a position of extreme green vs extreme libertarian dichotomy. This does not detract however from the fact that human activity DOES impact upon ecosystems, and much forestry is in the same place as fisheries was several decades ago.
And before you ask, I grew up amongst fishermen. When I was knee-high to a grasshopper my dad and all the old codgers in our street used to fish for jewfish every Saturday in the wee ours before dawn, when the moon was right, on the local lake. They’d all trudge home after the sun rose with a five-foot jewie hanging over their shoulders… I was taken for a ride in a Cessna once to see the lake, and I will always remember seeing the schools of these enormous jewfish swimming in the shallow waters of the lake, and I was told by the wise old blokes that there was plenty of tucker in the lake, it was going to waste, and that there would always be fish to take.
Ten years later there were none of the whoppers left, and now the only ones that are ever seen are one foot juveniles that come in at the mouth to the ocean.
I used to talk to other old-timers who described thousands of mullet leaping out of the water every summer, and tens of thousands of shorebirds that used to fly in at the same time. Some of the fishermen used to bring down three or four ducks with one rifle shot.
None of this has been remotely documented for fifty years.
And you know what Eenie? They all thought that they was doin’ it right, that they knew better, and that it should only have been done their way. Trouble is, even if any one individual IS managing the environment in a sustainable way you can bet your bottom dollar that there are at least ten others who aren’t – ask the Murray irrigators about this…
Think of the west Atlantic cod fisheries Eenie. Those horrid scientists warned for decades that they would be lost, but the fishers kept pushing for sustained or increased quotas, and then in the space of only a year or two it all went belly up.
So much for managing their own.
Trouble is, as long as there are lobbyists like you who demand the world for themselves, and who get it without any serious balancing of the accounts, such mistakes will be repeated throughout the diversity of managed ecological systems.
Oh, and in case you still don’t get it, species numbers and populations declines are still real, are still being caused by humans, and are still a problem.
For a so called man of science, Bernie, I note that it you who have not provided any links to published papers. Lots of homily, minimal substance. Your confidence in the strength of your own position is bemusing.
I have forwarded a proposal to Jennifer that the presentation be made at an AEF forum.
>They’d all trudge home after the sun rose with a five-foot jewie hanging over their shoulders
I’m so sorry, but I can’t help it…so Bernard Schiller used to take your bait too? Forgive me!
>Ten years later there were none of the whoppers left
We now only have the tiddler that tells the whoppers.
>For a so called man of science, Bernie, I note that it you who have not provided any links to published papers. Lots of homily, minimal substance.
Whoa, there go those goal posts again! Bernard you fraudster! Can’t you see that Mott has provided a link to his blog as a reference, along with a reference to squirrel gliders – those gliders that are threatened/vulnerable but not due to any human disturbance! Didn’t you know that Mott not only wants the ZSL to include a thorough list of species that have benefited from human disturbance (because he CAN’T) but that YOU MUST SUPPLY REFERENCES! Just for your enlightenment Bernard, Mott has been told off countless times by others here (including Jennifer Marohasy), for not supplying references to support his moronic statements (ie facts, not Mott anecdotes).
>Your confidence in the strength of your own position is bemusing.
Oh my, there goes another rib!!! I can’t stop laughing at this old coot! Oh the irony, oh the childish, stupid, unbelievable crap this idiot comes out with. I have always said it Mott – you hold up a mirror and what you see yourself doing and can’t take responsibity for you blame on others. All your ugly and pathetic faults which we all find so bemusing you throw back at posters, and not with a skerrick of proof to back it up. You could make a psychiatrist very, very rich. Clearly Mott does NOT have confidence in the strength of his position, and boy that IS bemusing!!
>I have forwarded a proposal to Jennifer that the presentation be made at an AEF forum.
Poor Mott. He really can’t handle a challenge. All bluff and bluster at first proposal.
Bernard J wrote:
>However, if you are prepared to step up to the plate and present your thesis (that the actual need for a habitat tree is “less than 0.1” per hectare) in a one hour seminar at the zoology department at the University in my capital city, I will personally pay for your interstate ticket to here. I can guarantee a large audience of university, government and forestry scientists who will attend from 1.00pm to 2.00pm on a Friday with a very great level of interest in your ideas.
To which Grott replied:
>Good Bernie. You can present my entire submission on the issue to your mates as the material to be presented. Parts 1, 2 and 3 on my blog. But I insist on having the entire proceedings filmed by Bushvision for the record. And I expect to have input on the location and time of presentation. A joint AEF session would be good.
Now Mott has backed down as his bluff has not worked. Just like the ZSL must adhere to Mott’s rules, now he is changing Bernard’s generous proposal so that he may be in total control. Your ego knows no bounds Mott, nor your blind arrogance.
>I am amazed that you cannot discriminate between three people based upon the idiosyncrasies of their writing styles, but this perhaps reflects you incapacity to perceive subtly in any circumstance…
Nope, it reflects the fact he (a) needs to create a diversion so he is not answerable to anything, (b) can’t possibly fathom that numerous people think he is a twit, and (c) he is a twit. The most amusing part is that Mott himself has created a character called Alex McAdam. This happened after a huge meglomaniacal rant (what’s new?) about posters using pseudonyms. His habit of playing the man and not the ball meant that he could only focus on the name and not the content. Mind you, posters who use psydonyms and support his ideas are fine! So useless is Mott that his dopey sock puppet was detected straight away, as it is so obvious! Ah the laughs to be had here.
Ian Mott.
My offer, as you are well aware, was specifically for a seminar at the university in my capital city if they so permit, or alternatively at a Primary Industries forum if again they will permit, given a synopsis provided by you.
Alternatively I would be happy to see you present at David Lindenmeyer’s department if they are willing to host you, although having now read some of the archived comments from you in regard to Lindenmeyer I doubt that they’d countenance the idea…
My point is that you defend your thesis to those scientists whom you disparage, in a scientific arena, with scientifically credible material. If you think that I’d pay to fly you to speak at a lobbyist’s forum you have rocks in your head.
Still the same old ducking and weaving isn’t it?
So you’re dismayed by the fact that I haven’t swamped you with ‘published papers’? Ian, I hardly think that I need to tell you that there are whole journals dedicated to documenting species decline: the point is that the fact of decline is scientifically accepted and yet you refute the significance of it. Dropping a few papers in won’t address your thrust as far as I can see. I rather suspect too that if I did use references you’d disparage my doing such, and comment on the hogwash of people who include (to use your words) “the most incompetent [and] venal practitioners on the planet”.
If you are going to take this maverick stance the onus is upon you to provide the fresh science to counter the large body of current science that you disparage. I want to see the strength of YOUR position, as YOU have taken it upon yourself to discredit the work of a whole discipline of biology.
And I would preferably like to see you justify yourself in front of a lecture theatre full of men and women trained in population biology and in the management of threatened species. You can have your AEF forum – if I’m in the state at the time I’ll definitely make sure that I attend, but I’ll be buggered if I’d sponsor you to attend THAT.
If my offer is not good enough, perhaps you’d care to explain what is wrong in Australian university and government science that it would conspire to give you an unfair hearing? From my experience it IS a bear-pit to present in, but as with science anywhere it is an unbiased bear-pit – anyone, whether held in high scientific esteem or not, is subject to the same close scrutiny.
And what is wrong with that?
Ian, it’s really simple, and I’ll restate it here so that you know what we’re talking about:
First point:
According to you “wildlife popiulation [sic] in Australia have a natural variation of up to 80% decline and back again due to climatic and seasonal variation. The same would also apply to all the woodland ecosystems.”
Can you explain how such population fluctuations, which I have previously agreed does occur in many species, applies to ALL species, whether in Australia or in “all the woodland ecosystems”. If it does not occur in all species, can you provide an estimate of the relative balance of fluctuating (at the 80% level) to non-fluctuating species. Also, can you detail the frequency of these fluctuations, their duration, their magnitude (if not 80%), and their correspondence between species. You see, all this needs to be considered because we are speaking of ECOSYSTEMS, and fluctuations in any species can have profound knock-on effects. We need to be clear about the importance or otherwise of all of this, if we are to accept your thesis that the species decline we are observing is no more than natural fluctuation.
After this is addressed, what is your take on the anthopogenic impact upon species decline compared with ‘natural’ variation. To phase it using your words, what proportion of species decline do you think is structural? Data?
I’d be very interested to hear from you to what extent you understand human impact to exacerbate the effect of drought on the size and distribution of species populations. Or is it ‘all just the drought’s fault’?
Second point:
“But these WWF numbers are totally unrealistic because the majority of wildlife are [sic] still in undisturbed ecosystems.”
Can you provide a short precise of the global undisturbed ecosystems versus the disturbed ones? And since you think that the majority of wildlife occurs in such ‘undisturbed ecosystems’, can you provide a short precise of species that are of concern to science, that you believe have been inappropriately labelled as being of concern? And yes, this is a loaded question, because as we all know science has expressed concern about a ship-load of species (after all, that is the point of this thread). However, if you are going to say that we are overly worrying about species/population decline, you have to explain where science has it wrong.
An aside: you said “[o]nly 13% of the Amazon has been cleared over the past four decades and half of that has regrown to deliver a major portion of the original habitat services”.
My best information is that it is 18% to date, and I can find no reliable source that claims that half is regrown to near original functionality. Given that half the clearing has been in the last twenty years or thereabout, this claimed ecosystem regrowth represents an extraordinary rate of ecosystem replenishment, even in the tropics. Can you elaborate?
As another aside, you repeatedly claim that one habitat tree is required per ten acres of forest. I am curious – do you have any understanding of what the density of habitat trees was prior to human modification of forest, and thus by direct comparison, what percentage of this pre-modification habitat-tree density was simply ‘wasted space’? If there is a significant difference between the pre- and post-modification habitat-tree densities, why is it that the species that rely on them are able to still do so perfectly well at a density of one per ten hectares? And yes, this is another trick question, but you are the master of the sweeping statement, and I am calling you on this in order to demonstrate a point or several…
Ian, I could go on and on, but you have enough homework to attend to already. I look forward to reading your response, although I may have to suffer in curious limbo for the next fortnight or so, as I have a full week of day trapping, followed by a two-day training workshop and another week and a half of monitoring in (gasp!) forestry coups. What little internet time I may have will not be wasted waiting for dial-up to give me this site.
I’m sure though that you will play nicely during my absence.
Thank you for you participation Bernard. Tis a pity there will be no worthwhile response from Mott, otherwise readers may actually learn something here, which is obviously not what this forum is for. Keep on at him. He will be hoping you conveniently forget and he can claim some deluded victory again. Bullies like Mott have both the fight and flight responses down pat.
For the record, this thread was archived on 23rd May and the subsequent post were only revealed to me on 30th May. The absence of a response by myself was due to the assumption that the discussion had ended.
I don’t give a tinkers cuss whether Bernard pays for my journey to anywhere but any presentation of my material will be on neutral ground with impartial convenor. I am waiting on advice from the Australian Environment Foundation as to a possible forum.
What a piss-poor but typical response from Mott. Call the bully’s bluff and he runs behind mummy squealing and stamping. You are so bloated with hot, rank air I’m surprised you aren’t buried on a beach.
Ian Mott.
I’ve returned, and watched patiently, and then waited a week and a half more for a decent reply to the manifold questions that you have allowed to linger here without answer.
I refuse to dignify this thread with an ongoing tab of its own in my Firefox window, when I have so many more fruitful matters to occupy my online time, so if you are ever ready to play again come and call me at Deltoid. Tim Lambert has Open Threads that are appropriate to use if you feel inclined to engage.
I won’t bother to link. You can easily google, although I’m sure that you know the way…
Ian Mott.
I have returned and watched patiently for a reply, and then waited for a week and a half more for a decent response to the manifold questions which you seem disinclined to answer.
I refuse to continue to dignify this thread with an ongoing tab in my Firefox window when I have so many more pressing uses for my online time. If you ever feel inclined to engage again you are welcome to find me at Deltoid. Tim Lambert has an ongoing Open Thread that is appropriate for this purpose.
I am sure that you know how to find it…