#Elephant Population

[manasastuff-blog]

"World Elephant Day"#trending#viral

World Elephant Day Importance extends beyond a simple commemoration; it represents a global movement dedicated to the protection and preservation of one of the planet's most majestic creatures. Elephants play a vital role in maintaining the balance of our ecosystems, yet they face numerous threats, including poaching, habitat loss, and human-wildlife conflict. This explores why World Elephant Day is crucial for raising awareness and promoting conservation efforts. We delve into the challenges elephants face, the significance of their survival to biodiversity, and how each of us can contribute to their protection. Whether you are a wildlife enthusiast, conservationist, or simply someone who cares about the environment, this will inspire you to understand and appreciate the importance of World Elephant Day.

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[gallusrostromegalus]

Is Sakura Kinomoto in AEIWAM because I didn’t think I’d ever see your take on her but if Clow is there then the Best Girl might be there too

Yeah, but she's two grades behind Yuzu and Karin so they haven't seen her in person since they started middle school. Yuzu was closer friends with Tomoyo because of their mutual interest in fiber craft and cute stuff, but still follows her elementary school's Facebook page and shows Karin any time she appears in a sports photo. Karin hopes Sakura is going to their middle school next year because the girls soccer team REALLY needs a new Center Midfielder and Sakura would be GREAT.

[mammoth-clangen]

(Hi, i need to rant to someone who knows more than me on the topic of the de-extinction of mammoths. Apologies to your inbox and you for the wall.)

in my opinion, for mammoths, it's also vital to remember how unfortunately inbred their last living population was. If humans hadn't killed them, they'd have all died of inbreeding. They were stuck on an island, the only extant population left, and honestly, probably on their way to if not already suffering from low food supplies, assuming they had few or no natural predators there. Plus, I'm pretty certain we have at least one specimen from there, and to my knowledge, we can't exactly test how inbred it is without other direct relatives... while yes, a few cases of inbreeding would be relatively harmless to a population, rampant inbreeding is bad for a reason.

I don't think any species should be revived - even if there was somehow a good reason to - unless we can clearly and consistently prevent unhealthy amounts of incest from occurring down the line. Something which, as you pointed out, likely can't be done with "dire wolves" or mammoths.

These scientists are playing with fire, and all they're going to do is make everything worse. The very definition of "so determined to see if you could, you forgot to stop to see if you should."

You make a very good point about the mammoths towards the end, they were indeed, very inbred. The cervical rib thing is interesting to me in particular because I have cervical ribs too, lolol

That being said...

The last surviving refuge population, the Wrangel Island Mammoths, were actually were doing surprisingly well before humans showed up! This is surprising, especially given what we know about animals such as Cheetah, with very reduced genetic diversity.

But it seems the Wrangel Island population, small as it was, had found a sort of 'genetic and environmental equilibrium' that lasted 200+ generations. They were living long-term as a whole population with inbreeding depression until their extinction ~4000 years ago, at the hands of humans. Major deleterious gene mutations were apparently "purged" rather than accumulating, though why, I'm not certain.

Really strange and interesting stuff!

However, the severe inbreeding in the last mammoths is still important in discussions of de extinction.

It shows what happens when, as we both mentioned, a species' numbers drop below the minimum survivable population. "Severely reduced heterozygosity" is the scientific term for "both copies of everyone's genes are the same." It leaves them vulnerable to disease, and much less able to adapt to changes as a population.

Refugia of extinct species like Wrangel Island are fascinating, but unless they can repopulate outside their refuge, they typically don't last. It's only a matter of time before something novel to the environment, such as predators or disease, wipes the rest of them out.

Quick clarification about inbred mammoth genomes in cloning

It's important to remember that the ice sheets have come and gone across the Northern Hemisphere for hundreds of thousands of years. Mammoths lived and died among them for much of that time. Thus, any intact genomes we find would likely be from different times in their range; not all from at the time of their extinction!

Here's a couple of examples of mammoth DNA sequenced from:

52,000 year old Woolly Mammoth skin.

Three Siberian mammoth specimens dating to the Early and Middle Pleistocene subepochs, two of which are more than one million years old!

So what I'm saying is, we actually could sequence a fair number of non-inbred mammoths. And we should! Learning about their genetics is fascinating, and tells the story of their lives throughout their existence as a species!

Does this mean we should clone/GMO mammoths using those sequenced genomes?

It's still a Hard No from me, for the other reasons mentioned here.

Additionally, whatever was happening on Wrangel Island, I doubt we would be able to replicate it well enough to stop inbreeding depression in resurrected mammoths.

Like the bucardo, I think any de extinct mammoths would unfortunately be crawling towards a second extinction.

---

Sorry to mildly rebuttal you there; I just think it's important not to spread misinformation, regardless if it supports your viewpoint c:

And thanks for giving me a chance to ramble about those funny island proboscideans!

In a world where endangered species are constantly at risk of genetic drift and inbreeding depression, the Wrangel Island mammoths are a bizarre case that I don't expect most people to know about XD

Image taken from the Wrangel Island paper.

[queenaquataine]

Some drawings of the gaang

[swan2swan]

The new movie looks cool, but...

BULLLLLLLLLLLLLLCRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

Today on "Headlines I Never Thought I'd See":

(the article is here)

tl;dr Germany wants to limit the import of hunting trophies because they're concerned about poaching and Botswana is going "we have too many elephants for the love of fuck let people hunt them"

[10bmnews]

Zimbabwe to cull dozens of elephants to curb population and distribute meat to communities - Times of India

The southern African country, Zimbabwe, announced on Tuesday that it will slaughter dozens of elephants to control the population size and the meat from the carcasses will be distributed among the people.Zimbabwe has the world’s second largest elephant population after Botswana. Zimbabwe’s wildlife agency, Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks) said it has given permission to…

[dragontamer05]

I love the idea and genuinely hope one day we figure out ways to engineer and revive extinct species - specifically ones where the extinction was cause in part if not entirely because by humans and could have potentially been prevented. But more importantly extinctions that happened in more recent history where in like their existence would suddenly disrupt an ecosystem for the worse upon reintroduction.

Wooly Mammoths which for some reason some people seem really fixated on with the idea of reviving. Is not one of those creatures.

Mammoths/Rhinos large Ice Age Mega Fauna while humans certainly played their role in their eventual extinction realistically they would have likely eventually gone extinct on their own as the world and climate changed. Even without our present environmental impact it has literally been MILLIONS of Years so even in a world where lets say they had survived for longer Mammoths as we know them back then would have eventually died out, evolving and changing into some vastly different species animal.

Mammoths also aren't just simply hairy elephants they were MASSIVE creatures much like lots of other animals at the time because being large was just sustainable like that but now everything has changed. Not just the climate but plant life to you really think there's be enough sustainable food to feed one.

Not to mention there's a lot we don't know about the creatures to even be able to prepare and properly take care of one in captivity let alone more then one (unless you only want to clone one for the sake of research I guess which ehhhh) And that's not touching on the fact that even just taking care of elephants in captivity can have it's own share of problems from time to time.

Since they are distant relatives maybe a Mammoth could get along with and could be joined in a heard with Elephants but who knows.

At bare minimum take a page out of Jurrasic Park in that if at some point we get to a stage where genetically engineering and cloning prehistoric animals- for captivity for educational purposes and what not. Maybe don't go for the biggest of creatures just cause you can. You start small. You start with creatures that won't or at the very least cannot end your life, even just on accident.

Start with creatures we have lot more known written history and info about.

Just you know anything more recent then millions of years cause the world has change a lot since then and it's NOT (just) because of humans.

[biology-geology-beaches-india]

The Science Research Notebooks of S. Sunkavally, p 647.

[dailyworldecho]

[bootleg-nessie]

Rating band names based on their accuracy:

(I keep updating this list so check back later)

The Beatles: 3/10. None of these people are beetles, they’re just a bunch of fruity guys from Liverpool with matching haircuts

(Edit: changed from 0/10 to 3/10 because John Lennon beat his wife)

Pink Floyd: 4/10. There is not a single person named Floyd in the band, but some of the members do arguably look kinda pink

Nirvana: 10/10. Getting high and listening to Nirvana is roughly what I imagine actual nirvana to be like

Foo Fighters: either 0/10 or 10/10. I have never seen foo in real life so either they’re pretending to fight a problem that doesn’t exist or they’re doing an absolutely fantastic job of fighting it

The Eagles: 0/10. Same as the Beatles, there is not a single eagle in this band. The name is misleading and we have all been lied to

Queen: 6/10. Partial points for Freddie Mercury

Led Zeppelin: 0/10. I don’t think any of these guys have ever even seen a zeppelin, let alone one made of lead. A lead balloon would crash faster than my hopes and dreams

The Rolling Stones: 3/10. There is not a single stone in this band. Some points added because I’m pretty sure they rolled quite a few

U2: 0/10. Despite what the name says, I am not a member of this band

Metallica: 9/10. Naming a metal band “Metallica” is like naming your dog “doggy”

Red Hot Chili Peppers: 2/10. These guys are not chili peppers. They’re not even that hot, let alone red hot

Guns N’ Roses: 0/10. How the fuck could a gun or a flower play music

Backstreet Boys: ?/10. Depends entirely on their current given location

Simon and Garfunkel: 10/10. No notes

The Doors: 1/10. Jim Morrison is kinda shaped like a door tho

Chicago: 4/10. The number of people in this band does not come even remotely close to the population of Chicago. Points added because it originated in Chicago

Earth, wind, and fire: 2/10. This is even more innacurate than Chicago. Points added because wind instruments were often used

Def Leppard: 3/10. There is not a single leopard in this band. Some of the members are probably kinda deaf by now tho

The Beach Boys: ?/10. Accuracy depends entirely on location

The Black Eyed Peas: 6/10. Not sure what the hell an ‘eyed pea’ is but the black part is pretty accurate

Imagine Dragons: ?/10. Depends entirely on whether or not they’re thinking about dragons.

Cage the Elephant: 1/10. Why would you do that. Let the elephant go

Green Day: 0/10. They’re not even green

The Police: 0/10. There is not a single cop in this band

KISS: 5/10. I’m sure they probably kissed sometimes

The Monkees: 0/10. Are you fucking kidding me

We Butter the Bread with Butter: 8/10. I can’t verify this but I have no reason to suspect that they’d lie. Butter seems like the most logical thing to butter bread with

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: 0/10. I got really excited about the concept of a lizard wizard only to be let down. My disappointment is immeasurable

They Might Be Giants: 5/10. I googled everyone in this band’s height, the tallest guy’s only 6’1 so I wouldn’t exactly consider him a giant. Then again, I can’t really argue because the claim was only that they MIGHT be giants

The Presidents of the United States of America: 2/10. None of these people are Joe Biden nor are any of them former presidents. This is incredibly misleading. I’m pretty sure “Lump” was written about my first girlfriend tho so I’ll give them a point or two

Gorillaz: 2/10 Not quite but we’re kinda close genetically so I’ll give them partial credit

The Killers: ?/10. I have no way of verifying if they’ve actually killed before but the fact that they’re not in prison tells me probably not

The Offspring: 10/10. These guys are definitely somebody’s offspring

Arctic Monkeys: 1/10. They are neither monkeys nor are they from the arctic

Thirty Seconds to Mars: 1/10. It takes WAY longer to get to mars than that

Beastie Boys: 8/10. They’re pretty beast on the guitar

Jimmy Eat World: 1/10. Slow the fuck down Jimmy, you’re biting off way more than you can chew

Hole: 9/10. One point deducted because I’m pretty sure they had more than one hole

Rage Against the Machine: 10/10. They did exactly that

Alice In Chains: 0/10. This is illegal. Let Alice go

The Band: 10/10. This could not possibly be more accurate

Nine Inch Nails: 1/10. I can’t find any good pictures of their feet but from what I can tell their fingernails definitely aren’t nine inches long

Bush: ?/10. Not quite sure about this one, felt uncomfortable asking

The Who: 2/10. I’m not dealing with this “Who’s On First” bullshit

Radiohead: 0/10. Not a single person in this band has a radio for a head

Queens of the Stone Age: 0/10. This band should be called “five random dudes from the modern era” but FRDFTMA is a bit of a mouthful

Soundgarden: 2/10. Sound does not grow in the garden

Sonic Youth: 5/10. They’re not exactly youth anymore but the sonic part checks out

Talking heads: 8/10. There’s more to the band than just a bunch of disembodied heads but the heads do tend to talk

The Cranberries: 0/10. Decent music but I only added them so that the Beatles and Freddie Mercury weren’t the only fruits on this list

The Wiggles: 8/10. They do tend to wiggle a lot

Blue Man Group: 10/10. Yep!

Weezer: 5/10. They all look like they definitely have asthma

Limp Bizkit: 3/10. While the visual image of baked goods playing the guitar is hilarious, Fred durst is not a biscuit. Points added because he probably has erectile dysfunction

Stone Temple Pilots: 0/10. None of these people are accredited as being licensed to pilot anything, much less an entire stone temple. Stone temples don’t need pilots anyways

Wasted Youth: 8/10. I guess it really kinda depends on how you frame it but yeah, they probably wasted a lot of it

Them Crooked Vultures: 3/10. These are people and not birds but Dave Grohl’s posture is kinda bad and John Paul Jones is so old that his neck kinda looks like a vulture’s so I added some points

Audioslave: 0/10. Slavery is illegal

Traveling Wilburys: 4/10. Sure, they traveled a lot but not a single one of those lying bastards was named Wilbury

D12: 6/12. There were only 6 people in this band

NWA: 10/10. I’m a little too white to safely comment on this one but I’d say they nailed it

Jet: 1/10. A real jet would be way too loud

Goldfinger: 0/10. Not a single person in this band has a finger made out of gold

No Doubt: ?/10. I can’t really be too sure how Gwen Stefani felt but I think it’s probably a safe assumption that she had some doubts

The White Stripes: 3/10. I bet if you stripped them down naked and made them stand shoulder to shoulder and squinted really hard they’d probably look more like white stripes

Screaming trees: 3/10. They scream occasionally

Garbage: 2/10. I think they’re being a little harsh on themselves, their music isn’t THAT bad

Butthole Surfers: 5/10. Not even gonna touch this one

Megadeth: 3/10. To be fair, some of the former members are dead but only a little amount of death, not mega death

Dead Kennedys: 2/10. Last I checked Kennedy was still dead but neither he nor his clones are members of this band

Cake: 0/10. The cake is a lie

Cracker: 8/10. Most of them are

Tool: 7/10. I don’t know much about their music but they sure look like tools

Counting Crows: ?/10. Is this what emo kids do instead of counting sheep? Accuracy depends on whatever bird they happen to be counting at the moment

Dave Matthews Band: 10/10. It certainly is

Oasis: 1/10. Their music is the opposite of an oasis

Blur: 2/10. They are not that fast

Barenaked Ladies: 0/10. If I wanted to be this disappointed I’d reestablish a connection with my biological father instead

Meat Puppets: 10/10. Technically, aren’t we all?

Live: 8/10. Apparently they still do live shows but I deducted some points because I’ve only ever heard their music on Spotify

ABBA: 9/10. I’m still not giving any points to Guns N’ Roses but that’s mostly out of spite

5 Finger Death Punch: 8/10 I guess it probably depends on how hard you hit them but this seems to be the usual amount of fingers to punch somebody with

All American Rejects: 9/10. They’re all rejects from America so I don’t really see any issue with this

T. Rex: 0/10. Even if any of these people WAS a T. Rex I don’t think their arms would be long enough to play their instruments

Free: 0/10. Unless you steal their music, in which case it becomes a 10/10

The Strokes: 3/10. To my knowledge, none of them have had a stroke but I still added a few points because the name was probably accurate for other reasons

The Smashing Pumpkins ?/10. Another thing I have no way of verifying but this seems like a waste of perfectly good pumpkins

Therapy?: ?/10. The hell are they asking me for? I don’t know their medical history

Twenty One Pilots. 0/10. There’s only two of them and neither is a licensed pilot

Finger Eleven: 0/10. Leave the poor Stranger Things girl out of this

Fall Out Boy: 9/10. I conferred with an expert on this one who confirmed that they are in fact boys who had a falling out

Cream: 8/10. Considering this was the OG supergroup I’m sure a lot of people did in fact cream when their music came out

Edit: humans aren’t fucking monkeys. Stop saying we are

[klimanaturali]

Países Com Maior População de ELEFANTES do Mundo

[townpostin]

Elephant Raids FCI Warehouse in Chakulia, Sparks Panic

‘Ramlal’ breaks into rice storage, later damages temple wall Forest department’s quick response team drives away wild tusker after night of chaos JAMSHEDPUR – A wild elephant, locally known as ‘Ramlal’, broke into a Food Corporation of India (FCI) warehouse in Ward No. 10 of Chakulia on Friday night, causing panic and damage. The tusker broke through the main gate of the FCI compound and targeted…

[sparrows4bats]

Damian definitely buys an isolated farm, not because he wants to be a farmer but because of the ever increasing number of animals he ends up adopting. They also get bigger over time.

Damian has Cows, sheep, horses, goats, and Jerry the Turkey.

Jon buys him chickens for eggs because, at this point, he may as well contribute to the problem if he can't solve it.

He starts a trend.

Talia gifts Damian Tigers and Panthers that can no longer be released to the wild.

Dick rescues three elephants from an animal trafficking ring and, after realising how damaged their feet are, brings them to the farm where they will be safe. They remind him so much of his childhood.

Tim arrives with a phoenix, and he does not explain where he got it but does start designing a new costume.

Jason visits with a bear one day, he names it Darcy.

Cass loves the deer herd that have taken up residence in the forest.

Stephanie finds three peacocks in a Gotham warehouse so she knows exactly where to bring them.

Signal busts a man using large snakes to smuggle drugs, so they have a reptile house now.

The farm has its own bat cave, complete with hundreds of bats.

There's an armada of cats, birds, and dogs.

Batman starts losing his mind after the rabbits.

Damian collects so many mythical creatures that Constantine starts to drop off any he finds that need a good home. (He is an enabler, and Bruce hates him after that thing with the unicorn. Bruce is more upset with himself because he let Damian keep it)

Goliath and Wiggles keep them in line even if that involves adventures to Hell and Dream.

Jon brings over extraterrestrial animals every once in a while as well. Clark helps, but no one can tell Bruce.

Aquaman installs an insane fish pond that hold very happy fish after Batman annoys him.

Diana somehow gave Damian a cerberus puppy for his birthday. (Bruce tries so hard to stop this but fails spectacularly.)

Damian keeps large portions of the land wild to encourage biodiversity and insect populations. He holds firefly parties in the summer with the Teen Titans.

Swamp thing and Poison Ivy love the place. Harley gives Damian the cheetah cub (it only has three legs!) she found after beating up a sleazy club owner.

The Wayne Farm is out of control and every superheroes' favourite place. They start to try to convince Batman to hold meetings there instead of the Watchtower.

Bruce is so glad to see his children so happy, but for the love of God, put the dinosaur back where you found it! Please! (He is a weak man in the face of puppy dog eyes)

It only gets worse when Damian gets older, and it is very clear that his adoption problem extends to children.

[thaylepo]

I LOVE historical fiction, I love the fuck out of it. Gladiator was a fantastic fucking movie and fun as hell to watch, knowing it was about as historically accurate as Stanley Kubrick's 1960 Spartacus doesn't change that it was a really fun movie. (Beyond a bit of initial disappointment maybe at learning the Roman Empire wasn't exactly as sensationally fucked up as portrayed..... at least until you learn all the ways the Roman Empire was actually sensationally fucked up, anyway lol)

You don't need to claim your historical fiction is historically accurate for.... what? Clout? Veracity? Compensating for telling a poor story? No one's going to see cgi lions and tigers twice the size of a man and think "oh surely that's exactly how it must have been", and if they do, then accuracy's not of much concern to your target audience anyway.

ROME didn't even remember their own historical origins by the time they became of any significance among the Classical Mediterranean powers. They'd lost nearly all memory or record, if there was any, of anything before the Bronze Age collapse just like pretty much everyone else. So they took the scattered fragments of recollected lore and made up their own origins. The Roman Empire invented its own fucking history out of myth and legend and baked in all the things that were important to them at the time. That story's about as factually historical as a vampire hunting president, but it tells us more about how Rome saw itself than any list of events possibly could.

Our stories now shape how we see ourselves and our place in a timeline of humanity much more than how we see history or historical accuracy, and making people believe your made-up bullshit is historical is just posturing: useless and nonessential. Who cares? Who are you fooling? The true value of made-up bullshit is that it's supposed to be FUN. Abe Lincoln fighting vampires is FUN. A jousting stadium of 14th century medieval spectators stomping to Queen's We Will Rock You is FUN. Giant tigers and Napoleon being a short sassy bald man with indigestion is FUN. Yeah, it's misleading, but it's even more misleading AND disingenuous to dig your heels in and claim that people who dedicate their lives and passion to the study of something know less about that than you to make yourself look.... smart? Authentic? It doesn't matter.

There's no shame in choosing to make something FUN instead of accurate, but there's a shitload of shame in outright fucking lying about it. What level of respect does Ridley Scott show for his audience with that?

I love made up bullshit for its own entertainment value. I cannot stand someone trying to feed me made up bullshit while trying to tell me it's real. That is literally 99% of my waking life in modern society. Just make your bullshit entertaining and stop trying to convince me the Vikings were filthy bare-chested pelt-wearing barbarians. I'm still gonna watch the hot sweaty shirtless man and badass sword wielding lady show. I grew up on Sam Raimi's Xena and Hercules, ffs. I don't know why we keep trying to bill stuff that's just as ridiculously made up as "historically accurate" when we're basically just reinventing writing Homer's Odyssey or Virgil's Aenead. (Then again, that was basically considered "history" as far as Emperor Augustus was concerned.... so maybe nothing really has changed.)

Ridley Scott, regarding his new Napoleon movie, is being aggressively defensive about its inaccuracies with historians. He's gone on record saying "When I have issues with historians, I ask: ‘Excuse me, mate, were you there? No? Well, shut the fuck up then.’" This is a classic argument of people with no idea how historians do their work, how historical accuracy is determined and evaluated, and - in Ridley Scott's case in particular - how important it is to properly portray historical accuracy in other media.

The reason why Ridley Scott is being so aggressively dismissive of complaints about historical accuracy is due to past beef leading to a problem he likely has.

This is a movie that, by din of being touted as a 'nonfiction' movie about a historical figure, is basing much of its marketing on historical accuracy by default. The trailers show it's not, and reviews by historians say it is riddled with dozens if not hundreds of inaccuracies. Napoleon's portrayal is frankly a surface level depiction and nowhere near the nuance that historians were hoping for.

Scott's defensive about it. He need not be. If he had a historical consultant then he could go "I'm not an expert on the time period, but I have someone who is, ask them about it" and fob them off on his movie's historical consultant. It's a whole Thing. He doesn't have one, however, so he has to defend it personally.

You see, Ridley Scott probably didn't hire a historical consultant for Napoleon. The last time he had one - Kathleen Coleman for Gladiator - she was so upset over the inaccuracies he pushed through and how little her work affected the film, she requested her name be taken off of it.

Why this is important is because so many more people will watch a movie made by Ridley Scott than I or any other person could write. More people will watch Scott's Napoleon in the States than five hundred books about Napoleon combined worldwide.

More people watched Dunkirk than ever read a book about the Evacuation of Dunkirk. The movie Breaker Morant did so much for public perception about the execution of a genuine war criminal people in Australia still on occasion call for a pardon for Morant.

Fundamentally, mass media like movies will always have more impact of a popular perception about somebody, a time period, an event. That's why Ridley Scott making an inaccurate movie and going 'oh, you weren't there, you didn't see it with your own eyes, so how could you know, I don't have to listen to you' is a problem.

[mindblowingscience]

A new study has revealed how the loss of experienced individual elephants stops the knowledge transfer between generations, putting elephant societies at risk. The research, led by the University of Portsmouth, shows that human disturbance makes elephant herds vulnerable by disrupting the critical role of social learning from older elephants. These severely disrupted populations are less cohesive, may exhibit reduced fitness or calf survival, and respond inappropriately to threats and predators. The study, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, highlights how individual elephants tend to congregate around older animals, creating opportunities for social transmission. When these matriarchs are removed, elephant societies can become weakened.

Continue Reading.