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Sounds like a good nickname for the Republic of Ireland (It's actually just Ireland but the UK likes to call us that for some reason). We've seemingly dedicated the entire country to cows at the cost of our natural biodiversity so we can export high quality beef.
Two more feral cattle populations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swona https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chillingham_cattle
(I don't believe for one minute that the Chillingham Castle cattle are actually wild).
do they use cow tools there?
I hate this kind of writing. Mournful, verbose, low facts.
But anyway - the island is twice the size of Manhatten 23.7 (square miles, or about 15,131 acres) and there were 2000 cattle at the last count.
How much damage can 2000 cattle do in 30,000 acres?
PS:
Ah. I have my answer.
> This story was made possible in part by the Fund for Environmental Journalism and the Society of Environmental Journalists and was published in collaboration with Earth Island Journal.
> Ah. I have my answer.
Smug dismissal of the opinions of those who study environments because you dislike environments and don't understand ecosystems?
(Don't) See Also:
An overview of the impacts of feral cattle, water buffalo and pigs on the savannas, wetlands and biota of northern Australia
Feral ungulate populations have considerable impacts on soil, water quality, waterhole hydrology, vegetation, fire regimes and the spread of exotic plants, and resulting changes to habitat have flow-on effects for native wildlife. Ungulate impacts on vegetation communities and associated changes in fire regimes are particularly concerning given that sustained grazing can lead to the permanent removal of key grass species and changes in fire intensity and frequency can result in the conversion of grassland to woodland. Native wildlife can be affected by ungulate disturbance in a multitude of ways, but overwhelmingly, habitat loss or degradation is the main driver for declines in biodiversity.
Do you understand ecosystems?
And what kind of content should I expect the "Fund for Environmental Journalism and the Society of Environmental Journalists"?
Do you think there isn't an environmental slant to this? This is not a general interest story - it is intended to make you think that cattle, even wild cattle, are damaging to the environment.
The most irritating element to this I find, is the presumption that mere impact on soil, water quality, etc is a bad thing! Who says? Breaking up soil also creates a more diverse environment. Eg some trees require fires to reproduce - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophyte "Change" is not a bad thing, per se.
It is the hybris that gets me. Environmental researchers presume to know what the ideal environment is - that an ecosystem is somehow in stasis - never changing. This is to say that they would 'preserve' an environment, but they don't know what they are preserving it to! Because, environments aren't things one preserves! Environments aren't a precious book, or ancient treasure - that needs care. Nature is a far more capable custodian than environmental scientists.
> Nature is a far more capable custodian than environmental scientists.
Tell it to the cane toads (...grey squirrel, kudzu, rabbit, signal crayfish, zebra mussel, water thyme...)
Incidentally, check out these nutters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Acclimatization_Socie... The past is truly a foreign country.
I'm sure that there have been changes on account of species being introduced to some environment by people. I'm not disputing that. I would love for those things not to have happened.
But, I'm not sure that the purported "cure" is better. Environmentalists are, well, a bit mental. They would move people off the land, kill thousands of animals, allow animals to suffer for the sake of some cause that they say is important. Eg, I know of farmers that now graze their cattle indoors, despite having acres of ground - because they gain special income to protect a species of orchid on their fields. This is suffering for cows that do not see the light of day. And this is despite the orchids surviving on the same farm for decades with the cattle.
All I see in that case, is very real suffering being created (the cows are living highly unnatural lives, on grain, without light), in the name of environmentalism. I think that environmentalism, like every single other domain in this reality, is in thrall to money and power. If there is an angle that can further empower 'money and power' it will be used.
The environmental reasons are a fantastic lever for this - anyone who disputes the stories that are given are automatically wrong, a sinner. It seems impossible for most people to see that helping the environment is nothing to do with actually helping the environment for 'money and power' - it is just a reason given to justify making laws that mandate higher energy expenses, new cars, new housing, increased taxes, etc, etc.
Don't forget that private jets are exempt from environmental restraints.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/06/02/another-missed-opp...
It's a nice and simple world view I suppose to characterize environmentalists as (a bit!) mentally ill. I don't see how you can pass it for discussion here, though.
I mean clearly environmentalists choose to exempt private jets and have never made any comments about how the wealthiest 1% is responsible for 40% of lifestyle CO2 emissions. They just twiddle their cartoon mustaches thinking of ways to make energy and homes more expensive for honest red-blooded god-fearing blue-collar workers. It has nothing to do with the political clout and acumen of the class that can afford flying in a private jet I suppose.
The solution is really, painfully simple. Meat is subsidized by not factoring in environmental externalities. Price it accordingly. Factory farming didn't come about because of environmentalists. Those animals are suffering because people still think meat is natural, normal, necessary, and nice. They're suffering because consumers want their flesh at the lowest possible price and we've abstracted out all the unpleasant business so it can be as inhumane as necessary to squeeze out a couple more lbs/$. Are we really going to act shocked when a player like Tyson swoops in and makes an economy of scale out of mammalian suffering? Nah, we'll blame environmentalists for the brutal and short lives of farmed chattel.
As for how much damage cattle can do while grazing, the literature is out there for you to read https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00267-022-01633-8
I think most people are mentally ill. Living one's life in models and ideas, ideas that are mis-characterisations of natural reality, despite the evidence of one's own experience, is especially hard to take.
My point about the exemption of private jets, is that the environment is a political control lever. Its about power. Talking about killing the earth is merely a convenient mechanism to help the medicine go down. The earth will not be any better at the end of this process. We will get lots of TV programs about how the earth is being saved etc. Do you remember hearing about how the water in Venice improved during lockdowns? That sort of thing. So will pay much more, in loss of freedom and cash, but we will get TV programs to tell us it was worth it.
Carbon taxes - the means of pricing externalities - are a further governmental control structure. So, you have government saying 'such-and-such is a problem' and the fix is 'extra taxes'. Don't forget in my example, the farmer is already subsidised by the government. With subsidies and control for "externalities" - how one can say that free market forces have anything much to do with the produce we get, I don't know!
PS - I think your trust in governance and academia - as seems evident in your comment - is misplaced. Everything operates on money - what studies are undertaken, where money is invested, what information is publicised. The well is already poisoned - we are all simply being washed in the media spin. Recognising the truth or reality of our situation will not come from a study or a politician.
So the farmers had three choices: 1) Don't take the set aside money 2) Take the set aside money and don't keep cows 3) Take the set aside money and keep cows in sheds
They chose (3) and the environmentalists are to blame? Ok, I guess. That must be some orchid, to require cattle to be kept off the land year-round, rather than just in the flowering season. How do they keep the land from returning to scrub? Mow once a year for hay/silage?
In my limited experience farmers apply set aside to the least-useful bits of the farm, not the whole farm.
I don't blame farmers for taking money. Who wouldn't take extra money? However, I do think it's a slippery slope, and that dependency on government handouts is not the way to run an independent business.
What you have is governments using environmental reasons to justify taking this or that action. Ie, "the environment" as envisaged by academia and politics, is a political football.
Re the story, and how much money the farmer was getting, I don't know. I simply asked why he didn't have cows out, and he explained about the payments, orchids, etc.
Beavers.
Hubris, not "hybris".
As in the unconscionable hubris of someone presuming to know what environmental researchers think, imagining them to collectively believe in an 'ideal' environment, etc.
The link I gave specifically looks at the changes made by an over abundance of introduced feral species to an environment that had been in a particular balance for some 50,000 years.
The introduction of cattle reduced biodiversity, etc.
Thus answering the question posed above for one locale at least.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybris
> Hybris may refer to:
> Hybris or hubris, exaggerated self pride
I don't think you know as much as you think. Whether that's spellings, ecosystems, or what happened 50,000 years ago. But you think you do. Thereby exemplifying hybris.
> Be kind. Don't be snarky.
> Please don't sneer
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
I think I have commented critically on this issue.
I hate emotionally manipulative stories like this - it seems plain that they are nothing but propaganda. We are meant to read this and feel that even this small number of cattle are causing irreparable damage to some area - but the place looks fine to me. And then I found out at the end of the article that indeed there is an agenda in play.
If someone is trying to sell me on this or that idea, and are using emotional manipulation to do it, is it not fair to call this out? Even if it is well meaning and for what the "journalist" perceives to be the 'greater good'?