What would we do without experts?
A census by the Wildlife Conservation Society raised the estimate for gorillas in the Congo jungle from between 50,000 and 100,000 to around 200,000…
Grant-dependent gorilla counters are concerned!
While the news was well received, scientists gathered at the 22nd International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh warned against celebrating too soon.
Indeed – at the current rate of non-extinction, the big apes may soon be competing with the undwindling polar bear population for habitat.
May I be the first to say (as a related knuckle-dragger and fellow Simian):
Ohhh–ohhh-eee-oook-ook-growl-conservative-eee-woo-woo-grunt.
I could go on, but the other 999,999 are waiting for me to click the button to finish our work. Gotta go!
the truth will never get in the way of social engineering.
Ye Gods, thanks to Carbon Credits, our endangered primates have split in two!
Is not Gaia wonderful?
In the 50 million years before the ice ages started, 5 million years ago, when CO2 was higher and the planet was markedly warmer, there were 50 species of great apes. Just sayin…
There is research out there that suggests that humans evolved intelligence and the capacity for long term planning as a response to the ice ages. Life is harder in a cold climate. It appears that human evolution was more rapid in periods of extreme cold. Of course, the conclusion could be drawn that life on a warm planet is easier, but I am sure that would make a liberals head hurt.
People are getting slaughtered in the Congo, gorillas thrive…
with a society studying them…
Backwards theory of evolution?
I want a grant so I can drink beer in my backyard and observe the squirrel population. I think that they too will be in-dangered since I’ll also have my pellet gun with me.
off by a factor of 4, they would be howling if their grants were so inaccurate.
Wikipedia has a term that describes, without apparent irony, what is going on:
Charismatic Mega-Fauna are large animal species with widespread popular appeal that environmental activists use to achieve conservation goals well beyond just those species.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charismatic_megafauna
The battle for hearts and minds continues.
Interesting..gorilla’s get UNDER reported so social engineers can keep plucking money from the wallets of perpetually scared, misinformed groups of people.
In Canada’s big cities, the homeless and drug addicts are OVER reported so social engineers can keep plucking money from the wallets of perpetually scared, misinformed groups of people.
Crikey! Where can i get in on this action?..it oughta be illegal, it’s so lucrative!
apparently the idea that “if you want more of something subsidize it “is the same with great apes
more wheat, subsidize the price.
more gorilla, give out grants.
more homeless, build some shelters.
more poor, increase welfare.
heh, heh indeed
LOL… love the title! Seriously, I did LOL!
Sounds like a good movie title:
POLAR BEAR VS MOUNTAIN GORILLA
I’m sure Hollywood could come up with some enviro/agw angle where the polar bear and gorilla are forced to battle one another because their habitat has been destroyed by evil man and we all need to use different lightbulbs and over-inflate our tires to save the animals…..
There is no question that the numbers of gorillas have decreased, regardless of whether the figure is 50,000 or 200,000.
Comparing polar bears to gorillas is silly. Gorillas are threatened because of habitat destruction and encroachment by human populations.
Polar bears are threatened by nothing.
I’m going to suggest a government grant to a Simon Fraser University economist to study why my net worth isn’t quite as high as I’d hoped.
David, don’t shoot them, fish for them:
http://www.wafu.ne.jp/~yaz/en/squirrel_fishing.html
Come on you guys!!!
Africa is a massive land mass. The gorillas are in an unexplored area the size of Virginia.
There is no highway or other method of transportation but plane. Yet alone the political climate in some of these regions.
I agree with you on the polar bear issue, but the gorilla finding is incredible and fortunate.
Why do some people have to be negative all the time?
Africa is a massive land mass. The gorillas are in an unexplored area the size of Virginia.
There is no highway or other method of transportation but plane.
Said Right of centre
Yes but from an airplane high above the ground a black animal on a green background is much easier to spot than a white animal on a white background and those “experts” still missed tens of thousands of them gorillas.
Now how many polar bears are they failing to see and count?
“Africa is a massive land mass. The gorillas are in an unexplored area the size of Virginia.
The question is , who assumed that this huge tract of unexplored perfect gorilla habitat had zero gorillas living in it and why?
“You’re fired”
“Yes but from an airplane high above the ground a black animal on a green background is much easier to spot than a white animal on a white background and those “experts” still missed tens of thousands of them gorillas.”
Yes, cause I am sure that they have the money in their budget to fly around endlessly looking for gorillas.
Actually mountain gorillas and orangutans are still very much in danger, even if lowland gorillas are not. And the only reason these populations might be rebounding is because conservation warnings were issued.
What’s interesting about rightwingers is the fact that they find it a sign of weakness to issue corrections. This of course explains their complete inability to admit when they’ve made a mistake themselves.
“Polar bears are threatened by nothing.”
Except all that melting ice:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080806.PASSAGE06/TPStory/Environment
“Africa is a massive land mass. The gorillas are in an unexplored area the size of Virginia.
The question is , who assumed that this huge tract of unexplored perfect gorilla habitat had zero gorillas living in it and why?
Right, you look in the area the size of virginia, not in the Sahara or the Serengeti. look for apes or minkeys in the area that might host minkeys.–
what are they blind? yes, the ape and his minkey were outside za area. -the ape hunters are as bright as Inspector Clouseau
Fire them all.
A census by the Wildlife Conservation Society raised the estimate for gorillas in the Congo jungle from between 50,000 and 100,000 to around 200,000…
which means that the Congo jungle has approximately 25% as many sub-human primates as San Francisco (population 776,633 according to the 2000 census).
What’s interesting about rightwingers is the fact that they find it a sign of weakness to issue corrections.
I don’t think that anyone indicated a correction to be a “sign of weakness”. That being said, the issuing of a correction is the direct result of inepitude,grossly inaccurate estimates and alarmism.
Just because one survives on grants alone is no reason not to strive for accuracy.
…Yes, cause I am sure that they have the money in their budget to fly around endlessly looking for gorillas.
Said Right of centre,
Of course they don’t fly around looking for animals,
they distribute little cards with an ID number to every animal and then ask them to file a report once a year.
The socialist way is always the best way!
all kidding aside,
either they have no idea what they are doing and we should not listen to them OR they are very dishonest.
I lean towards dishonest…
It does not matter if they do it by airplane or by tricycle, it is obvious they fabricate a number that will support their leftist agenda.
The left pretends it is them and only them who can save the gorillas, the polar bears and the planet. so they come up with whatever number works best to brainwash us into believing something somewhere needs more liberals in power to save it.
They use the exact same method for numbers on co2 and global warming.
You can not trust them no matter if they have the budget or not to really study something.
I will tell you what population is increasing,
the population of snake oil salesmen leftists is increasing very fast!
While the population of people who find ways to expose the snake oil salesmen leftists is only very slowly increasing.
What’s interesting about rightwingers is the fact that they find it a sign of weakness to issue corrections.
Said biff jr
The thing is I am not so sure those are corrections…
Those are more like a way of covering their a**es for previous lies.
You know just like the UN keeps readjusting the numbers on global warming or changing the date when the planet will be so hot we will all die?
They do not sound like real corrections to me.
more like shifting of goal posts, readjusting the leftist propaganda message, and things of that nature…
“It does not matter if they do it by airplane or by tricycle, it is obvious they fabricate a number that will support their leftist agenda”
So why did they reveal this find then? It is obvious it would hurt their “agenda”.
I also find it rather funny every person in this field is a leftist. That is just too simplistic of an answer to me.
ps.I am with you on the global warming issue but this one not so much.
What’s interesting about rightwingers is the fact that they find it a sign of weakness to issue corrections.
Said biff jr
Actually, I was quoting John.
I really like that word “undwindling.”
I quote: “Oates said that while the news was good for the iconic great apes made famous by Dian Fossey in “Gorillas in the Mist,” many lesser known primates are in deepening peril.”
The obvious question is, how the Hell does he know? If the population estimate of one of the three best-known and largest primates could be out by a factor of 2 to 4, where does that leave estimates of the populations of “lesser known primates”?
This is indeed good news.
Now, these are lowland gorillas, and they live in the jungle. That’s why it is hard to ascertain their numbers, if you fly a plane over that area all you see is an endless tree canopy. You must send explorers on the ground to find what’s there, and this is not trivial.
The mountain gorilla is the endangered one, there’s only a few hundred left.
As for the biologists studying those animals living off ‘grants’, that should be qualified. Most of those grants are coming from private sources, like the WWF and National Geographic Society.
greenneck
“””””Now, these are lowland gorillas, and they live in the jungle. That’s why it is hard to ascertain their numbers, if you fly a plane over that area all you see is an endless tree canopy. You must send explorers on the ground to find what’s there, and this is not trivial.”””””
THAT, is not the point, the point is that the numerbers were wrong, so ewvery discussion about these animals was done on erroneous information. On this issue that is not a big deal. But the are a lot of these scientific/study errors, which means more information is needed to correct the errors. And that is the exact point that many in here have been trying to make on the gorbull warming issue, capice!!!!!
I’ve logged quite a few helicopter hours in northern Alberta, and animals have a way of blending in with their surroundings. You’d think a moose would stick out like a turd in a punchbowl, but I’ve gone hundreds of miles sometimes without seeing a single one. When you do see an animal, it’s usually only for a few seconds.
I was surveying a wellsite for Dome Petroleum in caribou habitat one time, and while we were on the ground they had a forest ranger above us in a helicopter. We were having trouble walking in the frozen caribou tracks, but when they asked us if we’d seen any sign, we said “not a trace”. The lease was approved, and everyone went home happy.
And don’t forget, after all these years we have no good pictures of Bigfoot. We all know they exist, though I’ve heard climate change may affect their feeding habits.
Answer this one question well from your superior knowledge of climate science and I will never comment on the subject on this forum again.
How did polar bears survive the Holocene Optimum about 6-8K years ago when the Arctic was far warmer than it is today?
How did polar bears survive the Eemian interglacial, when the entire planet was far warmer than it is today?
They are simple questions and I am sure you must have a straight answer. Or, more likely, you take climate change as a matter of faith in the news outlets you hear about it from.
^^^I am not an expert either Tim but wouldnt the polar bears be less limited on their abilty to move where the food source was as there was no human settlemnets there?
I would assume that if there is no food North they could have moved south and foraged there. Hunger would drive them to forage for anything.
With mankind around now that may be part of the problem.
Population studies do not have to count animals.
Via remote sensing sat. images one can identify the tree and vegetation species that make up the forest, therby giving you the forest type and amount of forage that’s available to the gorillas.
We look up what we do know , like gorillas can be as dense as 5 animals per square kilometre for that type of forest.
Now multiply the square kilometres of the study area by the known density that that type of forest can support.
Easy peasy .
You don’t have to count animals.
Aren’t Gorilla’s poo-flingers?
Shouldn’t all 200,000 of them be demonstrating at the Democratic National Convention?
Aren’t Gorilla’s poo-flingers?
Shouldn’t all 200,000 of them be demonstrating at the Democratic National Convention?