Ohio Zoo Attempts To Mate Female Rhino With Her Brother For Species Survival 272
An anonymous reader writes "Unfortunately for the Sumatran rhino the fate of the species may boil down to a plan by the Cincinnati Zoo to breed their lone female with her little brother. 'We absolutely need more calves for the population as a whole; we have to produce as many as we can as quickly as we can,' said Terri Roth, who heads the zoo's Center for Research of Endangered Wildlife. 'The population is in sharp decline and there's a lot of urgency around getting her pregnant.'"
So... (Score:4, Funny)
It's come to this!
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:4, Funny)
http://xkcd.com/1022/ [xkcd.com]
Oh so it's ok for animals but not for us? (Score:5, Funny)
I hate humans...
Re:Oh so it's ok for animals but not for us? (Score:5, Funny)
It is worse than that. According to PETA, animals can't speak and give verbal consent so anytime they do have sex it is rape. To make matters worse I understand the the little brother rhino is underage. Therefore the Cincinnati zoo is running a underage incestuous animal brothel. How can we allow this to happen. I demand that the administrators of the zoo be locked up.
Won't someone think of the Rhinos?
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And do what?
Move them to Arkansas or Alabama, where it's legal?
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Move them to Arkansas or Alabama, where it's legal?
I'm not American - isn't Arkansas the place that looks almost like Kansas on paper but sounds completely different for no apparent reason?
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The difference is, the rhinos have no choice BUT to mate with each because we've almost killed them all off. Had we not been plugging them with lead so we could cut off their horns, leaving the rest to rot, because some parts of the world are so backward and lacking in anything resembling scientific knowledge that they think the horn has some kind of magical properties, this wouldn't be an issue.
Except for direct hit by solar flares or an asteroid/comet impact, the most likely cause of someone having to sl
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Re: Oh so it's ok for animals but not for us? (Score:2)
You forgot bestiality.
Re:Oh so it's ok for animals but not for us? (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, they're plenty horny enough.
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There's such a thing as consent by conduct.
Kinky. (Score:4, Funny)
If it was good enough for the pharaohs, it's good enough for the rhinos.
I volunteered (Score:2)
but was ignominiously rejected.
Re:I volunteered (Score:5, Funny)
but was ignominiously rejected.
By the zoo, or by the rhino?
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Double-plus Ew.
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Not exactly tech news... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh. I think I see the connection to Slashdot now.
Eliphinos (Score:4, Funny)
Can be the backup plan if incest doesn't work. The only disadvantage would be that a viable eliphino would make the joke less funny.
Re:Eliphinos (Score:4, Funny)
Can be the backup plan if incest doesn't work. The only disadvantage would be that a viable eliphino would make the joke less funny.
Also, you're going to need a LMC (large mammal collider) in order to smash them together with sufficient force to achieve fusion.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I ask as a person who cares about the environment. I strongly feel humans should have a smaller footprint and stop damaging the environment.
However, we seem to be spending a small fortune on the last few members of a species. Whatever ecological roles the rhinos might have played would have been filled (or the entire ecosystem would have changed faster than usual, possibly not-in-a-good-way).
Shouldn't we be spending that money for conservation where the damage isn't this extensive? In a while, maybe by cloning or using frozen sperms/eggs, we might be able to revive the species.
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As for 'why', that is simple, we don't like endings. We want the story to continue. You might as well ask why people pay for expensive veterinary treaments when they could simply have their pets euthanized. People go to the zoo and they don't just remark on what an economical conversion the rhinos are of hay into edible meat, they marvel and awe and say what a beautiful creature it is.
I am often the one on the practical side of things, and I think the occasional rainforest has to go so humans can prosper
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Alas, all this is done to cure our own concience, since humans played a major role in bringing the rhinos close to extinction in the first place...
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What makes you think it will be cheaper to revive the species once it is extinct? The rhinos are already being taken care of since they are in a zoo, it's probably not very expensive to try to mate them together at the same time as feeding them and providing for their needs. If it was so easy to restore lost species by cloning or restoring frozen eggs, maybe we would have done it already. But I doubt it has ever been done.
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I take it you have never seen jurassic park
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Rhinos built new forests in current grasslands. Not something you would necessarily see any evidence of damage for a decade. But if all trees are gone from the African Grasslands in a hundred years, you will know who to blame. They are the counterpoint to the elephant in many ways, and play a role in the necessary and natural flow of trees and grass.
I'd just like to know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Forgive me, but I'd like to ask a reasonable, well thought-out question. From looking at the other threads, I feel it may be out of place here. Anyway...
Do rhinos breed with siblings in the wild? I know some mammals do, and some don't.
If rhinos do, then I don't see any problem with doing the same in captivity. They would be evolved to better handle the results of inbreeding.
If they don't, then it seems not only unlikely to work (unless done artificially), but also unlikely to be a viable way to propagate the species.
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Outside consultants (Score:2)
Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
How people who are so thrilled with the idea of Darwinian survival are so concerned about extinction.
The two are inextricably linked.
Before humans ... (Score:2)
Before human cluttered up the island(s), a low(ish) interest in breeding may have been a positive survival trait preventing overpopulation of a limited range.
Anyone know if the small tigers there successfully hunt other than immature rhinos?
Now that humans have seriously reduced the range even further, it's probably best to just let them go extinct, since they'll never be successfuly re-introduced to the wild.
Never released in the wild (Score:5, Interesting)
Several species have "successfully been conserved in captivity" up to the point that no zoo wants any more of them. They are effectively killing animals and doing global birth control on these species in captivity, while the natural population is so small that they lack even genetic diversity to be viable enough to reliably survive extinction. Given these fact, you'd say they would reintroduce captive bread animals in the wild. This never happens and never will, unless they are going to change a lot of things. First of all, captive release is extremely costly, nobody wants to foot the bill for a reintroduction program of Black's Rhino. Second of all, captive animals may have diseases that could in theory threaten wild animals, even animals of different species. For that reason, nobody will permit these animals to be released in the wild, or have them interbreed with wild animals.
Zoos are nothing but the living equivalent of a postage stamp collection. All these breeding programs are nice for fellow stamp collectors, but will never ever help wild populations with genetic diversity or just plain extra animals. That doesn't mean they don't have a purpose. If we and our kids can't actually go to a zoo and watch these poor caged animals, we wouldn't give enough about them to actually fund some (often rather futile) attempts of saving the habitat of the wild version of what we just fed a bag of peanuts.
Unless the above changes and animals are actually released in the wild on a regular basis, incestuous cross breeding Sumatran rhinos in a Zoo won't help the extinction of these animals a single bit. I suggest we find a solution for this first, before we risk Down Syndrome Rhinos in our Zoos.
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The lady does not look very attractive to me (Score:2)
Yay! (Score:2)
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Incest is in Ohio (Score:2)
Endangered but not THAT endangered (Score:2)
Incest will create an abomination (Score:3)
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No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord.
--Leviticus 18:6
I suggest you learn to differentiate a book recounting that something occurred, with the book advocating what occurred. Otherwise you're going to get very confused thinking WW2 historians must be advocating Naziism by mentioning it in their books.
Re:Like in the Bible! (Score:5, Insightful)
If Adam and Eve were the first two humans, please to explain how humanity got beyond the second generation without incest.
Re:Like in the Bible! (Score:5, Interesting)
They were not the first two humans.
Contrary to what your local pastor may have told you, the bible says no such thing. Cain's wife was one such member of the pre-existing human society that existed outside of the Garden. The creation of Eve is stated clearly to be performed on an entirely different allegorical "day" than human females per se.
Pre-Adamics are what is consistent with science, and correct reading of what Genesis actually says.
There is much more to be said here, and much more potential insight to be gained, but since I doubt you are interested in more than the immediate question specifically insofar as it helps you reject theism and no farther, I'll leave that for another day.
Re:Like in the Bible! (Score:4, Insightful)
on a side note, the imagination of religious nutjobs in order to avoid embarrassment, always amazes me.
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Re:Like in the Bible! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like in the Bible! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Like in the Bible! (Score:5, Funny)
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I highly recommend gaining the ability to discern real qualifications.
For a surprising range of reasons.
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You mean by reading for oneself and not putting too much faith in the versions of the bible the church wants you to have access to and then on top of that King James interpretation of that word.
I'll stick with Darwin thanks. At least his theories can be proven or dis-proven.
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You need qualifications to pronounce herecy?
I though all you had to do was believe in the power of imagination.
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Well, WTF is herecy, anyway? Would that be one of Heracle's cousins? His little sister? Did Hercules bang his little sister then? HERESY I SAY!
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Just one word of advice, don't read George Orwell's Animal Farm.
You won't be able to hear people explaining it was political insights you were supposed to be taking away from it, over the sound of your head exploding about the symbolism.
Well, yeah, I understand you won't start lying about being unable to understand it isn't about talking pigs, unless Orwell started impeding your per
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He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them "Mankind" when they were created.
Genesis 1:27
27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Humanity per se created, and given rather
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The basic issue here is that you would need at some point to be able to differentiate man(1) from man(2).
You will almost certainly make no effort to do so before you get Naturally Deselected, though.
For reasons that will be obscure to you specifically because you can't differentiate man(1) from man(2), I have absolutely no problem with this sequence of events.
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2) ignore the other stuff about aaaallll the beasts and plants being re-created
Trust me, there is nothing I ignore about this.
Thanks for playing, but you're like somebody arguing arithmetic, without having a clue about what Godel knows about the subject, with someone who does know. It's amusing briefly, but little more. See you (or a proxy) later.
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As noted in the footnote, "earth" is alternately (and accurately) translated as "land", and not incompatibly that this particular land had not been rained upon, nor had plants grown here.
The discussion of the garden begins in verse 8. You're still on verse 5, dude. Read through the whole of Genesis 2. It's repeating several events which have already occurred in Genesis 1. Likely two different adaptations of the same fairytale. Perhaps the authors had a disagreement?
My model is quite literally that of a garden on the surface of the Earth, taking up a subset of the Earth's surface, as common sense and science would naturally dictate, though not dictated by your effort to interpret as whatever is -least- likely.
And better students of the book than you have decided time and time again that Genesis contains multiple creation stories. Most likely, then, is that the Bible is an often vague set of fairytales ("allegories") with no real con
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It doesn't resolve the original issue rel
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and given rather Darwinian directives
What "Darwinian directives" are you talking about? As in, he told them "Live and let the nature do its works"?
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Day 4- stars
Day 5- sea creatures, birds
Day 6- beasts, mankind - "male and female"
2:5-7 God created "a man" before plants, so on either day 1, 2, or 3.
2:19, God made beasts (thus mankind, male and female), before Eve. So how could Eve be the first woman if she was made after the beasts and mankind - "male and female"?
Pre-Adamics are what is consistent with science, and correct reading of what Genesis actually says.
It seems quite clear in 2:5-7 that plants didn't exist before Adam, and mankind, male and female, were created with the beasts, days later. So I'm not sure how that's
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You are forcing a particular chronological narrative on the overall allegorical presentation. You are in so doing off the topic of my point.
My stance is that humans existed before Adam and Eve. I have provided scientific and scriptural reasons for this stance.
You are then asserting other things about my supposed stance I never said. Quite seriously, what is your objective here?
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No, this is never true about anything. Not true about any written work, of any type. One can intermix factual and metaphorical statements at will, in any book. It is impossible that you didn't know this as you were claiming otherwise. Why'd you claim it anyway?
And no, the second chapter in no way says Adam predated plants. It says he predated the plants in his garden. See the other post, or ask anyone with a modicum of analytical capability or common-sen
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Sounds like more than a "no garden" quote.
No, this is never true about anything. Not true about any written work, of any type. One can intermix factual and metaphorical statements at will, in any book. It is impossible that you didn't know this as you were claiming otherwise. Why'd you claim it anyway?
To see how you'd identify one from the other. "my personal opinion" is not sufficient to lecture others. I'm not sure what a bible-thumping zealot is doing on a site like this, lecturing others the way you are. Why'd you do it?
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Good question, it is beyond stupid.
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Now if only you could believe that as you're saying it.
Point of fact, though, I've actually been "on a site like this", that is, this one, longer than he has.
And I'll be the only one of us leaving with a meaningful take-away from the time.
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Well, there sure are scientific reasons to believe that Adam wasn't the first man. Which makes sense. For that matter there aren't any scientific reasons to believe anything Genesis says.
But we're talking about the in-story world, in which it's pretty clear that Adam was the first man and there is no mention of any pre-existing society. So far you haven't provided any scientific of scriptural reasoning why the first generations got by without incest.
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Okay, predict the upper-bound age of a man for the next 2500 years. Play a nomad and no looking up anything on the internet to make your guess. If you get it dead-on, would there be a reason to believe things you say? Genesis has in fact done this, accurate over all all that time over billions of future data points, to the significant digits specified. Hypothesis: "If a transcendently-intelligent being exists, he wo
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There you have why it ain't scientific.
Nice try, though.
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I am not making a scientific assertion here, I am stating that his claim needs to be backed if he is making it a statement of fact.
Science has nothing to say for or against it. It is eminently plausible that a person could have been taken out of a human population and put into a garden.
It is also the case that, religion aside, it is never the case that "not scientific" is equivalent to "not real". You can start with the assertion that "Mozart was (or was not) a great composer" if this is unclear. One o
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False dichotomy. We know nothing about Dark Matter, essentially. There will be conjecture as to what it may contain, some of which will be plausible long before testability, much less strong scientific validation. Until such validation, it will be purely "in someone's imagination"--but then you knew your statement was more about smarminess than science already, correct?
By a sky
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"Adam and Eve didn't exist"... sheer empty assertion. Formally, a Bare Assertion Fallacy if you like. Show your proof they didn't exist.
You seem to be convinced that they actually *did* exist. Were they individuals of the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens, Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis, Homo Erectus...which one?
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Yes, and you are consistently failing at it.
Flying teapot fallacy.
There is no such thing. You've made a claim. Back it.
The reason they do not flow is because they are distinct accounts which happen to have been pasted one after the other. There's enough evidence of this from literary-critical analysis. You are presenting an occasionally still heard and refuted theory about the two creation stories.
There is never enough evidence for something false, and you are su
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Someday, learn to present something more in your arguments than unbacked assertions and empty characterizations.
It is of no value.
You can't contribute to "progress" (even in your own terms--where you and every single person you know will unquestionably be dead and irrelevant in 150 years, and entropy if nothing else will finish off the rest some time after that, as your future to "progress" to), if you can't even manage that.
There's no meaning of "progress" that you are even close to being able to help with
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Cain's wife was one such member of the pre-existing human society that existed outside of the Garden. The creation of Eve is stated clearly to be performed on an entirely different allegorical "day" than human females per se.
I hate doing this, but I really am concerned. So, here goes:
[citation needed]
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So it's quite likely I was born without original sin? Because I come from a linage that doesn't include adam and eve?
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The rules on incest were created later.
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Well, as it's said...
Evil lies even when it tells the truth.
If you contemplated this question with more productive intentions, though, you might find some surprising insights not far afield.
Hi Yogi! (Score:2)
Evil lies even when it tells the truth.
Based on this (and your many other bizarre posts), can we assume you're a relative of Yogi Berra?
After all, Yogi apparently said [premiumsportsfan.com] "Half of the lies they tell about me aren't true."
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A couple things here.
Going retroactively in time, at some point in history, even per mainline evolution, you must have a line of demarcation where "before that", the hominids were "not human". Correct? Do you then ascribe to that state before that as having the full complement of "human rights"?
Secondly: I understand you actually have no scientific reason to differentiate yourself from the biological continuum -even now-, and have no argument supporting that you have any "rights" -now-, other than by us
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No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord.
Did the Lord explicitly prohibit IVF?
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You've provided no backing for the assertion the bible says its "OK" under any circumstances at any time.
If you are talking about Adam and Eve, see my previous post regarding that.
As a general statement, though, provide what you are talking about that has moral absolutes applying to all time that you are attempting to compare the bible negatively relative to. What is this forever-unchanging-regardless-of-context moral syste
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You've provided no backing for the assertion the bible says its "OK" under any circumstances at any time. If you are talking about Adam and Eve, see my previous post regarding that.
Your previous post doesn't help. You selectively choose what made up bits fit your desired understanding, but provide no good reason to accept those additions in the first place.
If there were pre-Adamics, then it is entirely possible that Adam and Eve's descendants all died off while we are descendant from the supposed pre-Adamics, and thus we do not magically inherit "original sin".
Or you could recognize the adhoc made up bollocks and realize it's not true.
Re:CREW (Score:5, Funny)
CREW biologists jerked off the rhino while he gorged himself. Pretty much any man's dream, right?
I'm just spitballing here, but you wouldn't happen to be a woman would you?
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Yes, CREW biologists jerked off the rhino while he gorged himself. Pretty much any man's dream, right?
Yeah, those lucky lucky biologists.
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I think they may be short of that sort of Rhino.
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"news for nerds" [x] Check.
UnCheck, massive disparition of species is not something that should be "nerd" specific.
"stuff that matters" [ ] Not so much.
DoCheck, it matters way more than the launch of the latest iSomething whose only "interesting" feature is the way it perfects a little bit more the trapping of the sheeps.
If we do not succeed in limitting the loss of biodiversity, at some not too far point the "quick fix" will be to get rid of us.
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UnCheck, massive disparition of species is not something that should be "nerd" specific.
Just because it's general news, does not mean it is not also news for nerds. The root DNS going offline would now be news for a good fraction of the world population, but it's certainly news for nerds.
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Being academically noteworthy probably qualifies something as nerdy more than anything.
Re:Incest is best.... (Score:4, Funny)
The brother was humping his sister, when she said "you fuck much better than dad." He then replied "yeah, mom said the same."
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The procedure can't be that different from cows or horses you just need a bigger sturdier dummy, clear
They're saying that rhinos don't have much interest in sex, and you want to give the male rhino a partner who just stands there? Guess you're reinforcing that ol' Slashdot stereotype, eh?