this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2024
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The Circle of Life (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by vsoponge@lemmy.world to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world
 
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[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They addressed the elephant issue in their comment. I recommend you read it again. The summary is elephants evolved without predation, so they don't bread in large numbers. Prey animals breed with the assumption a not-insignificant portion of their population will die prematurely due to predation. If this doesn't happen then their population balloons until it consumes all available resources, then it collapses.

This happens fairly frequently where we've removed predators from the ecosystem. Its why we promote deer hunting, for example. We've removed their natural predators, and if they aren't culled then they will grow until they collapse. This is well understood and not controversial.

I guess we could engineer the planet until this isn't an issue, but that'll take a few millenia and probably isn't the best idea. Let nature be natural. It'd be fascist to assume it's our domain to conquer and dominate into submission.