global warming vs beneficial human influance

[DekuScrub]

so if we introduce penguins into the northern circle. and kind of protect them till they can establish their population. then we let the polar bears go all out. could we potentially save some polar bears AND increase the global population of penguins?

i think its worth the risk.

what even occupies the penguins niche in the norther hemisphere? seals?

 

[Olimpia]

There's a reason penguins have never colonized the north pole, mainly because it is all ice and penguins need/prefer to lay their eggs in nests in dirt and rock. And emperor penguins wouldn't stand a chance reproducing with polar bears nearby, they don't have any ability on ice to run away properly and they can't reproduce if they can't stand there protecting their young for weeks at a time.

So, no, this wouldn't work at all. Also, there are very few cases where relocating species to areas where they have never existed have worked, if any have worked at all. It's one thing to introduce Texas panthers to the Everglades's panther population to increase genetic diversity, but it would be nuts to move them to Africa.

 

[DekuScrub]

There's a reason penguins have never colonized the north pole, mainly because it is all ice and penguins need/prefer to lay their eggs in nests in dirt and rock. And emperor penguins wouldn't stand a chance reproducing with polar bears nearby, they don't have any ability on ice to run away properly and they can't reproduce if they can't stand there protecting their young for weeks at a time.

So, no, this wouldn't work at all. Also, there are very few cases where relocating species to areas where they have never existed have worked, if any have worked at all. It's one thing to introduce Texas panthers to the Everglades's panther population to increase genetic diversity, but it would be nuts to move them to Africa.

so you think it would just be a massacre? i think it may be to a degree.

thats why i mentioned providing some level of protection, at least for a generation.

but at the same time, instinctually, i feel like there would be a major gap in the predator prey dynamic. the penguins wouldnt know to run when a giant snowball barrels their way. and a bear wouldnt know to pursue some wired pillar of birdness.

i feel like this introductory period would provide time enough for both to adapt.

do you feel the penguins would simply rely on their programming and huddle together for months on end like in the antarctic? or would they capitalize in the estranged environment and take advantage of the new potential resources and topography.

personally i think, while they will fall back on their instincts, they would also learn to cope differently in this alien environment. i think they would readily recognize the differences.

its the same deal with megafauna in the states. there are major gaps in the ecosystem. little can be done now with the sheer volume of humans. but for instance there was a prehistoric equivalent of the cheetah in north america, hence why the pronghorn is the fastest land herbivore. could you imagine how fast that cat must have been to push convergent evolution to such a degree? something the cheetah hasnt even accomplished.

ideally humans would just live in giant monoliths and leave nature to itself. but we have becoe far too much of an influence on this world. so much so i feel like our interference is critical in bringing balance back to what we have broken.

so with that said i still think penguins might be a viable option in restoring some balance, or order to the north pole.

and as far as you saying "There's a reason penguins have never colonized the north pole" yeah its becuae its on the opposite end of the planet and such an exodus would plainly be unfathomable without some viable resource and lack of predation along the way.

rock, ice, tundra. dramatic seasonal changes. there are plenty of penguin species capable with coping in these environments. sure very alien, but with a level of protection i think establishing populations and adaptation is a serious possibility.

 

[chamlover98]

There's a reason penguins have never colonized the north pole, mainly because it is all ice and penguins need/prefer to lay their eggs in nests in dirt and rock. And emperor penguins wouldn't stand a chance reproducing with polar bears nearby, they don't have any ability on ice to run away properly and they can't reproduce if they can't stand there protecting their young for weeks at a time.

So, no, this wouldn't work at all. Also, there are very few cases where relocating species to areas where they have never existed have worked, if any have worked at all. It's one thing to introduce Texas panthers to the Everglades's panther population to increase genetic diversity, but it would be nuts to move them to Africa.

Only a few penguins live in the warmer parts of the southern oceans. The Galapagos Penguin, breeding in the Galapagos region, may even breed a little north of the equator, and the Jackass Penguin (or African Penguin) may range as far north as the equator. These penguins have special ways of keeping cool and live in places where cold ocean currents cool the immediate environment—the Humboldt Current in the eastern Pacific, and the Benguela and Agulhas Currents off South Africa. They are non-migratory species, so they’re not likely to stray too far north.

 

[Olimpia]

I am a conservation ecology and biology student on the verge of graduating. Trust me, I learn, talk, read, and write about this still all day long - this is a terrible idea. Translocating species to places they have never existed as a conservation strategy has NEVER worked, despite what some circles of ecology are proposing, there still hasn't been a single successful event. If there has been I challenge anyone to find it, because I've never heard of it working. And if the species does manage to do ok, it usually comes at the cost of native flora or fauna. Just look at the Jackson's in Hawaii, they are doing away with indigenous insect species and are a real risk to them. Animals evolve within ecosystems, with all the other species that this ecosystem entails, and as such develop balances that work. Changing something can have unexpected consequences and destroy a dozen species to save one. It just doesn't justify it.

I think a polar bear knows exactly that it has to eat anything that moves. Polar bears are a risk to people, and have gone after people in the past, going as far as mauling a few. I think that if you put anything up there, the bears would eat them - plain as that.

And the penguin (let's say emperor penguins, which have no terrestrial predators in the wild) would be easy targets because they think that they are safe on land. I have a hard time believing that they would adapt to life in the opposite pole, because although it seems like the same thing at first glance, they are pretty different environments. They would have to change how they have bred for thousands of years, and I think you're asking too much of them.

Penguins do not make up any part of a polar bear's diet, and it defeats the point of conserving a species in the wild if we have to provide such an artificial and dramatic solution.

You don't know how penguins would affect the local fish populations. Say the penguins thrive and eat the fish that feed seals, now you've killed off what little natural prey polar bears have left.

The real threat that faces polar bears is habitat loss, like most animals. Adding a completely foreign species to a very difficult system as it is is not the solution. Certainly not a permanent one. If we continue to lose the ice sheets then we'll still have homeless bears and, now, penguins. It would still be a lose-lose.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

As usual, Olimpia has provided a plethora of very sound knowledge on a very complex subject! It is not so simple as you'd like to think deku, with either the mass death of transplanted penguins from the get go, or having devastating consequences on the surrounding ecosystem that you just can't predict accurately if it was successful. The chain of events from disrupting one prey source is usually much more wide sweeping than anyone would have thought. In all the times humans have transplanted a species to "help it or another" it has almost always ended in disaster, multiple times actually causing extinction.

Well said Olimpia!

 

[DekuScrub]

as far as ecosystems that were "lacking" yellowstone and the reintroduction of wolves is a good example. with moose, while the ratio of young to adult shifted dramatically the population remains stable. the population of beavers increased because the herbivores that would have normally been traversing waterways and eating saplings shifted to avoid predation. and with the increase in beavers many other species have been prospering because of the micro environments dams provide.

but this knowledge is only based on random articles i have read and im sure if your study revolves around such things youre much more of an expert i could pretend to be.

oostvaarderplassen is another good example of where human intervention has proven beneficial. with the loss miscellaneous megafauna in the last ice age the reintoduction of large herbivores really exhibits how crippled these environments are without equivalent species filling in the gaps.

but then again this is just my opinion. it just seems if species locked in a symbiotic evolution loose one cog in the machine it all kind of falls apart.

not that it cant fix itself over time but the frequency with which humanity has removed these "cogs" it seems as though something more than nature itself will be required to amend the damage done.

sure the penguins are an extreme example but i feel more good than harm could be done in pursing such a venture. especially with a species like emperor penguins. the last thing i could see them being is an invasive species. i feel like it would require many generation for them to become any sort of competition for native seals. that is if they could avoid being eatten.

forget conserving habitat. i think thats far too little far too late. repairs are warranted. with the amount of humans, encroachment, and climate change we are far too gone and an irreversible effect.

sure penguins might be a bad idea, but there is something that must be done. this isnt cain toads where weare trying to protect our crops becuase weare greedy little sharts. its protecting the species and ecosystems on the verge on annihilation. and already too far gone.

what else can we do?