Research ties human acts to harmful rates of species evolution

Shocker. People having an effect on how other species develop. Interference with nature - how, oh how could this happen? I just don't understand. I hardly use plastic bags at all anymore...

Human actions are increasing the rate of evolutionary change in plants and animals in ways that may hurt their long-term prospects for survival, scientists are reporting.

Hunting, commercial fishing and some conservation regulations, like minimum size limits on fish, may all work against species health.

Hunting, yeah, I can see that not benefiting the natural world, with mechanized weapons and all. Probably my favorite hunting was when white people would ride trains in the late 19th century and shoot buffalo for fun. They pretty much killed them all. That was awesome.


Here's buffalo hunting now.

That guy should be proud of himself. I bet that was hard. Look, he was reduced to using an arrow gun. You can tell he needed it. Just skin and bones, he is! Tough work. It looks like it was pretty cold too.

The researchers also noted that the pattern of loss to human predation like hunting or harvesting is opposite to what occurs in nature or even in agriculture.

Predators typically take "the newly born or the nearly dead," Darimont said. For predators, targeting healthy adults can be dangerous, and some predator fish cannot even open their mouths wide enough to eat adult prey. Animals raised as livestock are typically slaughtered relatively young, he said, and farmers and breeders retain the most robust and fertile adults to grow their herds or flocks.

But commercial fishing nets and other gear that comply with conservation regulations typically trap large fish while letting smaller ones escape. Trophy hunters typically seek out the largest animals. And for some fish in some areas, as much as 50, 60 or even 80 percent of the stock may be caught every year.

I'm pretty sure people will only stop taking from nature like this when there is either nothing left or almost nothing left, and most people can't afford what it will cost, for example, when many popular fish species are stolen and killed at such rates that their low populations lead to commercial fishers charging prices several times higher than they are now, in an effort to maintain profitability.

Really though, it shouldn't be news that industrialized hunting, which is more akin to gathering, ironically, as there isn't much of a hunt involved, is having negative consequences on the planet. How could it be otherwise?