Quote:
Originally posted by Joel@WhiteMoose
Good Old Boy - "HOWEVER if the are just a variation then I don't think they should be any more or less protected than normal animals. If you start that how long is it before you start protecting them based on hoof color, antler shape, of nostril size?"
I guess it all depends why these variations are appearing? Many would say that ear lobe size doesn't matter, and shouldn't make a difference regading protection... but the different types of Elephants in Africa seem to indicate that it makes a huge difference, and its beneficial to have larger ears for cooling purposes.
It seems to be beneficial for many animals to have white fur pattens living in the north (polar bear, artic fox, artic rabbit) .... whereas the same pattern may not be so adapt for animals living in the south...
antler shape - what exactly is the difference between a mule deer and a white tail?
The real crux of the issue is that I'm not calling for an all out ban on hunting, I'm just talking about protecting 4 or 5 animals out of 100,000 ... Is that really too much to ask for?
Joel
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seperation of species have been define by many things over the past years. I believe these days it is mostly as simple as a DNA test.
I just watched a special on red wolves that involved trying to capture the most pure bred of the species to keep in captivity to breed and then reintroduce a pure bred pack of animals, back into the wild. Back in the day when they did the capturing the biologists used skull
X-Rays to make determinations, because some red wolves had interbred with coyotes and therefore had lost the distinguishing skull features that only the RED wolf species had that other Wolves and Coyotes did not have. It was stated that Today they would have just used DNA testing.
Good luck on your mission. Personally I think anybody that is as iterested in the subject as you probably has nothing but good intentions, and since I haven't heard you make any broad Anti-Hunting or AntiGun comments I wish you luck in your endeavors