/social/ - Socialism

I personally believe that, unless you have a specialist purpose (e.g. guide dog, pack animal, introduced to control other introduced species) then non-native animals should be banned and prevented from breeding. This includes most pet ownership in colonized Western countries. Humans don't count because of a bunch of unique factors and complexities that either lessen the problems (e.g. our capacity to understand and mitigate issues) or complicate the issue.
Technically that could be a special case of eugenics, but it's obviously distinct from bullshit human pseudoscience eugenics or naïve attempts at disrupting long-standing ecological patterns like the disasterous four pests campaign.

I don't know anything about all these weird dog breeds, but if an animal is powerful enough to easily maim people (like wolves, bears, crocodiles) then it's pretty standard to outlaw people to keep them as pets in areas they're likely to cause incidents, like cities and towns.

>>46
>I personally believe that, unless you have a specialist purpose (e.g. guide dog, pack animal, introduced to control other introduced species) then non-native animals should be banned and prevented from breeding. This includes most pet ownership in colonized Western countries.
what is the rationale behind this

>>49
Introduced species can devistate local wildlife, not even just the predators but also herbivores and plants which outcompete local species. They starve or hunt them, sometimes to extinction. It's particularly visible in historically-isolated areas like islands, including Australia and New Zealand where the introduction of pet cats and the resulting feral cats have been devastating:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_in_Australia

I don't believe in some sanctity of preserving nature as-is, that it's inherently balanced and immutable, but I do believe that preserving native species is healthy for:
- ecological reasons (local species typically have a sustainable relationship with land and other species that invasive species may not have, which could even leads to land issues like erosion if certain plants are threatened)
- retaining unique species for biological research
- preventing monoculture, having the same animals around the world is just damn boring

The 'prevent from breeding' is because liberal society probably aren't ready for the ideal solition, the state forcing millions of families to put down their pets. People form attachments to them, so it would be cruel to not just the pet but the family, even if justified to preserve the animals they threaten.
As for feral introduced species, Australia got it right: snipe camels from helicopters and give rabbits the pox. Apparently though, some idiots over there started a feral horse conservation society.

>>52
the thing about this is like, I get the cats part, because they free roam a lot of the time, but dogs are often very controlled, and most don't tend to hunt etc. I don't really see why it is necessary to put them down. 

Also like, people really like having pets, they are good for mental health and so on. Not just in the west but all over the world people keep pets

>>52
>Australia got it right: snipe camels from helicopters and give rabbits the pox
first based take of the board in the bag kek

>>53
The idealist in me says that people who would like pet animals should strive to get pets which are native to their locality, although I honestly don't know if that's an option everywhere.
My issue with even well-controlled [non-native] animals like house dogs is that I don't trust that there won't eventually be some abandoned or running away and allowed to become feral, and if they're not desexed then they can create a big issue. So I'm fine with compromising with allowing less-dangerous (e.g. non-hunting) pets so long as they can't breed in the wild.
But at the very least, the really destructive species like cats have gotta go from places that historically don't have them.

>>46
>I personally believe that, unless you have a specialist purpose (e.g. guide dog, pack animal, introduced to control other introduced species) then non-native animals should be banned and prevented from breeding.
Good luck with that.

>>52
Cats are exceptionally bad but most of the impact can be stopped by putting a bell on them so animals hear them coming.

>>53
Dogs being introduced to Australia drove several species extinct. Dingoes are not native, they're feral dogs.

>>56
>The idealist in me says that people who would like pet animals should strive to get pets which are native to their locality, although I honestly don't know if that's an option everywhere.
Domestication of a species is no small thing. Non-domesticated species are not suitable as pets. They are significantly more dangerous than something like a "bad breed" of dog.

>>95
>Dogs being introduced to Australia drove several species extinct. Dingoes are not native, they're feral dogs.
Looks like you're right, with caveats. They're certainly pre-colonial by many thousand years, and after the first arrival of the earlier Aboriginal Australians by tens of thousands of years.
<In 2020, the first whole genome sequencing of the dingo and the New Guinea singing dog was undertaken. The study indicates that the ancestral lineage of the dingo/New Guinea singing dog clade arose in southern East Asia, migrated through Island Southeast Asia 9,900 YBP, and reached Australia 8,300 YBP; however, the human population which brought them remains unknown. The dingo's genome indicates that it was once a domestic dog which commenced a process of feralisation since its arrival 8,300 years ago
another article says "The dingo reached Australia about 4,000 years ago".
And you're right, dingos are theorised to have driven some species extinct, like the Tasmanian devil.

Now foxes, those have been particularly nasty.

Ban or Muzzle them

As of the 31st of December the great purge has begun. 

Looks like white men are pushing back finally

Pet ownership licenses seems like a pretty reasonable standard to have as a general thing. Dangerous animals is one part of it, but so is being competent enough to actually take care of the animal. Not just in terms of training, but in terms of, like, being able to feed them properly. There's too many idiots with "vegan cats" for instance.

>Personally, I think in order to own one of these dogs, I think you should have to prove that you have an advanced level of dog handling ability.
This should just be the case in general. Tiny dogs like chihuahuas can be aggressive as fuck too, and even if they can't maul you to death, a bite can be dangerous. Not that pitbulls aren't specifically more dangerous, but it's more a thing of degree. Of course, this would be less of an issue if dog training services were more available or just education for people about how to handle animals. That goes beyond pets too, you see a lot of dumbfucks approaching wild animals or livestock with no regard for how the animal might react, like they're some Disney princess. There's an even bigger issue here with not really understanding or respecting nature as a force to be reckoned with that needs to be corrected with education, if only for public safety reasons.

>>56
>The idealist in me says that people who would like pet animals should strive to get pets which are native to their locality, although I honestly don't know if that's an option everywhere.
Undomesticated animals aren't really suitable as pets in most cases. You can have some tame animals that are bred in captivity and can't be released, but they tend to require more specialized care and should definitely require a license to keep as a pet.

All dogs should have to be on leashes in public, and you should have to be capable of handling an animal if it acts up. The only real exception to this would be assistance animals who are usually trained well enough not to need a leash (guide dogs though kind of need one to function anyway).