Read it a few times to understand the core message because the thesis and title are slightly self-evident i.e. more isolation causes less socializing. But the crux seems to be:
> "We see individual elephants leaving and possibly dying at accelerating rates, but new individuals are not coming into the population,” said Madsen. “With fewer individuals in the population, those who are left will naturally have fewer relationships. However, the remaining elephants are also changing their relationships with each other."
In my opinion "dying at accelerating rates" is the/a key takeaway. Notably climate change doesn't seem to be explicitly mentioned and hate to see poaching be a direct cause:
> Many elephant populations are already impacted through deaths resulting from poaching and conflicts with humans. Other contributing factors may be disruptions in habitat connectivity and less food available...
Other comments mention other intelligent and social species and this reminds me of Puget Sound Southern resident killer whales [0] and their decrease in food availability and offspring viability.
> "Notably climate change doesn't seem to be explicitly mentioned"
If it'd be my study, I'd also avoid mentioning climate-change explicitly.
With the (US-governments') move from mere verbal denial of climate change to institutional and policy-level skepticism of everything and everyone just using the term, it could cause the whole paper to be dismissed in discussions of some circles...
That's really a useful finding that helps to connect the dots in the rapidly changing overall ecosystem of biosphere on Earth. I thought this pattern of diminishing social groups is specific to humans. But as usual, the phenomenon appears broader and more generic.
Education, jobs, desire for better living conditions did the damage for humans. Families became workers of the economies and were flung far apart.
For elephants, their distress is probably a direct result of their need for social grouping. A wild cat wouldn't have been affected by the lack of social groups.
Well there are more microbes around us than there are stars in the universe. They survive without smart phones, intelligence, religion, society and stories that need to fit in a 3 inch chimp brain about the meaning of it all. One of them recently killed 6 million people. Life goes on.
Glad to see things like this are being funded. It’s easy to forget we aren’t the only smart, social creatures on the planet dealing with this rapidly changing world.
Hat tip to the elephants for not being sociopaths like the Orca. Or otters.
Maybe the elephants and octopus should form a brilliant animals but not sociopaths club.
Read it a few times to understand the core message because the thesis and title are slightly self-evident i.e. more isolation causes less socializing. But the crux seems to be:
> "We see individual elephants leaving and possibly dying at accelerating rates, but new individuals are not coming into the population,” said Madsen. “With fewer individuals in the population, those who are left will naturally have fewer relationships. However, the remaining elephants are also changing their relationships with each other."
In my opinion "dying at accelerating rates" is the/a key takeaway. Notably climate change doesn't seem to be explicitly mentioned and hate to see poaching be a direct cause:
> Many elephant populations are already impacted through deaths resulting from poaching and conflicts with humans. Other contributing factors may be disruptions in habitat connectivity and less food available...
Other comments mention other intelligent and social species and this reminds me of Puget Sound Southern resident killer whales [0] and their decrease in food availability and offspring viability.
[0]: https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-s...
> "Notably climate change doesn't seem to be explicitly mentioned"
If it'd be my study, I'd also avoid mentioning climate-change explicitly.
With the (US-governments') move from mere verbal denial of climate change to institutional and policy-level skepticism of everything and everyone just using the term, it could cause the whole paper to be dismissed in discussions of some circles...
That's really a useful finding that helps to connect the dots in the rapidly changing overall ecosystem of biosphere on Earth. I thought this pattern of diminishing social groups is specific to humans. But as usual, the phenomenon appears broader and more generic.
Education, jobs, desire for better living conditions did the damage for humans. Families became workers of the economies and were flung far apart.
For elephants, their distress is probably a direct result of their need for social grouping. A wild cat wouldn't have been affected by the lack of social groups.
imagine we find out later that shifts in our socialisation isn't due to smartphones but some unknown factor that also affects intelligent animals...
Or imagine we find out later that shifts in our radio waves are also affecting intelligent animals!
(like bees?)
I think we just come to grips with humans being an awful, parasitic, and destructive species, even towards ourselves
hmmm check the mycelium
Well there are more microbes around us than there are stars in the universe. They survive without smart phones, intelligence, religion, society and stories that need to fit in a 3 inch chimp brain about the meaning of it all. One of them recently killed 6 million people. Life goes on.
The elephants are spending too much time confiding in Claude?
Even bigger tusks, Claude
What a comforting thought, that killing off an intelligent species isn't really our fault.
Bit of an escapist fantasy, though.
Thought this was a joke about Mastodon at first ;D
It must be due to their social media, AI, and porn usage
YC 26. Facebook, but for elephants. (Maybe pivot to doordash for lions?)
> Facebook, but for elephants.
Tuskbook?
> Maybe pivot to doordash for lions?
Rate your delivery driver on the score from "Too thin, won't eat again" to "Nice and juicy".
It's like when you starve them of resources they don't thrive. It does not compute, the line is going up.
Glad to see things like this are being funded. It’s easy to forget we aren’t the only smart, social creatures on the planet dealing with this rapidly changing world.
Hat tip to the elephants for not being sociopaths like the Orca. Or otters.
Maybe the elephants and octopus should form a brilliant animals but not sociopaths club.
Elephants are a reminder of what we should choose to be. Orcas are what we deserve for what we have already chosen.
Congratulations you will live in my existential nightmares now. Damn it.
They still can't handle the svn to git migration as they lost TRUNK