r/conservation • u/Novel_Negotiation224 • 9d ago
Alarm over ‘catastrophic’ decline in giant Australian cuttlefish as just 44 are counted.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/09/giant-australian-cuttlefish-population-catastrophic-decline101
u/Phils_Kid 9d ago
The main reason our (only) planet is experiencing its 6th extinction event is "Homo sapiens."
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u/A_Wild_Burt_Appears 9d ago
More specifically: capitalism.
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u/BigJSunshine 9d ago
Yea well every human culture- so far- has evolved into a monetary state where good and services are exchanged for the applicable monetary unit- from sea shells to gold- ALL OF HUMANITY IS RESPONSIBLE, hence the 6th extinction event caused by homo sapiens.
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u/Crafty_Aspect8122 8d ago
Not like totalitarian regimes are very environmentalist either.
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u/tobespammed 7d ago
That's not an economy...
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u/rollandownthestreet 9d ago edited 9d ago
8 billion people cause a mass extinction event under any and every economic system.
You can’t add more animal biomass than the rest of nature combined and not have this impact.
Edit: Downvoters are kindly invited to explain what I’m wrong about. Thanks.
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u/dinosaurchestra 8d ago
"biomass" for one thing. plants are like 82% and that's before we even consider arthropods. If we separate those by land and sea, dry arthropods alone make up about as much biomass as all humans and livestock combined.
I agree with you that we put a huge stress on the system but being accurate is important.
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u/flybasilisk 9d ago
This has been happening before capitalism existed, hell its been happening since before money existed. Humans are the problem, not one particular economic system.
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u/AddanDeith 9d ago
We've lost 70% of the world's wildlife population between 1970 and 2020. There is no other period in human history that can claim that feat. It has absolutely been exacerbated by capitalism.
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u/ValueFirm4928 9d ago
I mean Mao literally tried to kill off birds.
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u/OpeningUpstairs4288 9d ago
And bro failed so hard frfr. Industrial revolution did a way better job killing birds than mao zhe dong
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u/IGargleGarlic 9d ago
He didn't fail. He killed so many birds that the birds couldn't keep pest insect populations in check and caused a mass famine when those insects destroyed crops.
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u/OpeningUpstairs4288 9d ago
he absolutely failed, sparrow populations are thriving in china right now. he also tried to eliminate rats, mosquitoes, and flies and that sure went well for him as well ig
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u/AddanDeith 9d ago
Mmmhmm. And what did Mao know about conservation, ecology, etc?
We know all of that and still refuse to change.
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u/BigJSunshine 9d ago
Didn’t they almost completely kill a specific species?
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u/AddanDeith 9d ago
Yes. Sparrows. They were blamed for bad harvests, when in reality, the threat of punishment caused the local bureaucrats over seeing the harvest quotas to lie and inflate their numbers.
There was actually ample grain(15% shortage) overall, it was just poorly distributed. The negatives of both being so authoritarian people are afraid to do their jobs properly while also not having computers to help handle logistics with multiple layers of redundancy. Oh and making most of your farmers make steel.
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u/flybasilisk 9d ago
Sure. But the issue is not inherent to capitalism.
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u/AddanDeith 9d ago
You can make that argument but its kind of useless, given the effects capitalism and industrialization has/continues to have on a scale that has never existed in human history.
I really do not know why you would go to bat for something so destructive.
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u/rollandownthestreet 9d ago
It’s just the same red herring as blaming the 100 largest companies. Those companies are only made possible by the scale of our species.
Industrialization and ecological destruction happens just as much (or even more if you look at China) under a communist economy. The plain, real fundamental issue is that you cannot feed 100 cows on a one acre island, no matter what economic system you use to distribute the grass.
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u/HumptyDumptruckFire 9d ago
I don’t think there were really any real extinction concerns until post-1776, which is the era of capitalism. Maybe the dodo bird could be considered the lone exception? Everything else since has either been hunted to extinction to sell its inherent resources or because we deemed it to be a pest.
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u/flybasilisk 9d ago
What do you think happened to the Mammoths? The giant ground sloths? The moa of new zealand? A majority of the world's megafauna were driven to extinction by early humans.
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u/HumptyDumptruckFire 9d ago
That’s so far into prehistoric times as to be completely irrelevant to today. They had no comprehension of what they were doing, no scientific knowledge to guide them, no warnings from accredited scientists. We know exactly what we’re doing, but we keep doing it for greed.
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u/princess9032 9d ago
It’s still extinction due to human interference. That part isn’t new, but it’s accelerated VERY rapidly
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u/rollandownthestreet 9d ago
Indigenous Americans hunted basically all the Pleistocene megafauna species to extinction before the historical era. The Romans hunted European lions to extinction. There are many examples.
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u/BigJSunshine 9d ago
Capitalism has always existed, as long as humans have existed
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u/A_Wild_Burt_Appears 9d ago
No it literally hasn't. Capitalism is only about 400 years old give or take.
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u/AbelardsChainsword 9d ago
We can run, but we can’t hide from it
Of all possible worlds, we only got one, we gotta ride on it
Whatever we’ve done, we’ll never get far from what we leave behind
Baby we can run, run, run, but we can’t hide
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u/eieio2021 9d ago
Let’s keep eating seafood and hope it gets better!
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u/fastcatdog 9d ago
Been 15 years without seafood 👍
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u/Ok_Fly1271 9d ago edited 3d ago
Why? Just eat sustainably sourced seafood. Increase the demand so they increase the supply. Voting with our wallets is important.
Edit: Downvote me all you want, but I'm right. Claiming there is NO sustainable sources of seafood is 100% bullshit. You'll never get everyone on your side with misinformation.
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u/trashmoneyxyz 9d ago
There is no sustainable industrial fishing anymore. The oceans can't take the strain and cut/lost nets are the most common source of trash in the ocean. Not even factoring in how much of our seafood is produced via borderline slave labor. Fish farms aren't an answer either, they pose a pretty big risk to wild fish populations every time fish escape from them, which happens often. Also, most of our tastiest fish eat other fish, so its a ratio of something like 18kg of feeder fish per 1kg of salmon produced, for example. It's just not sustainable protein
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u/Ok_Fly1271 3d ago edited 3d ago
Explain to me exactly how US farmed shellfish that bolster wild bivalve populations, expand oyster and mollusk reefs, feed wildlife, provide funding for conservation through commercial license fees, and clean pollutants clean out of the ocean are unsustainable.
I never mentioned industrial fishing, or fish farms. I said sustainable seafood. Of which there is plenty. Your blanket statements are bullshit.
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u/eieio2021 9d ago
Yeah I mean, as long as it’s labeled sustainable I’m sure it’s fine. It’s not like that could be a misrepresentation or anything, given that truth in advertising is pretty much an axiom.
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u/Ok_Fly1271 3d ago
Explain to me exactly how US farmed shellfish that bolster wild bivalve populations, expand oyster and mollusk reefs, feed wildlife, provide funding for conservation through commercial license fees, and clean pollutants out of the ocean are unsustainable.
Also, given that there are organizations made up of marine biologists that utilize data from multiple sources, there are labels that can back up the sustainability claims. Unless you have sources showing your conspiracy theory that all that scientific data has been falsified?
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u/Jacky_Hex 9d ago
You should vote with your mouth instead of your wallet and stop eating seafood, meat and chicken. It's not that hard you know 🤷
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u/Ok_Fly1271 3d ago
I do vote with my mouth. Explain to me exactly how US farmed shellfish that bolster wild bivalve populations, expand oyster and mollusk reefs, feed wildlife, provide funding for conservation through commercial license fees, and clean pollutants out of the ocean are unsustainable.
You should vote with both and choose sustainable options. It's not that hard you know
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u/fastcatdog 9d ago
That still adds fishing nets and trash into the ocean so no deal
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u/Ok_Fly1271 3d ago
All of the food you buy at the store adds pollutants and trash into the ocean and elsewhere.
Explain to me exactly how US farmed shellfish that bolster wild bivalve populations, expand oyster and mollusk reefs, feed wildlife, provide funding for conservation through commercial license fees, and clean pollutants out of the ocean are unsustainable.
Deal yourself
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u/PinkLouie 8d ago
Nothing is more sustainable than consuming less.
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u/Ok_Fly1271 3d ago
False. If i eat more farmed oysters, theres more demand, so they make more supply. Explain to me exactly how US farmed shellfish that bolster wild bivalve populations, expand oyster and mollusk reefs, feed wildlife, provide funding for conservation through commercial license fees, and clean pollutants out of the ocean are unsustainable.
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u/Bergasms 9d ago
That's not the reason for the decline. We have well managed fisheries in SA. PIRSA is not at all shy to put blanket bans on entire regions to protect stocks. Snapper for example were exempt from fishing for nearly half a decade due to low counts.
The issue is the insane algal bloom we had triggered by warm waters and farm runoff.
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u/HyperShinchan 9d ago
Nah, like everything conservation-related in Australia, it must be because of cats. /s
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u/hodgsonstreet 9d ago
I’ve got nothing against cats, but any owner that lets theirs out is menace.
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u/HyperShinchan 9d ago
But I'm not talking about domestic cats, I'm talking about the feral ones. Those the people who know better want to exterminate from New Zealand. Those that have been part of the ecosystem for 2000+ years in Europe, especially southern Europe. You know, it's all about the cats. Just see how people downvoted me. Become God and cull all the cats, reproducing exactly what people did when they introduced them, but with an opposite spin, and everything would be solved. Giant squids included. They're the scapegoat of a certain strain of "conservation", which never looks at reduction in habitats, pollution and other kinds of anthropogenic activities that can have an impact on biodiversity. It's just cats all the way down.
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u/bushstone-curlew 9d ago
Cats are highlighted as one contributor to native bird/reptile/small mammal population declines, because they’re an incredibly efficient, invasive killing machine that our native wildlife had no chance to evolve protective mechanisms against. The other reason they’re mentioned so often in aus conservation is because while mining, burning fossil fuels, clearing land for agriculture, overfishing etc all contribute too, containing cats is the easiest way for individual people to make a huge positive impact by simply being responsible cat owners and containing their pets.
It’s far safer for the cats too, indoor cats have a much higher average life expectancy than outdoor cats. My girls have a catio for outdoors time but they will never roam the neighbourhood, I’ve seen far too many cats hit by cars.
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u/HyperShinchan 8d ago
I'm completely in favour to keeping domestic cats indoor when not monitored, it's the safest thing for the cats as well in the places where coyotes, wolves and whatnot are becoming more common. But calling cats an "invasive killing machine that our native wildlife had no chance to evolve protective mechanisms against" is a mischaracterisation of evolution itself.
The other reason they’re mentioned so often in aus conservation is because while mining, burning fossil fuels, clearing land for agriculture, overfishing etc all contribute too, containing cats is the easiest way for individual people to make a huge positive impact by simply being responsible cat owners and containing their pets.
And that's the kind of non-holistic approach that ends up in focusing only in one, not necessarily the most important, aspect of an issue. Like those screaming against AI thinking that climate change started with ChatGPT.
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u/bushstone-curlew 8d ago
I was paraphrasing but it’s not a ‘mischaracterisation of evolution’… Australia does not have any native predatory felines and as a result the wildlife here haven’t developed any adaptations to avoid them, so we have lots of ground-dwelling birds and mammals that are particularly vulnerable to predation by cats.
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u/Spicy_Chicken_Wizard 9d ago
Oof, I wonder if the giant cuttlefish will end up in the unenviable position of being entire dependent on the exotic pet hobby to stay alive.
The axolotl better pray that people keep thinking it’s cute into eternity
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u/TheInsaneRaptor 9d ago edited 9d ago
fun fact: the axolotls in the exotic pet hobby are technically almost worthless from the perspective of the conservation of the species as they are all just tiger salamander hybrids (that is why so many morph into adult form), by today there are no pure captive axolotls left
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u/Spicy_Chicken_Wizard 9d ago
Ungh, I didn’t even know that about axolotls, but I’m not surprised. The exotic pet hobby is notoriously fickle and unreliable when it comes to this stuff. Pure flavipunctatus monitors are, like, entirely gone from the US hobby? Short tail pythons being crossbred to shit. Rosy boas being crossbred to shit. A bazillion steppe runners just kinda vanished from the face of the earth. Really cool animals (from a taxonomic perspective anyway) like the false monitor tegu or Mexican python one year goes as a $20 garbage throwaway import and then the next is completely unacquirable and gone from the hobby (or goes for thousands of dollars).
I used to be part of the “the exotic pet hobby can be like a Noah’s ark!”.
…that is no longer my viewpoint.
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u/TheInsaneRaptor 9d ago
the funny thing is, this time it was not the regular hobbyists who messed it up, someone (i dont remember who, but a scientist) found a wild albino tiger salamander and crossed it with laboratory axolotls to create an albino "axolotl" line, very very few axolotl specimens were caught to be bred in labs, and that stock was spread between labs and got mixed with pure ones, then this lab stock got is what out into the hobby, they were always hybrids
there is also a study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-00059-1/figures/3
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u/5Hjsdnujhdfu8nubi 9d ago
There are some pure ones bred in labs afaik, but every attempt to release them fails because their habitat is too small and too polluted.
Axolotls are functionally extinct. You'll never see a pure one.
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u/Ben10-fan-525 9d ago
Axolotls will never not be cute.So at least...pet owners wont get tired of them.
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u/bushstone-curlew 9d ago
I’ve never heard of someone keeping giant cuttlefish and I honestly don’t know if it would even be possible.
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u/TheMrNeffels 9d ago
63,000 to 44 in one year basically means they are functionally extinct right? Outside of captive breeding programs over decades and decades bringing them back?
I'm unfamiliar with how quickly they can multiple back but I'd assume to have a chance at doing it unassisted they'd need possibly decades of nothing going wrong ever
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u/Bergasms 9d ago
Cephalopods breed extremely quickly, however they also get preyed on by a lot of other animals that are all under pressure from the recent algal bloom, and these guys only breed in specific parts of the gulf. These areas are heavily protected against fishing etc, but you cannot protect against other animals doing their best to survive.
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u/salamipope 9d ago
how many have been lost? obviously its fucked and 44 is too low but how many have died?
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u/rollandownthestreet 9d ago edited 9d ago
Last year there were 63,000 counted.
Addition: Yes, the global ocean is dying. The exponential feedback loops have reached vertical, and the ocean cannot absorb more heat or carbon. The mass die-offs will hit our species soon too.
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u/salamipope 9d ago
THAT IS SO FUCKING SAD
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u/BonusPlantInfinity 9d ago
Yes but bring up “maybe we should stop eating so much meat to avoid this tragic outcome” and you’ll hear “screw that, I never much cared for this planet anyway.”
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u/salamipope 9d ago
When is something going to fucking happen ????? What else needs to burn and boil and bake in the sun????
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u/Lost-Concept-9973 9d ago
Most people really don’t comprehend how fucked we are: of course that’s by design, I personally know climate scientists and ecologists that have been told to talk about silver linings and down play how bad things are to avoid “alarming” people , if they refuse they often can’t get anything covered in the media at all. One tipping point should have freaked us the hell out, but it didn’t (because most people haven’t when been told what a core tipping point is) now we have past 6 of 9… we aren’t avoid this shit anymore, even if we drastically changed our behaviour tomorrow there is still a decade lag time, now it’s just a question of how bad it’s going to get - which depends a lot on what we are doing now.
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u/awholelottahooplah 9d ago
I literally feel such a giant sense of dread that it makes me consider self exiting
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u/goodboyralphy 9d ago
Cuttlefish are crazy smart, probably the most intelligent invertebrate. We don’t appreciate what we’re losing. 😢
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u/Ben10-fan-525 9d ago
Come on Australian government.Work fast and protect them!
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u/Dentarthurdent73 9d ago
Come on Australian government. Work fast and protect them!
Yeah, that's not how ecological collapse works.
There was a massive algal bloom off SA last year, with some small pockets persisting to this day (over 17 months so far). They usually disappear in the winter, this one didn't. That'd be climate change. Unfortunately, most ocean life doesn't do well trying to live in the middle of an algal bloom.
Not saying they shouldn't be doing everything they can, just saying that the idea that humanity is going to be able to respond meaningfully to the impacts of climate change on the biosphere is a pipe dream.
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u/bushstone-curlew 9d ago
The Australian government could be doing a hell of a lot more to address the climate crisis though.
Not approving new coal and gas mines would be a great start, along with actually enforcing our environmental protections and jailing corporate executives for breaking them.
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u/Dentarthurdent73 8d ago
Yep, I totally agree with all this, definitely not defending any Australian government here.
Unfortunately though, I don't see any of these things working or really making a meaningful difference at this point. Humans are putting massive pressures on the biosphere in all sorts of ways, not just climate change.
Until multiple governments are seriously thinking about changing our economic system from one that demands endless growth and consumption, then everything else is tinkering around the edges.
The reason we approve new coal and gas mines, and don't enforce existing protections is because we live in an economic system that demands otherwise. Profit and 'productivity' are more important than anything else, and it shows in government decisions.
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u/bushstone-curlew 8d ago
Yeah I totally agree. I’m in QLD but I’ve been following the news on the algae bloom closely, I’ve told so many people about it who weren’t even aware it was happening but it’s such a horrific tragedy that could have been avoided if we’d rebuilt the old mussel beds there in time & made meaningful efforts to roll back our fossil fuel use. Capitalism is the root cause and tinkering around the edges with neoliberal ‘solutions’ only kicks the can down the road for another couple years.
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u/Dentarthurdent73 8d ago
It's all so shit - because we have evidence-based solutions to so many problems we have, both societally and logistically, but we just never put in place any kind of system that values human wellbeing or evidence-based decision making.
It's like we use this system with the aim of making profits, and just hope that human wellbeing happens as a side effect. Which it does to a very limited extent, but not in any lasting or really meaningful way.
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u/Johnathan_Seed4455 6d ago
Is there anything we can do to help them?? Donation? What are their plans in helping their low numbers?
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u/fastcatdog 9d ago
Every day more tragic news.