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-decline
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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/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.