Jobs

Ara said:
Well, if were gonna drag the thread off into politics, let me say that the single biggest problem facing the world today is TOO MANY PEOPLE!

Drop the world's population to about 5% of what it is today, and there'd be plenty of space for all, people AND wildlife.

(The trouble is, I know the problem, but I don't know the solution; war? plague? AIDS?
All a bit nasty.)

Back to the thread. And what do you do for a living?
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That's a really disturbing statement.
 
Yes, I have been very lucky, in all my current jobs i havent applied or handed up a resume, I was just there when the needed me. So if you want to get into the pet industry find a good shop and be there everyday, even if its just for 10 minutes a day, and share with them your knowledge, I was hired at one place for my fish knowledge and the other my reptile.
 
Hadley said:
That's a really disturbing statement.
Click to expand...

You think??? Sadly, some people actually think that war, famine, AIDS etc. are positive issues.

Thankfully though, there are many of us who think in a far more humantarian style.
 
This is turning out to be an interesting thread to say the least!

As work I am a Sealion trainer at a theme park. We've got 4 Californian Sealions, all male, from 3years to 26 years old. Are there any other animal trainers out there on this forum?
 
Sorry folks; I didn't mean to upset anyone with that "war plague AIDS" stuff, a bit melodramatic I suppose; and I really am out of order introducing it on this thread.

It's just that patrick brought in politics early in the thread and so, being a bit of a stirrer, I thought I'd have my say.

Please don't think that I approve of drastic measures to solve the overpopulation problems of the earth; but anyone who says that there is no problem is in denial.
It worries me. I have children and grandchildren, and I want them to have at least as good a life as I have had.

Also, in my lifetime I have seen the wild places of the earth shrink. Thank heavens for sensible captive breeding, or we would lose all the larger animals very quickly.
 
actually Zoo_Boy brought up politics, i just took him up on the issue....

you could say the world is overpopulated, or you could say that we can actually have more people, so long as we develop more sustainable practices...
 
Just keep outta Aus... well they can stauy oin the cities... not meant to offend anyone... I just really really like my openess. The property that has my house on it is 500 metres from the nearest neighbour, and we're within the town limits.. just. So as long as people aint moving in on my quiet it's not too bad, just too densely populated in some areas I think
 
This is going a bit off topic but I agree that there are now to many people. Something has to give. If I remember the figures corectly in 1999 the world had 130 days food in reserve and now we have less than 39 days reserves and the population is still growing. One group is going to not get enough to survive and I believe ith will be the poor in Africa as they are the most reliant on aid. Food has been cheap for a long time but it is not going to continue.
 
Ok bear in mind Africa can provide easily enough food for itself, it is not that it's too hot, or the people unable, but that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have systematically undermined the food sovereignty of poorer nations and this only accelerated after the oil hike in the 70's and the ensuing debt of those countries. Yes they could have not agreed to be loaned the money in the first place but many of these were only recently independent of colonial rule, many still had corrupt puppets installed by the west, still true in many places today. If they were not pushed to grow for export and didn't have their grain markets devalued with the dumping of gentically modified food as aid, enough food could be grown for people in Africa without more land being taken from wildlife. It frustrates me that we expect many african nations to preserve their wildlife when they are being bled dry by the international financial bodies that could do so much to help them.
Its kind of a matter of perspective, in the UK here we have more plant biodiversity in habitats created or maintained by humans than in the old forests felled in neolithic times. But then we have no bears, wolves, lynx anymore. I guess in Australia its not people that are the problem, but the animals they brought with them.
 
Ok bear in mind Africa can provide easily enough food for itself, it is not that it's too hot, or the people unable, but that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have systematically undermined the food sovereignty of poorer nations and this only accelerated after the oil hike in the 70's and the ensuing debt of those countries. Yes they could have not agreed to be loaned the money in the first place but many of these were only recently independent of colonial rule, many still had corrupt puppets installed by the west, still true in many places today. If they were not pushed to grow for export and didn't have their grain markets devalued with the dumping of gentically modified food as aid, enough food could be grown for people in Africa without more land being taken from wildlife. It frustrates me that we expect many african nations to preserve their wildlife when they are being bled dry by the international financial bodies that could do so much to help them.
Its kind of a matter of perspective, in the UK here we have more plant biodiversity in habitats created or maintained by humans than in the old forests felled in neolithic times. But then we have no bears, wolves, lynx anymore. I guess in Australia its not people that are the problem, but the animals they brought with them.

As for AIDS, does anyone even still believe that was an accident? I think in 20 years or so things will really start to come out about how that started, and how it managed to get round Africa so fast.
 
Can't argue with that.

At a grass roots level, however, what worries me greatly is the bushmeat "industry".
The popular misconception is of a few hunters going into the bush occasionally in order to put a little meat on the table at home.

The truth is , in many cases it is carried on by organised teams of professional hunters armed to the teeth and well equipped, and who in extreme cases even have freezer trucks. They wipe out everything, mostly for sale in the cities.

This just isn't sustainable.
 
This is true. But these areas are only accessible now due to roads, made to facilitate logging, and western demand for timber is contributing to this. I'm not just up for ultra-PC self flagellating criticism, of course people of all nations have a responsibility to their wildlife, but in the context of a continent so rich in resources, if the people of central africa recieved even a fraction of what is owed to them for the minerals etc we have stolen, then less of them would be concerned with the prices they can get for bushmeat. It's tragic and upsetting to know that apes and monkeys are being slaughtered in the most inhumane fashion, but with the forest much more fragmented these days I don't see how that will cease until the people of those countries are taken out of poverty. More guards, more patrols, will help in the short term but for vast areas this is impractical and only leads to local tensions and even conflict.
 
And i am still a full time student at the university (biology in Leiden) which is the most important.
On the side, to earn some money, i work about 20 hours a week at the financial department of another university (in Delft, my hometown).
And at the university in Leiden i teach sort of a course for schoolkids around the age of 17-18 who want to find out whether biology is something they would like to do after they finished school. It's so nice to do. Trying to make them enthousiastic about biology. Luckily this course is completely digital, so no sett working hours... ergo; this i do at night :o
So i'm quite busy... but ey, otherwise i get bored ;)
 
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