A poll

[james_davis_nicoll]

[Poll #1934990]

Comments

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

Effective at what?

Kinda hard to generate a dental X-ray with a land mine.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

"Which is a more effective means of protecting a wildlife preserve?"

He's obviously asking about North Korean DMZ vs. Chernobyl. (Though nuclear plant exclusion zones work too.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Actually, I thought that NK was mainly conventional weapons, while other places were more land mines.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

Wasn't the US explanation for not signing the land mine prohibition treaty that they used, and needed to use, the things in Korea?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Could be. I've been known to say completely stupid and wrong things before.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Cats.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

This.

[timill]

Really big ones. With sabre teeth...

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Radioactive sabre teeth.

[pperiwinkle.livejournal.com]

And lasers!

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Scribbles notes for a GURPS Fallout creature.

[pperiwinkle.livejournal.com]

Um, apologies to your future victu^^^^adventure parties.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

That's for dolphins.

[pperiwinkle.livejournal.com]

Nuh uh! Cats totally could have laser beam eyes!

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

It was a reference to an unnecessarily elaborate deathtrap. Everything reminds me of everything.

That being said, I concede and concur with your statement regarding cats.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

As was previously mentioned by someone, a cat with a (frickin) laser beam could be its own cat toy.

O cruel joy

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Seems like this would be like those magic shoes that cause their wearer to dance themselves to death.

[armb.livejournal.com]

Because big cats living in wildlife reserves aren't endangered anywhere. No, wait :-(

[vass]

They would be about as destructive to the native wildlife as land mines and radioactivity, yes.

I like to joke about the little apex predator in my house, but it wouldn't be as funny in a wildlife preserve.

[solarbird]

Anybody who complaints about this poll needs some protection.

[azurelunatic]

Are there stairs in your house?

[solarbird]

Our mission is complete.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The DMZ between North Korea and South Korea appears to be able to do it entirely with conventional weapons, making it the only known nesting area of a couple species of cranes, for instance.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

One thing people are overlooking wrt landmines - if you construct a habitat around the things, eventually something will evolve the ability to detect and/or eat them, which could be handy.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

That was one of my sister's after-school jobs in high school.

No, I'm not joking. Kids in the Honors science program in Wayland, MA were allowed to apply for internships for DARPA at Lincoln Labs in Lexington. She was working on a project to genetically engineer yeast to consume TNT for cleaning up minefields.

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

Well, if nothing else, it's a potential source of a lot of bound chemical energy...

--Dave, evolution is a cruel mistress

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The real problem was the question of "what if it evolves to eat petroleum, and then goes airborne?"

[cyprinella]

While the animals around Chernobyl are apparently thriving, an episode of River Monsters that I caught that focused on the fish in the waters in the area ended up saying that they're not quite right. the show is about going out and catching giant freshwater fish. It turns out that giant Wels catfish live in the cooling ponds. However, examination afterwards showed that problems like the fish being about twice as old as its size indicated it should be. So they're being stunted by something, probably by the radiation because there was lots of prey fishes in the waters. I'd go for landmines for best species preservation.

[pperiwinkle.livejournal.com]

Not so much with the thriving.

http://cricket.biol.sc.edu/chernobyl/Chernobyl_Research_Initiative/Summary_of_Key_Findings.html

[cyprinella]

Well, that's why I said apparently. There's a perception that I see going around that it's a thriving wilderness area but there's a lot of bad that's not readily available on the surface.

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

So it's pure coincidence that I saw a TV news item recently about rhinos having their horns poisoned, to reduce demand from Eastern cultures?

[kla10.livejournal.com]

The thing both methods have in common is, they keep humans out of the area. I suspect that's not coincidence.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

I immediately thought that keeping people out was automatically assumed. Does this make me a misanthrope?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Kind of the definition of "protecting a wildlife preserve..."

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

If only "making it mandatory to spend lots of time there" would work to keep people out.

[(Anonymous)]

Landmines are working well in the Falklands.

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

Note he's asking about protecting the _preserve_. Not about any of the actual wildlife inside.

Also, I see upon submitting my answer that James knows his commentariat quite well by now!

--Dave, and a Starbuck's can't hurt either