How much disrespect is alllowed on Computer Audiophile?

[acg]

23 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

I am not a vegetarian, but I hate the thought of fattening up animals just to eat them at a later time.

 

 

Oh I could not be more different Alex!  The kids know well in advance which animals we are going to eat and are always around when they are slaughtered and butchered.  If we have some meat left over from the previous beast when the new one is done we always tell the kids which one we are eating at each meal.  Mollie the sheep or Frank the steer or Porky the pig are easily remembered and greatly enjoyed for many months until the we run low next time.  You would be surprised how easily they get over childish emotional connections to animals when they are aware of their purpose on the earth, but it does not stop them loving and caring for them beforehand.  The whole life/death/sustenance/providence cycles are one of the few things city kids are too sheltered from in comparison to their country cousins, in my opinion of course.

[acg]

23 hours ago, rando said:

Tell me, people of Oz.  Have you ever watched "The Katering Show" and if so what were your thoughts on the episode they cooked roo?    What did the kangaroo do?  

 

NSFW offensive humor and language probable.  

 

 

 

 

Nah, never heard of that pair and did not bother to watch the clip, but there are an awful lot of roos out there though.  They are generally a pest and their population control/culling is regulated and even if we wanted to I doubt they could ever be made extinct such is the vast open spaces they inhabit and the unbelievable efficiency of their reproduction. 

 

I was explaining to a friend from the Netherlands a while back that the local government area (a Shire) that my wife was born and raised in is larger than his entire country but the population is 5,000 or so.  Most of northern and western Australia is like that...more room than you know what to do with.

[acg]

2 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 We had a case in Australia recently where a company was caught out throwing live chickens into boiling water.

 

That's just not cricket.

 

It's not acceptable anywhere in any circumstances.

[acg]

4 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 We had a case in Australia recently where a company was caught out throwing live chickens into boiling water.

 

 

And that is something that was evidently seen to occur.  What about the feral cat and dog problem and their devastation of native mammals in this country?  The boffins reckon cats kill millions of small animals each night but cats are cute and cuddly and whenever a cat cull is mentioned the cityfolk get all righteous because of the moggie they had when they were a kid or the one they have now that they let out at night and it gets a bird or two and maybe a lizard before coming back in the morning for its Whiskers and a saucer of milk.

 

Australia has no native cats.  One native dog.  But millions of feral cats and dogs.  The cats are interesting.  They are like Darwins evolution in action because in 200 years since their introduction the feral variants are starting to get much, much larger than their domesticated brethren.

 

 

[acg]

2 minutes ago, mav52 said:

 

Oh NO, we still throw lobster in boiling water , but in Switzerland, they must ensure the Lobster is comfortably numb

 

Is it done with Pink Floyd at 130dB?

[acg]

11 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Responsible cat owners keep their cats inside at night.

 

They do.

 

But that horse has already bolted.

 

I do have a feral cat story that some may find a little interesting.  The feed shed at the farm holds lots of grain and hay and other commodities and just to the south of it are two big silage pads.  Rats and mice love this area.  Snakes love the rats and mice.  We usually have lots of rodents and snakes around that area and in times past we have spent lots of money and time on chemicals and deterrents that ultimately did not work.

 

So one day, instead of culling all of the feral cats we identified a ginger tortoiseshell looking one that had taken up residence in the roof of one of the sheds and let her be.  She has proven to be very predictable because she always has her litter in the same place in that roof and the kittens are easy to dispose of when it comes time to manage the population.  What that cat and her selected progeny do is control the population of the rats and mice like no chemicals were ever able to achieve.  She also keeps the snakes under control by raiding their nests in the vicinity and by removing the reptiles primary food source.  

 

Sometimes, when the rodents get a bit thin on the ground she and her tiny crew start killing birds and as soon as that starts we put a little dried cat food in the big shed and that controls the situation.  If/when birds are still being taken we reduce the cat population accordingly and the status quo returns.  The system works brilliantly.  Nature gets its way, we use zero chemicals to kill the rodents, the snakes nest further away from where we are, and the native birds are not decimated by the cats.  Win-win-win-win.

 

Those feral kittens are the funniest tiny things.  They hiss and spit and scratch you right from when their eyes are open:  there has never been a pliant or calm kitten in all these years and my kids no longer bother to try to pat them if they see them.  It has not taken many generations for the domesticated to become truly feral again!

[acg]

3 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Nice maybe but not practical. Predators exist to keep herbivores in check. Don't believe me? Look at what happened when some Aussie imported hares from England to provide hunting sport for him and his mates. In Oz, the bunnies had no natural enemies and they flourished to the point where it was an ecological disaster. They ended up having to kill millions of them in the, - was it the 1920s?

 

Yep, the bunnies sure ruled the roost here for a while.  In the 50's or 60's a virus was released into their population called myxomatosis and sometime this century another virus was released but I cannot remember it's name, all in an effort to curb the population.  Herbivores without carnivores will strip the vegetation until it can be stripped no more.  Then a heap of them die of starvation, the survivors breed and the cycle repeats.  Just like humans throughout history:  we increase our population until the resources are gone; fight with the neighbours for their resources which reduces the population; then start the cycle again.

 

Other introduced species such as horses, dogs, foxes, cats, cane toads, pigs, camels, goats, deer, the good old house mouse as well as some variants of freshwater fish such as European carp and tilapia have all caused trouble somewhere or other.  They were released into an ecosystem that was not prepared for them and have caused tremendous havoc. 

 

You can make a decent dollar rounding up feral goats and selling them for slaughter.  The camels largely live in the deserts and are actually quite useful for the pastoralists out there because of a bacteria that they carry in their saliva and share with the cattle at watering points.  The pigs, dogs and cats are an awful scourge for native flora and fauna and the introduced fish dig up river banks causing massive erosion and either out-compete or eat the native fish. 

 

The cane toad could almost be the worst one of all because it secretes a poison (which it can also spit) that kills most animals when they have a chomp on a toad.  Of course the natives don't know this and when the cane toad marches into their area entire populations of snakes, lizards, small mammals, birds and who knows what else are killed by the humble toad.  They even kill the crocodiles!