Thanks @mal_graham🔸 this is super helpful and makes more sense now. I think it would make your argument far more complete if you put something like your third and fourth paragraphs here in your main article.
And no I’m personally not worried about interventions being ecologically inert.
As a side note its interesting that you aren’t putting much effort into making interventions happen yet—my loose advice would be to get started trying some things. I get that you’re trying to build a field, but to have real-world proof of this tractability it might be better to try something sooner rather than later? Otherwise it will remain theory. I’m not too fussed about arguing whether an intervention will be difficult or not—in general I think we are likely to underestimate how difficult an intervention might be.
Show me a couple of relatively easy wins (even small-ish ones) an I’ll be right on board :).
Thanks! I think I might end up writing a separate post on palatability issues, to be honest :)
On the intervention front, the movement of WAW folks is turning now to interventions in at least some cases (in WAI’s case, rodenticide fertility control is something they’re trying to fundraise for, and at NYU/Arthropoda I’m working on or fundraising for work on humane insecticides and bird window collisions). I just meant that perhaps one reason we don’t have more of them is that there’s been a big focus on field-building for the last five years.
For field-building purposes, there’s still been some focus on interventions for the reasons you mention, but with additional constraints—not just cost-effective to pursue but also attractive to scientists to work on and serves to clarify what WAW is, etc., to maximize the field-building outcomes if we can.
I’m not familiar with the examples you listed @mal_graham🔸(anticoagulant bans and bird-safe glass), are these really robustly examples of palatability? I’m betting that they are more motivated by safety for dogs, children and predatory birds, not the rats? And I’m guessing that even the glass succeeded more on conservation grounds?
Certainly, even if so, it’s good to see that there are some palatability workarounds. But given the small-body problem, this doesn’t encourage great confidence that there could be more latent palatability for important interventions. Especially once the palatable low-hanging fruit are plucked.
Thanks @mal_graham🔸 this is super helpful and makes more sense now. I think it would make your argument far more complete if you put something like your third and fourth paragraphs here in your main article.
And no I’m personally not worried about interventions being ecologically inert.
As a side note its interesting that you aren’t putting much effort into making interventions happen yet—my loose advice would be to get started trying some things. I get that you’re trying to build a field, but to have real-world proof of this tractability it might be better to try something sooner rather than later? Otherwise it will remain theory. I’m not too fussed about arguing whether an intervention will be difficult or not—in general I think we are likely to underestimate how difficult an intervention might be.
Show me a couple of relatively easy wins (even small-ish ones) an I’ll be right on board :).
Thanks! I think I might end up writing a separate post on palatability issues, to be honest :)
On the intervention front, the movement of WAW folks is turning now to interventions in at least some cases (in WAI’s case, rodenticide fertility control is something they’re trying to fundraise for, and at NYU/Arthropoda I’m working on or fundraising for work on humane insecticides and bird window collisions). I just meant that perhaps one reason we don’t have more of them is that there’s been a big focus on field-building for the last five years.
For field-building purposes, there’s still been some focus on interventions for the reasons you mention, but with additional constraints—not just cost-effective to pursue but also attractive to scientists to work on and serves to clarify what WAW is, etc., to maximize the field-building outcomes if we can.
I’m not familiar with the examples you listed @mal_graham🔸(anticoagulant bans and bird-safe glass), are these really robustly examples of palatability? I’m betting that they are more motivated by safety for dogs, children and predatory birds, not the rats? And I’m guessing that even the glass succeeded more on conservation grounds?
Certainly, even if so, it’s good to see that there are some palatability workarounds. But given the small-body problem, this doesn’t encourage great confidence that there could be more latent palatability for important interventions. Especially once the palatable low-hanging fruit are plucked.