First, perform a review of the history of technologies and methods ("T&M") of hunting now endangered species to determine the point (the "Key Point") when the advances in T&M resulted in an unsustainable drop in the numbers of a given animal.

Second, allow hunting of that given animal using only the T&M in place at a point close to but still before the Key Point, such that hunting of various animal species can be carried out in a manner not deleterious to overall numbers of each species involved. This will doubtless involve some tweaking to the permissible T&M, to allow numbers of certain species to creep back up. For example, hunters of whales would likely at first be stuck with, I dunno, longboats and big hammers, as the Vikings did it, but once the stocks have risen, whalers can move on to more Ahabian trappings.
-- calum, Sep 09 2009

Carrot and Stick debate http://www.phrases....6/messages/733.html
tbh, the carrot on a stick viewpoint strikes me as being, eh, cobblers. [calum, Sep 10 2009]

[+], but have you considered that their ecological niche may have altered due to their low population? Passenger pigeons wouldn't have been able to survive even if you were able to kill them by creeping up on them and wringing their necks after a certain point because they depended on having huge numbers in the first place to thrive. Similarly, what if other predators have moved in to replace the likes of the pine marten or grey squirrels have replaced red ones? You need to go much more softly on them than before.

Even so, i think it could work with some of them. Needs to be a bit nuanced though, i think.
-- nineteenthly, Sep 09 2009


Does this mean we can also up the tech level for hunting pests like urban pigeons, rats and foxes? I'm thinking lasers from space.
-- wagster, Sep 09 2009


That would presumably entail permission to blow up the sun to hunt cockroaches. Well? It'd work. How dedicated are you to pest extermination?
-- nineteenthly, Sep 09 2009


I don't think blowing up the sun is unreasonable. Under the circumstances.
-- wagster, Sep 09 2009


Wouldn't it be galling if, having blown up the sun and decamped to a nearby solar system, it turned out the cockroaches had stowed away on your space ark? Maybe that's how Seyfert galaxies happen.
-- nineteenthly, Sep 09 2009


I'd do it again with a cleaner ship. You could track my progress through the galaxy by the trail of cockroach infected neutron star systems. Who said humans were destructive?
-- wagster, Sep 09 2009


We've seriously veered off-topic here.
-- nineteenthly, Sep 09 2009


Pretty fantastic idea. I was reading some such about old instruments and how we can't build them anymore because they are now too complex to assemble, their idiosyncratic designs can't be executed by machine, and no man has the talent to do it alone, anymore. Shameful, embarrassing for all.

Though the article was about musical instruments, I'm sure it holds for all kinds of old technology. This would be a great way to spur a renaissance in historical technologies.
-- daseva, Sep 09 2009


Is there a season where you may only fish for salmon with a kosh?
-- wagster, Sep 09 2009


Your mention of salmon makes me think of trout, which raises another point. What about the likes of trout tickling and other techniques which are invented but don't use tools as such? If you have a new way of hypnotising a crayfish, are you allowed to use that? What about stalking an animal for days on end using berries from a bush which increase your physical stamina?
-- nineteenthly, Sep 09 2009


Or a season for running mastodons off a cliff? Well shit, even that primitive method seemed to work a little too well..
-- daseva, Sep 09 2009


I'm pretty sure that with a large enough population of hunters, even hunting with a rock would make some species go extinct.
-- ye_river_xiv, Sep 10 2009


//a large enough population of hunters// I think you've hit upon the fundamental problem here.
-- wagster, Sep 10 2009


// even hunting with a rock would make some species go extinct. //

It seemed quite effective with the dinosaurs.
-- nineteenthly, Sep 10 2009


You presuppose that people would heed the ban. If that was so, a much simpler solution would be to cap the numbers of hunetd animal.
-- loonquawl, Sep 10 2009


Stick: I suppose the regulation of TRESH would be broadly similar to the present regulation of illegal hunting, so there would be little infrastructural change, except perhaps to the extent that inspections of boats (for example) to see that they aren't fitted with sonar and whalenip.

Carrot: given that hunting with rudimentary tools is more stereotypically masculine than hiding out in the woods with a camo jacket and a high-powered rifle, we should not underestimate the social factors at play. Skilled primitive-tool hunters of tigers and shark will be held up no doubt as paragons of maleness, offered lucrative sponsorship deals by operators of flint mines and perhaps ultimately may find themselves the subject of documentary television series about their hunting exploits, which could eventually be leveraged into an appearance on Strictly Come Dancing, with all the social and monetary advantages that brings.
-- calum, Sep 10 2009


Hmm. There are two ways to deal with this. One is to attempt, Cnut-like, to bring about phraseological change, the carrot and stick misconception being, as a result of our efforts, replaced with a more factually correct "carrot and whip" or, for the whipless, "carrot and stick, which stick is used solely for the driving of beasts". The other is to provide a new apparatus for encarrotting beasts of burden, dangling the carrot not from a stick but instead from a specially constructed headgear that the beast might wear, similar to a headwand, except that the quasi-digit of the headwand is replaced with veg. This latter option, if we hope hard enough, might lead to the desired phraseological change and ensuing correctness.
-- calum, Sep 10 2009


'Carrot and stick' gets translated to 'Zuckerbrot und Peitsche' by any translator i found (retranslation: sugarbread and whip). Cambridge Dictionary gives 'Carrot and Stick' as 'a system in which you are rewarded for some actions and threatened with punishment for others' - Where did you get the carrot+stick = reward notion?

Edit: i now found the controversy. As an aside - Would you say that 'Talk softly, but carry a big stick' alludes to the use of a stick as a pointing instrument to further the understanding of the soft-spoken words?
-- loonquawl, Sep 10 2009


No weapons – that's the way forward. In fact, no advantage whatsoever over nature. Just a naked man versus a naked tiger. Mono y meow. To the death.
-- theleopard, Sep 10 2009


No, no. To the pain!
-- DrBob, Sep 10 2009


That being the classic Maasai approach to elephant hunting.
-- calum, Sep 10 2009


But there's technique and skill in hand to hand combat too. When is something a technology? Should you use, for example, knowledge of anatomy to shove the nasal bones up into the brain, or would that be cheating if the species had become endangered before that was known? Would you be allowed to stimulate yourself with coca and go ape shit with a great bustard?

[UB], that's a very high-tech pasta you've got there. I would consider that cheating. It's sow thistles or nothing in my book.
-- nineteenthly, Sep 10 2009


You might get lucky and find an elephant who(ich?) is allergic to gluten and give it anaphylactic shock, or maybe try suffocating it by stuffing it up its trunk, but how would you stop it from sucking it out again? Bake it, maybe?
-- nineteenthly, Sep 10 2009


Do wild animals get allergic to things? I thought that was a result of our species' dependance on medicine having lowered our immune systems to such an extent that we can kill ourselves by merely looking at a cube of Wensleydale, or having a conversation with someone who recently walked past a Snickers factory. This gave rise to the rub-your- baby-in-filth school of childcare, n'est pas?
-- theleopard, Sep 10 2009


//Would you be allowed to stimulate yourself with coca and go ape shit with a great bustard?//
Sure, TRESH isn't going to stop you regressing further along the hunting-progress spectrum. Indeed, you could regress yet further such that your hunting is little more than praying to the Great Sun God that said bustard will potter along the veld straight into into yer maw.

//When is something a technology?//
That's a good question and one of the trickier parts of the drafting. I should think that knowledge isn't technology but, as knowledge usually informs method, the method prohibition element of TRESH could preclude use of, I dunno, for example, the recently-discovered brown noise that can stun mullets.
-- calum, Sep 10 2009


// recently-discovered brown noise that can stun mullets //

Whoever drafted that Ph.D. grant application is set for great things ...... if they can get money for that, they can sell anything.
-- 8th of 7, Sep 10 2009


[+] .... also, I'll have you all know that the cockroach main nemesis is the vacuum cleaner (with a very fine hepa air filter on it).
-- quantum_flux, Sep 10 2009


Maybe the day will come when something absolutely devastating comes along and we'll be allowed to use vacuum cleaners on cockroaches then.

[theleopard], i would imagine that certain animals kept in captivity develop allergies, other than pets, that is. I know pets do. They're also likely even in the wild to be intolerant and there will be certain foods innocuous to us which would be quite poisonous to them. That would be more applicable but it might be quite slow. I would imagine, though i don't know, that coffee and possibly onions are poisonous to tigers, but i don't think that'd help you if you were trapped in a tiger's cage with a thermos of coffee and some onion soup.
-- nineteenthly, Sep 10 2009


There was a heartbreaking article in the news a couple of months back about a horse that was allergic to grass. It looked most unwell.
-- wagster, Sep 10 2009


I would pour the soup and coffee all over me. I hear those big cats have overwhelming protective instincts in keen situations, and that tiger would most likely lick my boiling skin rather than gnaw on it.
-- daseva, Sep 10 2009


Nice attemp [Ian].
-- wjt, Sep 11 2009


one would assume it's "carrot and stick" until lunchtime, after which it's just "stick".
-- FlyingToaster, Sep 11 2009


//misconceptioning// Not to digress too far from the point, but I don't see any particular evidence that suggests "carrot and stick" is not a contraction of "one stick, and another one, only with a carrot tied to the end with string" rather than "just one stick by itself, with a carrot tied to the end with string".

The string, nor its optimal length are mentioned in either case.

What is mentioned, is the carrot - clearly as a motivator. The stick is either another motivator, or it is merely a facilitative device - in which case, is it necessary? There are plenty of alternative carrot-dangling methodologies that would have the same effect, including (but not limited to) Small Boy, Fishing Rod or Nailing a carrot to the Cart in Front.
-- zen_tom, Sep 11 2009


I'm with Ian's Tindale on this one, and I know he's right because I once saw an illustration.
-- egbert, Sep 11 2009



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