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0 pointstriceratops6y ago0 comments

I don't often say this outright, but that's a dumb idea.

"Insectivorous bats in particular are especially helpful to farmers, as they control populations of agricultural pests... It has been estimated that bats save the agricultural industry of the United States anywhere from $3.7 billion to $53 billion per year in pesticides and damage to crops."[1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat#Economics

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dcolkitt6y ago· 2 in thread

> It has been estimated that bats save the agricultural industry of the United States anywhere from $3.7 billion to $53 billion per year in pesticides and damage to crops

In comparison, the coronavirus scare has wiped out $1.5 trillion from US equity valuations just in the past two days. Even taking the higher end of that estimate, preventing one coronavirus epidemic every 20 years still passes cost benefit analysis.

A4ET8a8uTh06y ago

I do not consider vagaries of the stock market a valid reason to potentially wipe out an entire species.

More than that, you correctly identify it as a scare, which should be a clear indication how a short-sighted policy that may be.

triceratopsOP6y ago

Valuations != realized losses.

Not to mention eradication efforts are expensive and can have their own unintended consequences. Offer a bounty, and now you have people breeding bats for the bounties. Introduce a bat-specific disease and it may mutate into something else. A bat-specific poison could turn out to poison things we care about.

Like seriously, it's a stupid idea. I'm sad I wasted so much time even debating you.

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