The past half century has along with the steep decline in biodiversity in wild species also been accompanied by an incredibly rapid and often crassly intentional destruction of traditional livestock breeds and their associated cultures and adaptations.
The question I ask is do traditional genetically diverse livestock varieties have a place, or are they set to be replaced by intensively bred genetically uniform breeds?
Do you even care?
>steep decline in biodiversity
Source? I'll remind you that animals have gone extinct at roughly the same rate they've come into existence for about as long as life has existed on Earth
>>7810843
Halocene extinction
Extinction is part of existence and new species will sometimes adapt to fill the void.
but does that mean we should artificially create the void?
>>7810875
>but does that mean we should artificially create the void?
If it benefits humans, yes. Why not?
>>7810875
But you are talking about livestock breeds that were created by man in the first place. The only reason they exist is to fill some human need. If the need is no longer there, why should they continue existing? Anyway, we are quickly approaching the point at which artificial selection will become obsolete and any diversity we want can be created through genetic modification on demand at very little cost.
>>7810834
It's not really a problem. Factory farmed breeds aren't displacing all breeds. Hell, the government is even tracking who has what:
http://www.poultryimprovement.org/default.cfm (here's the chicken one)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25159086
>current extinction rates are 1,000 times higher than natural background rates of extinction and future rates are likely to be 10,000 times higher
>>7810884
true
If we want to only introduce a few adaptive traits,
but that presumes we know exactly what traits we wish to introduce and that you have maintained the source gene pool intact.
Another issue is cost effectiveness and reliability of this modification under real world conditions.
Hypothetically, what barriers would exist to, effectively modelling and introducing synthetic adaptive genetics?
>>7810834
FUCK YEAH
I WANT TO EAT EVERYTHING
GIMME SOME FUCKING TIGER MEAT
pshaw, tigers aren't livestock.
Who are they to tell me that, bunch of department of agriculture stiffs...
ITT The value of livestock to modern society is undervalued.
>>7811107
It's not that hard to get some tiger meat, just go to the forests in India, the only catch is, you may have to sacrifice some of your meat as well
