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[oddoneout]

It could indeed be a good step towards much longer term survival.

In wild animals unregulated breeding (lack of top predators) leads to problems, and humans intervene by carrying out culls. Reducing fertility of both males and females in humans would be more humane then the cull alternative I think.

In the case of deer it seems to be considered unfair and cruel not to put them out of their "misery" if there are too many, or specific individuals are not strong enough to survive, which leads to problems with individuals not getting enough food due to shortages etc.

This is the concern with the deer population. Something that was mentioned in Isabella Tree's book about rewilding Knepp was that deer in Norway are very much larger than those in this country because their numbers are controlled there - whether entirely by predators I don't remember, possibly not. Family in Scotland (not a million miles from you) have noticed over their time living there that deer numbers have greatly increased and the behaviour has changed, presumably as a result. They are often found down on the coast, and are frequently out during the day. When I was last up there it did seem to me that they were not what one might call the best specimens, and it seemed strange to see so many during the day. It's not great news for those who have to drive either - car/deer impacts, however they happen, are not small incidents. In my neck of the woods the deer population(of several sorts) has very greatly increased and is a problem for forestry and agriculture now. Even if lynx were successfully introduced in Scotland the impact on overpopulation would be limited I would think and not remove the need for culling, and in any case wouldn't solve the problems elsewhere.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think they are doing a pretty good job of that themselves. I've long felt there is a certain irony in it becoming the symbol of the WWF and what "everyone" thinks of in terms of saving wildlife, since it's decided for some reason I've never seen explained, to commit evolutionary suicide.There's no question that human pressures make their survival precarious but making the change from an omnivorous or carnivorous diet to a very limited vegetarian one, for which their teeth and gut are not best designed, one a long time ago didn't put them in the best place to cope.

Someone must have bamboozled them into it...

[Serial_Apologist]

Overpopulation is greatly exacerbated by problems of resources depletion, whether that be natural resources or remunerative employment, and desertification brought about by climate change. Here, in aggregation as elsewhere, Western humankind's imposition of wasteful exploitative economic systems on peoples who priorly lived more-or-less in sustainable relations with their environments, together with religious philosophies that have both been hostile to birth control (in the past especially) while privileging humanity over the rest of the natural order (rather than seeing us as part of nature) have come back to bite us. For well-known reasons, where social welfare has not taken root large families come more by dint of material necessity than choice.

The bigger choice, transcendent of locale or nation, should not be human extinction but lifestyle systems that take account of achievable sustainability, the "carrying capacity" referred to earlier in discussing deer populations applied as a regenerative principle to human societies right across the piece.

[oddoneout]

Overpopulation is greatly exacerbated by problems of resources depletion, whether that be natural resources or remunerative employment, and desertification brought about by climate change. Here, in aggregation as elsewhere, Western humankind's imposition of wasteful exploitative economic systems on peoples who priorly lived more-or-less in sustainable relations with their environments, together with religious philosophies that have both been hostile to birth control (in the past especially) while privileging humanity over the rest of the natural order (rather than seeing us as part of nature) have come back to bite us. For well-known reasons, where social welfare has not taken root large families come more by dint of material necessity than choice.

The bigger choice, transcendent of locale or nation, should not be human extinction but lifestyle systems that take account of achievable sustainability, the "carrying capacity" referred to earlier in discussing deer populations applied as a regenerative principle to human societies right across the piece.

One reason perhaps why I'm not as sold on the disaster slant put on the falling sperm levels since the research/findings seem to be very much slanted towards the west and so-called developed societies. Those societies that live more lightly on the earth would be a better bet for harmonious nature/human existence.