Re:Sudan, last male northern white rhino, dies in Kenya
by Angostura on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @08:25AM
(#16627881)
Typically, "natural" means "not of human manufacture". That it's general meaning, and how it is meant in this case too.
Re:Sudan, last male northern white rhino, dies in Kenya
by swebs on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @12:29PM
(#16630062)
That's not quite true. Natural selection is typically contrasted with artificial selection, in which individual traits are deliberately selected.
In the case of poaching, poachers are not intentionally trying to change the phenotype of the animal. They want to collect the horns/head/etc. The selection itself is an emergent side effect and, I would say, the natural result of a highly effective predator being introduced into the environment.
What does natural mean then? It's not like they disappeared by some magical event or an asteroid falling on the face of the Earth.