Farm endangered species
January 20, 2010 in Nature & Environment
One of the basic rules in the demand/supply concept is that when something becomes scarce, unless the demand declines with it, it’s value increases.
There are a couple of goods that get rarer everyday along with the growth of humanity: land, commodities, biodiversity, etc
But although you cannot do much about the lithium resources getting dry, you do can breed animals. Not only is it funny, I’m also sure that this could become quiet lucrative. As cheetahs, gorillas or pandas disappear, their value goes up. And they keep disappearing because their the victims of our economy, when they could actually be part of it.
So my idea is to develop a market for those animals, I wouldn’t mind if they were sold as pets as long as it gives them greater chances of surviving. Also, if this direction doesn’t work out, you can still sell them to the WWF or to governments.
Henry said on January 21, 2010
The only problems are the climate and the danger. Although we could argue that these animals can adapt to our weather, regulations would not adapt to this market. We already prohibited so many dogs because of their big teeth, I don’t think our modern civilization would allow growing up cheetahs and gorillaz. There might be a couple exceptions but they’re illegal oin our countries.
Joan said on February 2, 2010
Sell them to eccentric billionaires in russia or china. That is also really interesting: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DED/is_3_21/ai_66520544/
Henry said on February 3, 2010
There are 79 billionaires in China and 32 in Russia. Your market is 111 people wide. If I could have a cheetah at home i would be virtually delighted but it feels like 21st century^’s regulations won’t allow most people to own such animals.
astrid said on February 8, 2010
i think it’s a great idea! i’ve always wanted to have a cheetah!!
Henry said on February 8, 2010
Ya me too! until the day it eats my children.
Joan said on February 9, 2010
Ok, I was a bit extreme when I said “billionaires”. And cheetah are not the best example since they are too dangerous. Now what about selling rare cats like ocelots to millionaires?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsfWNBbr6Sg
You don’t want to invest? Fair enough, but I hope you’ll buy a kitten from me when you get rich.
Joan said on February 9, 2010
Wow I found my perfect product, that deserves another link! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSCBQR37mUg&feature=related
Joan said on February 12, 2010
Great article there: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Wild-Animals-705/ocelots-2.htm
admin said on February 14, 2010
Apart from ocelots, servals are quiet cool too. Maybe even friendlier. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDeq8cbOr30&feature=related
Jonas Romain Wiesel said on February 15, 2010
I think a small demand exists for this look at the comments on youtube! but can you really make money out of it???
Joan said on February 16, 2010
I’ll answer with another link if you don’t mind
http://www.catsurvivaltrust.org/ocelot.htm#REP
In the reproduction part they say that in captivity ocelots are able to produce an average of three little a year. Also, the sexual maturity is reached at 18 months.
If we round the sexual maturity to two years and we assume that half of the babies are females, then the number of breeding females F(t) = N(t-2)/2. We can get the number of cats N(t) = N(t-1) + 3 * F(t). I deliberately ignore the death rate since they can live up to 20 years.
The last assumption is that you would find new males for each reproduction period in order to avoid inbreeding (main issue). Since you don’t need the males, you can exchange them or sell them.
Now the numbers:
T=0 N=2 F=1
T=1 N=5 F=1
T=2 N=8 F=1
T=3 N=11 F=2
T=4 N=17 F=4
T=5 N=29 F=5
T=6 N=45 F=6
T=7 N=63 F=15
T=8 N=108 F=22
T=9 N=174 F=31
T=10 N=267 F=54
T=11 N=429 F=87
So after eleven years you would have 87 breeding females and you could have already sold more than 214 (429/2) male babies. Also, I have read that they are sold around 15’000$ in the black market in south america. Legalized and sold directly in developed countries, they may be worth ten times that figure.
Also, they don’t need your attention all the time. You just leave them live their life and feed them once a day, so this could start as a hobby while you have a job to finance it.
Finally, what I just described is a very conservative way of breeding animals. Always with your initial couple, you could also fertilize hundreds of embryos in vitro and then implant those in common female cats. You would get dozens of ocelots in just 82 days, but with a bigger investment.
Julian said on February 16, 2010
I think the best thing to do is to cross breed them with really tame house cats. Cross breeding produce stronger genetic and would make it very easy to avoid interbreeding. Especially is you consider only using males to fertilize shitty female house cats. You could get the tamable, domesticated characteristics of house cats while maintaining the badass size (partially?) and hopefully almost 100% of the exotic fur patterns.
astrid said on February 23, 2010
I read this and thought of your idea:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/02/11/tiger.farms/index.html