• Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net
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      11 days ago

      I was thinking about how the buffalo were massacred today. I saw a post showing how big a skinned buffalo was when hanging. Thought about 3000 lbs of meat.

      Now imagine 60 million of them; 5-10x more than there are Canada geese.

      What a tremendous waste of food, a horrific crime against nature and an insane reduction in biomass. Wildlife biomass today is a fraction of what the herds alone accounted for

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        Unfortunately, back then, two and only two facts mattered:

        1. The Indians the government was trying to coral relied on the buffalo.
        2. Any land that buffalo graze on can also be used to graze cattle.

        There was land to be taken and profit to be made. The buffalo were just in the way.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        Love the way you think. We should be friends.

        Yeah, I get the politics and genocide and all that. I get it. But the waste, the utter destruction of the ecosystem!

        I could go on and on, too depressing. Since I was born 74% of the animals on the planet are gone. Just disappeared. Young people cannot grasp what they’ve been robbed of, the depth of the tragedy.

        When I talk to other middle-aged guys, they’re shocked. “Remember when…?” Hell, even younger people are blown out when I ask, “Remember 5-years ago when…?”

        I’ve seen the ecosystem crash on my fucking front porch in 5-years. Am I’m fighting like hell to being it back!

        Anyway, saw a green tree frog for the first time in 4 years! 🎉

      • MotoAsh@piefed.social
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        11 days ago

        I mean, many of those racist assholes raised children who they made in to racist assholes, and they killed many people, too. So… there are quite a few people who should care about those racist assholes regardless of politocal leanings.

    • rafoix@lemmy.zip
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      11 days ago

      The Alamo? When Mexico went to war against slave owners trying to steal land.

  • Horsecook@sh.itjust.works
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    11 days ago

    Mexico did get paid, $15 million. And they were given back a lot of captured territory after their country was conquered.

    • PugJesus@piefed.socialM
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      11 days ago

      I mean, they got paid for a sliver of unrelated land, not the huge mass that was annexed in the Mexican-American War.

      • Horsecook@sh.itjust.works
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        11 days ago

        You’re thinking of the $10 million of the Gadsden purchase, the 1854 Treaty of Mesilla.

        The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, that ended the Mexican-American War, included a $15 million payment to Mexico for the territory annexed, and an assumption of $3.25 million of Mexican debt to American citizens.