[Closed] If a virus wiped out all the humans on earth.....

All the domesticated species would become extinct or feral. The predators would have a feast for a while, then a balance would be reached.

Domestic turkeys (the kind you eat) would die out in one generation as they are too fat to mate.

I'd survive. And then become veggie as there'd be no Sainsbos to get meat from.

Lizard people, they aren't human. They'd still be here.

I imagine they'd breed like crazy, and there's be super herds of cattle like American Bison in 1900s. Hundreds of thousands of the bastards trampling about. I can't see many dogs in the UK or Ireland being able to bring down a bullock tbh. But in North America yeah, I guess they'd come into contact with mountain lions and bears.

I wonder how big a grizzly bear could grow on an unlimited diet of roided up American beef?

northernmatt - Member

Lizard people, they aren't human. They'd still be here.

But without goverments and banks to control......

Then I will have achieved my lifes ambition.

Hmm - interesting. I suspect that deer would run riot but eventually their population would fall off a cliff as there would be not food to go around. As for sheep and cattle, they'd become extinct fairly quickly due to the difficulty they have giving birth and the amount of hungry dogs that would be around.

Well we control the breeding of livestock by keeping a small number of entire males and keeping them separate from the females so without humans they would not breed.

Foodwise I wouldnt worry as without humans things would get overgrown quickly and all of our gardens and parks would be fair game for herbivores and then the carnivores would follow.

Sadly livestock would be confined to fields by fencing so would probably suffer.

Bagdgers, foxes, squirrels and deer would thrive in this country I guess. Hopefully we will have re-introduced the Lynx into the wild before this all happens though.

A more interesting question would be "if you could erase all human existence, would you (including your own)".

Whilst I appreciate the paradox in the question (erasing your own existence), the question is more around whether Earth would be better without us.

Personally I'd happily pull the plug. But I have no kids, so I've no vested interest in the next generation.

Happy Comic Relief day......

A more interesting question would be "if you could erase all human existence, would you (including your own)".

Yes, I would.

Clearly the world would be a better place if we all buggered off.

But I expect that's not likely to happen any time soon.

Obvious, if slightly nihilistic, answer would be - if we were all dead who cares what would happen?

If animals in zoo's managed to escape their enclosures I could imagine lion and tigers having a field day on the domesticated farm stock but, as with deer numbers etc, eventually nature will trim the numbers down to manageable levels.
Thats the thing with humans, we are very resistant to external pressures and tend to be very resilient, I think its one of our greatest assets but oddly enough one of our worst in regards to the natural habitat around us.
Having said that, no doubt in a million or so years they will be digging our bones out of the ground and trying to figure out what we were?

Without breeding control there would be more males and without many predators, especially big ones that could take out cows and the like, there would massive numbers of cows and the like roaming the countryside. Too many of them for the habitat to support so they would turn on each other and wage wars. Males, competing for food and females would become cleverer and more adept and concealing themselves, so would learn to walk upright to use the abandoned cities as cover. the smartest ones would learn to use the tools and weapons they find there and, eventually, would evolve into us. Except with horns.

I saw some feral sheep last week, they were living on marginal land above cliffs. They were more like goats, climbing walls and fast as. Two ewes, two offspring: the beginning of a herd, perhaps?

A more interesting question would be "if you could erase all human existence, would you (including your own)".
Yes, I would.

I imagine they'd breed like crazy, and there's be super herds of cattle like American Bison in 1900s.

Interesting programme on radio 4 last week, costing the earth they were looking at beefalo's.

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0540w3c ]Linky to programme[/url]

[i]Personally I'd happily pull the plug. But I have no kids, so I've no vested interest in the next generation.[/i]

Is that now or once you'd had a good life?

Sheep would be sort of OK other than they've been bred to have such a thick fleece they'd probably struggle to get through the summers without being sheared annually

Cattle - certainly in europe - would be dead and gone in no time. Theres nothing close now to the wild species they were bred from - they wouldn't get through one winter. As part of the nazi utopian daydreaming Goebbels was trying to re-bread Aurocks from modern domestic cattle as he had fantasy about being able to hunt them in the wild. But couldn't manage better than a look-a-like, he couldn't produce cattle that could actually live independently in the wild.

There'll be all sorts of species dependent on us or our activities. Its a theory that a major factor as to how modern humans became dominant over the other early human species was our partnerships with animals, particularly dogs, allowing us to extend our own senses and abilities. So managing and selecting the animals and habitats around us has been part of our whole history.

Domestic turkeys (the kind you eat) would die out in one generation as they are too fat to mate.

I worked near to a herd of Red Devon cattle yonks ago. They weren't habituated to people, not being milkers but a breeding herd, twenty or so of them. They seemed to work as a team and I felt their wild instincts were still present. I wouldn't chance any of them getting behind me, for instance. It reached a point where three of us workers climbed onto a logpile and waited for our lift.

Highland Cattle could live out all year.

Theres nothing close now to the wild species they were bred from - they wouldn't get through one winter.

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Are they the ones from Chillington, drac?

Chillingham, yes.

I wouldn't chance any of them getting behind me, for instance. It reached a point where three of us workers climbed onto a logpile and waited for our lift.

All breeders and stock truck drivers will testify to the docile temperament of the Red Devon breed. This is why lifestyle, small block and semi-retired farmers are especially attracted to the breed. Docility and intelligence, as well as muscling ability were basic requirements when they were used as draft animals. These traits are equally important in their role of producers of quality beef. The temperament definitely has a favorable effect on the ph of the animal at slaughter. Temperament is a highly heritable trait, so when a Red Devon is crossed with another breed, the resultant progeny will show a vast improvement in temperament. This means easy handling and less stress. Both bulls and cows are safe to work with. Less maintenance costs on yards, farm gates, broken fences etc. What price do you put on safety?

Sometimes I can nearly remember what it was like to have a working memory. Ta.

I only knows this cos there's quite a few round by 'ere 🙂

(they're pretty small too)

One of the people with me, the team leader, had grown up helping on her grandparents' farm, milking cattle and such, and was an experienced estate warden at that location. There was a change of mood in the herd that we felt. I followed her lead, three of us climbed onto the logpile.

And Red Devons are the gentle ones.

Nigel Farige would be still be left, he's blatantly some sort of lizard

He'd then devote his time to milking divisions between herds of cows, blaming the ones with different coloured hides for all the world ills

Would it all go back to woodland?

Or would the cheap nibble it all back to grass

I don't think the dogs would last long

Would the farm animal population decrease as they are reliant on imports and intensive farming to produce enough food to feed them

ampthill

I don't think the dogs would last long

I think they'd do okay. They would be one of the bigger omnivores so they could start off eating their owners and other dead people. Then cats, sheep etc. Bigger dogs would probably eat toy dogs too.

Dogs would do just fine, they're a pack animal and they'd soon work out how to work together to bring down the biggest animal if the other option was starvation.
Visit somewhere like Romania and you'll see wild dogs all over the place.

Who is to say that without humans there would not be an equivalent species to fulfil that role. Maybe something even more destructive.

We are part of nature, not separate.

Meerkats probably.

*half serious answer iirc they had been ahead of us and one point.

Squirrels for sure. Giant squirrels, smarter than a teenager, stronger than fork lift truck. Faster than a sports car.

Wouldn't work out so well for pandas I don't think.

Yeah, the squirrels would rape the shit out of them.

😆

Who is to say that without humans there would not be an equivalent species to fulfil that role. Maybe something even more destructive.

Over what timeframe though - theres not exactly anything snapping at our heals to take over.

And I suppose even with the OPs question as to wiping out all humans - over what timeframe? - in days? years? generations? If you look at examples of other 'sudden' mass extinctions - the mass extinction event that finished off the dinosaurs was sudden in the sense that [i]only[/i] took 40,000 years.

All this gate and zoo issues.

shirley the last one alive wpuld open the doors?

also, are we talking instant-all-dead-in-a-split-second scenario, or a more gradual extinction?

the outcomes for whats left behind will be different

I was wondering how long it would take for any evidence of our existence to disappear, ten thousand years?

..all gone.

If a virus wiped out all the humans on earth.....

If a virus wiped out all the humans on earth.....

who would the phone scammers call?

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