I am here to ask about tardigrades
Ok I know you probably wanted some basic information on them (microscopic bear like things that can survive mostly anything including the dinosaur extinction and space) but I’m going to use this opportunity to do a biology rant, I apologize for your timing with this.
I just saw an article explaining how to best capitalize tardigrades by selling them as pets. First of all, these are microscopic beings, why would you possibly want them as a pet when you have to look through a microscope to even see them. Second of all, since when has it been ok to take wild animals directly from the wild, and sell them?? It’s one thing if it’s with strays or animals who would do better with someone caring for them, but with tardigrades they don’t need any help. These things were built to survive, I mean deepest parts of the ocean kind of survive, they survived the dinosaur extinction for fucks sake, which sure it wasn’t the largest extinction event on this planet (The Great Oxidation killed 99% of life on the planet, all of which was bacteria though) but it still took out, what? 70% of life? Tardigrades have been around for a long time and are very resilient, so why are we trying to domesticate them?? Is it just so people can make a profit all of them???
Which leads me to bioethics. While I’m using the term in its broadest definition, ethics concerning biological lifeforms, it generally does have a more specific usage. So in terms of bioethics I say it’s ok as long as it doesn’t directly or indirectly harm the animal(s). For example the glow in the dark rabbit genetic experiment. It (to my knowledge) did not directly harm the rabbit, they simply edited the dna in its skin cells to have bioluminescence, and being that it wasn’t going to be released back into the wild (it was a domesticated rabbit) the glow in the dark trait would not put it at risk in the wild. Another part of it is that the experiment was actually useful, they could take the shedded glow in the dark skin cells from the rabbit (and it’s children which it passed the trait onto) to keep track of the location of cancer cells in humans, making it easier for them to stop cancer before it begins.
On the flip side, the selective breeding of Belgian Blue Horns is something that I am against. They narrowed down their genetic traits until they got so much muscle that in some cases it’s difficult for them to even walk on their own, they certainly can’t breed on their own, they need human assistance with that. The only reason people have continued with this selective breeding over a period of 150 years is that the cows provide more meat, and thus gets the sellers more profit (not even going into how that can effect the cow overpopulation also caused by humans). Then there was the Firefly Axolotl experiment, which I won’t go overly into due to the fact that I am digressing, but in vague summary, the animals were harmed but with the purpose of an outcome that would help people without a motive of money.
So I got a bit off topic but you get my point hopefully, using animals for human gain (money specifically) and also harming them in the process you’d think would be a pretty big no ethics wise. But here we are, with ethics laws not applying whatsoever to microscopic animals. They got shot out of a gun to see what velocities they could survive (the direct quotes of “Tardigrade jam” and “shattering on impact” were used to describe the outcomes), and then they were also shot into space to see how long they could last up there without any life support (10 minutes). We wouldn’t be able to do this with any other animals, so why is it ok with tardigrades? And now we’re taking them from their natural habitats to sell as pets? Why?? So you can invite your friend over and be like ok look at the petri dish through the microscope to see the microscopic being that vibes there instead of the environment it was meant to vibe in???? And the fact that people are openly discussing it like there’s no issue with it as well, I mean there seemed to be general sentiment of not taking other wild animals from their habitats to keep as a pet or sell for a profit, so why does it not apply to tardigrades and other microscopic creatures?
I know a lot of people don’t actually know what tardigrades are, and are not well versed in biology or bioethics, but I still think that it’s something that should at least has room to be discussed. It’s obviously not a priority discussion either, with all of the other very important topics to be discussed/heard.
If you even read this far then…why, are you ok? That was like 5 long paragraphs of useless knowledge, why are you still here lmao
