[ntumlin]

Don't take this as me wanting it to happen, but what would it take for the decision to be made to kill these monkeys, and who would make it?

Is there a state or federal agency that's ever determined an animal to be a threat to people in an area to the degree that they then tried to wipe it out? Does it matter that the monkeys got put here because some company thought tourists would like them?

[will_brown]

>Is there a state or federal agency that's ever determined an animal to be a threat to people in an area to the degree that they then tried to wipe it out?

In Florida alone that has happened with pythons in the everglades and lionfish in Florida oceans (at least south Florida).

Edit: and African snails. And in a roundabout way mosquitos, but of the lot are not invasive to Florida.

[userbinator]

The US has laws that essentially "unprotect" certain invasive species and encourage the hunting of them.

Unfortunately, infected monkeys aren't really useful for anything.

[pm90]

Likely the CDC. Wonder why they haven't already acted on this.

[honkycat]

IMO this is the most pragmatic solution.

Why keep around an invasive species that carries a deadly virus?

[will_brown]

Because the solution is typically implemented with a bounty program which is known to result in the intentional release of more of the invasive species to collect more rewards.

[jessaustin]

That scenario might have happened with e.g. "wild" hogs, but where are the fraudsters going to get a bunch of non-native monkeys? They aren't available at the local livestock auction...

[jobigoud]

Same. Capture a few and have them breed and collect the reward for the offsprings.

[jessaustin]

How many Floridians would hear about wild animals with horrible deadly diseases and think "I need to start breeding these in my basement"?

[mikestew]

Based on my visits to my parents down there, and other visits over the years, my tourist slogan for Florida is “The Land of Bad Ideas”. You won’t see it at Disney World, but seems to me that FL attracts folks that tend to not think things through to their conclusion.

So to answer your question: more than you might think.

[will_brown]

Florida is the gateway to the America’s. It’s how all these invasive species got here in the first place.

People breed alligators in their bathtubs, release giant pythons. Maybe they don’t need to breed the moneys but do things to support their population growth (kill predators if any, leave food, etc...) or they can breed monkey without the disease. The invasive monkeys did get here and released in the first place after all.

[theandrewbailey]

A lot, actually. Florida has lots of old people, rednecks, and drug addicts.

[olyjohn]

Depends on how big the reward is for one of the animals.

[sho]

"Is known to"? By who? It sounds like you've read the anecdote about the Cobra Effect and generalized into the conclusion that no bounty system could ever work, which is demonstrably incorrect.

Place a nominal bounty on the monkeys of, say, $50 each and threaten anyone attempting to breed and release the animals for profit with a lifetime jail sentence and the Cobra Effect would not arise.

[will_brown]

>It sounds like you've read the anecdote about the Cobra Effect and generalized...

I’d say it sounds like you read about the anecdote and have little first hand experience with these bounty programs in Florida. Whereas I live in south Florida and I am familiar with fraud and failure of these bounty programs with pythons and lion fish...whereas I have seen non-bounty government programs gain ground in the eradication of giant African snails.

Good luck gaining any ground with advocating for life time jail sentences for breeding animals (invasive or otherwise) in Florida. Have any evidence such a program has ever existed?

[sho]

> Have any evidence such a program has ever existed?

It was an argumentum ad absurdum to demonstrate that with sufficient disincentives to cheating, the "Cobra Effect" might be effectively countered - in reply to your questionable claim that any and all bounty program "is known" to not work, as if that's some sort of law of physics.

I'm not familiar with the failed python and fish programs you mention, but I'll take your word for it that they were implemented so incompetently and supervised so inadequately that fraudulent breeding for profit took place. That said, I'd believe almost anything about Southern Florida and perhaps you're right that it's not the ideal place for a government program requiring tight control and a deft touch.

Having read the article - there's only 200 monkeys and they're all pretty localized to one place - I don't see the problem with the government simply doing it themselves, so I agree somewhat, but still take issue with your generalizations. Bounty programs are known to be unworkable, in South Florida, with snakes and fish. That's it. Oh, and in possibly-apocryphal British India.

[dahdum]

I don’t see why a bounty wouldn’t work in this case either. Certainly would cost more than $50 to raise a monkey to kill for bounty, when the entire bounty pool would be barely $20k.

I doubt you need to even give a bounty though, just open them for hunting. Better yet give out a commemorative plaque.

[will_brown]

Ah yes the old “it’s not a Law of physics arguement”, clearly that is the fairest interpretation of my comment and the verbiage “known to”. After all “Known to” is only “known to” be used as an absolute in the sense of the laws of physics. That is quite the self-defining circular logic when I think about it.

Obviously your make believe hypothetical implementation of a bounty program backed by breeding and release crimes punishable by life imprionsment, render my statement false because I said “known to”, whereas bounty programs in fact are not “known to” increase invasive species and result in failure - despite the only three real world examples used (two of which were in the same state). You are right it is not a law of physics, thus rendering any point moot based on your hypothetical, whereas $50 bounty programs per animal backed by life inprisonment crimes are “known to” succeed when the animal is in central Florida and is a monkey.

[honkycat]

Fair, would be messy to implement.

Plus who wants to be the "murder the tiny adorable monkeys" politician haha

[Alex3917]

> Why keep around an invasive species that carries a deadly virus?

They’re not invasive, and not a single person in history has died from being bitten by a wild monkey with herpes b despite thousands of people being bitten per year.

[honkycat]

I was using the term "invasive" as non-native, but I suppose this is misusing the word since they are not actively harmful and nobody will probably get herpes from them.

[Nordo]

I certainly would want it to happen if I lived there. I like all sorts of wildlife, but introducing invasive species is not something to be taken lightly.

Perhaps it's something for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to consider? They seem to be the one in charge of Burmese Python control in the Everglades.

[zafka]

I would be more inclined to fund a vaccination program if possible.

[FreeFull]

There is no herpes vaccine. It's hard to develop one, due to the way the virus evades the immune system.

[yakshaving_jgt]

There are a few promising technologies in the works though.

The helicase-primase inhibitor Pritelivir is more effective than Acyclovir and related nucleoside analogues. It is also understood that the efficacy of both drugs accumulates.

A few labs are working on CRISPR therapeutics for HSV, most notably Keith Jerome's work at Fred Hutch.

Another company, Phylogica, are taking a different approach. I'm not exactly sure of the mechanism.

https://phylogica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/181206_In-v...

n.b. If anyone here suffers from HSV (statistically, many of you do), consider ordering Pritelivir from Japan. It is marketed under the brand Amenalief, and it's for a different strain of HSV so you would be taking it off-label. Usual disclaimers apply; I'm neither a doctor, nor a lawyer, nor responsible for what you do.

[8f2ab37a-ed6c]

I'd pay a pretty penny for a cure, or total suppression of transmission.

It's not life altering in any way besides the fact that HSV2 has such a strong stigma in the US and tends to turn away a non insignificant number of romantic partners. From a health perspective, I had a rash once in my life and basically entirely forgot about even having it (outside of taking 800mg of Acyclovir every day), but from a social perspective, it adds a 50-70% chance that someone will turn you down. Dating is non-trivial already, adding another 2/3 dropoff to your dating life is no joke. On the plus side, it was nice to see a show like Adam Ruins Everything cover the issue to try to dispel some of the stigma, but I suspect that it will not be addressed within my lifetime.

Additionally, in the state of California it's a well known way to shake down people of wealth. I always disclose my status before getting intimate, as required by law, but I also need to make sure that I have your consent somewhere in writing. Otherwise later you can claim that you were never told, you got the virus, and it's my fault, and now you're entitled to restitutions for the stress and damages to your lifestyle. It becomes a he said vs she said and practically a coin toss that decides if you are to part ways with anything between $100k to a few million. You always think "Is this person going to be the one who decides to use me to make a buck?". My legal counsel always advises that a new partner send me an email consenting to the risks she would be exposing herself to by engaging in intercourse.

If that's not romance at its finest, I don't know what is.

[newnewpdro]

You're ignoring how life-altering it becomes as one ages and the immune system declines.

I've had elderly relatives down with shingles, caused by the herpes virus, for months. Their shingles being a very latent reappearance of Chickenpox acquired in childhood. These viruses are opportunistic, and you will grow weaker in time, if you don't die first.

The stigma, in this case, is appropriate in my opinion.

It surprises me how cavalier everyone has been about HPV and Chickenpox throughout my lifetime. At least we've finally appreciated how HPV causes most cervical cancers and have developed routine immunization there. We badly need to develop Herpes vaccines. I'm confident once we have them, it will conveniently become "discovered" that HSV has been quietly responsible for some prolific form of suffering like Alzheimers and/or Parkinsons all this time.

[8f2ab37a-ed6c]

I don't think anybody's claiming that having HSV is better than not having HSV, but the fact is that it's incredibly common. It's been with us for millennia and it's not going anywhere until medicine and technology figure out a way to wipe it out. To quote herpes.com stats:

> By the time they're teenagers or young adults, about 50% of Americans have HSV-1 antibodies in their blood. By the time they are over age 50, some 80-90% of Americans have HSV-1 antibodies.

And this is HSV1 alone. You add HSV2 to it and, I believe according to some stats, you end up with 80% of the world population having some variation of it. Stigmatizing 4 out of 5 people in the world makes no sense and is helping nobody. You can't avoid getting it, unless you never interact with another human being, and treating others like broken goods until you become one too (because it IS only a matter of time) is inhumane.

On a related note, I believe the majority of the stigma comes from HSV2, which I'm sure has much more to do with sexual morality than with medicine. Nobody blinks an eye if you have its oral counterpart, you go to CVS and buy a Blistex. However, if you have the genital version, now THAT is a problem. Same virus, vastly different reaction.

[velosol]

>I'm confident once we have them, it will conveniently become "discovered" that HSV has been quietly responsible for some prolific form of suffering like Alzheimers and/or Parkinsons all this time.

Not sure if you were making reference to a specific belief, but there's already some evidence that HSV1 may be part of the Alzheimer's cause puzzle [1].

[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4019841/

[xfitm3]

Can you provide a source other than anecdotes of relatives?