"The sea lion solution to sexual harrassment: keep fewer males around"

Submitted by anthony on Wed, 2011-06-01 23:05

Article here. Excerpt:

“Most colonial pinnipeds [fin-footed animals] form extreme clusters of breeding females that cannot be entirely explained by the distribution of sites for reproduction. Avoidance of male harassment has been postulated as an important determinant of reproductive aggregation in this group of mammals. Female gregariousness can reduce harassment by resident males by two mechanisms; directly by the ‘dilution effect’ or indirectly because resident males that defend large female groups are less harassing. In order to investigate the relationship between male harassment and female gregariousness in relation to the size of breeding groups, we analysed the behaviour of dominant males and their females in a breeding colony of Otaria flavescens. Females in large breeding groups received less harassment by resident males due to dilution effects and because males that defended a large group interacted less frequently with females than males with small groups.”

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Comments

It's as blatant an example as I can imagine of abusing science for a particular agenda, in this case using the all-too-common tactic of anthropomorphizing animals to find a way to attack or criticize some part of the human race, and in this case, men. Just imagine a study of how males of a certain species avoid getting exploited for their ability to secure resources by, say, moving away from a group of their own kind to live elsewhere? The howls of indignation by feminists would be ear-splitting. This is a perfect example of this kind of thing in action.

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Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2011-06-01 23:39

I still don't miss a day without checking this site, as I have done for about 10 years now, and I use alot of the information here. Thank you.

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Submitted by Marc A. on Thu, 2011-06-02 04:18

Really Marc, it's great to do it. I am just glad we have readers like yourself and the many others who frequent the site. It's all about spreadin' the gospel... :)

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Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2011-06-03 01:19

Matt, is there any way to search news stories on this site by using the name of the person who submitted them?

I'm searching for an infanticide article I submitted but can't find it.

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Submitted by fondueguy on Fri, 2011-06-03 04:42