No preference in female sika deer for conspecific over heterospecific male sexual calls in a mate choice context

Mating signals can be used both in contexts of species recognition and mate quality assessment. This study examines species recognition abilities in oestrous females presented with male mating calls from both conspecifics and closely related allopatric heterospecifics. Red deer and sika deer are naturally allopatric polygynous species capable of hybridization during sympatry. Male mating calls are sexually selected and differ greatly between species. Previous work indicated that most but not all oestrous red deer hinds prefer male mating calls from conspecifics over heterospecific sika deer. Using two-speaker playback experiments, we extend this examination by measuring the preference responses of oestrous sika deer hinds to these stimuli. We predicted that oestrous sika deer hinds will show little flexibility in behavioural responses and prefer conspecific calls over heterospecific calls, similar to those of red deer hinds. In contrast, sika deer hinds showed high levels of flexibility and no difference in overall preference behaviours, suggesting that vocal behaviour does not provide a solid barrier to hybridization in this species. The asymmetry in heterospecific preference responses between these species is discussed in relation to possible causation and hybridization patterns observed in free-ranging populations

Is There A Moral Justification For Redressing Historical Injustices?

In recent years, there have been lively popular and academic debates in the United States and elsewhere about whether injustices committed decades or even centuries ago should be redressed through official apologies, commissions of inquiry, reparations, and restitution. In the American context, the historical injustices for which redress has been pursued, and in some cases granted, include the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the Holocaust, and the mistreatment of Native Americans. Recently, the most prominent debate in the United States has been about whether federal and state governments and corporations should pay reparations to African Americans for slavery and subsequent discrimination. Indeed, in the past few years, several major books have been published advocating reparations for African Americans, numerous law reviews have held symposia on the idea, and many stories have appeared on the subject in print and television media. This Article examines whether there is a moral justification for redressing historical injustices, focusing on debates in the American context. Perhaps because the legal case for redressing historical injustices is often weak, many supporters of redress advance moral arguments. For example, proponents argue that redressing historical injustices is necessary to deter future wrongdoing or to promote a more just distribution of societal resources. More frequently, they emphasize the injustice of the original wrong and argue that there is a continuing obligation to correct it. I argue that notwithstanding the prominent role that moral arguments play in these claims, it is difficult to justify redress for historical injustices in moral terms. This does not mean that redress never is morally warranted. But the difficulty of making a strong moral argument for redressing historical injustices is instructive. In particular, it helps to explain why redress has not been implemented in many instances notwithstanding extensive public debate and why, when redress has been implemented, it often has been on a relatively limited scale. In addition, the moral complexity of claims for redressing historical injustices raises a fundamental question about the value of the time and resources that have been devoted to debating the redress of historical wrongs. This Article proceeds as follows. Part I provides some background for analyzing the moral justifiability of redressing historical injustices. It attempts to define what a historical injustice is by specifying the characteristics shared by many of the events to which the term is applied. in the United States. In addition, it discusses how claims for redressing historical injustices are advanced and the range of motivations for bringing claims and remedies requested

Unilateral Steps to End High Seas Fishing

In discussions about the overexploitation of the vast oceans that lie beyond national jurisdiction, one bold proposal is to close fishing entirely on the high seas. Existing research suggests that converting the high seas into a giant reserve for fish might increase overall global fish catches by boosting fish catches within the adjoining areas of the oceans under national control. This conversion also might help to protect marine biological diversity, which is particularly important in an era of climate change. This Essay identifies the potential that the United States—a significant importer of high seas fish—might unilaterally take steps to end fishing on the high seas, using its market leverage. This Essay then analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of taking unilateral steps to end fishing on the high seas and the conditions under which the United States might take such steps

Alien Registration- Wyman, Elma M. (Millinocket, Penobscot County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/8211/thumbnail.jp

Limiting the National Right to Exclude

This essay argues that the robust right to exclude that nation states currently enjoy will be harder to justify in an era of climate change. Similar to landowners, nation states have virtual monopolies over portions of the earth. However, the right of landowners to control who enters their land is considerably more constrained than the right of nation states to control who enters their territory. Climate change will alter the areas of the earth suitable for human habitation and the broad right of nation states to exclude will be more difficult to justify in this new environment

In Defense of the Fee Simple

Prominent economically oriented legal academics are currently arguing that the fee simple, the dominant form of private landownership in the United States, is an inefficient way for society to allocate land. They maintain that the fee simple blocks transfers of land to higher value uses because it provides property owners with a perpetual monopoly. The critics propose that landownership be reformulated to enable private actors to forcibly purchase land from other private owners, similar to the way that governments can expropriate land for public uses using eminent domain. While recognizing the significance of the critique, this Article takes issue with it and defends the fee simple. The Article makes two main points in defense of the fee simple. First, addressing the critique on its own economic terms, the Article argues that the critics have not established that there is a robust economic argument for dispensing with the fee simple. The critique that the fee simple leads to the misallocation of land rests on three empirical premises for which the critics have yet to provide much evidence. The critique also downplays or overlooks important economic benefits of the fee simple. Second, departing from the economic discourse of the critics, the Article argues that the fee simple is valuable because it gives landowners a perpetual right to choose, free from the dictates of others, whether to transfer their land. Thus the fee simple expands the choices of landowners and promotes their independence and autonomy. Eliminating the fee simple would leave landowners vulnerable to the whims of others, and less free and autonomous. Landownership is not only about efficiency, but also about individual freedom

Alien Registration- Wyman, Margaret M. (Phippsburg, Sagadahoc County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/9719/thumbnail.jp

Janis-Newman-Winicour and Wyman solutions are the same

We show that the well-known most general static and spherically symmetric exact solution to the Einstein-massless scalar equations given by Wyman is the same as one found by Janis, Newman and Winicour several years ago. We obtain the energy associated with this spacetime and find that the total energy for the case of the purely scalar field is zero.Comment: 9 pages, LaTex, no figures, misprints corrected, to appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys.