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I am a descendant of the Unsullied, who once served Daenerys Targaryen, the First of Her Name, The Unburnt, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Protector of the Realm, Lady Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons”. My ancestors were an army of eunuchs who fought by their queens side and helped her take her rightful place as Lord of the nine realms. After taking over Kings Landing and burning thousands of men, women, and children to death in a completely justifiable act ( those bastards deserved it anyway, oh well), she brought the kingdoms to kneel and ushered in an age of peace and tranquility. A thousand years later, however, the reign of her family has come to an end as democracy has taken its place.

In today's world, dragons are an endangered species. They are being hunted by poachers and greedy corporations who seek to make a profit from them. Industries have developed which turn these beautiful creatures into products for people. This includes food, clothing, armor, and other materials. People endorse and wear these items, unconcerned about the pain and suffering the fatcats cause to these majestic animals. An organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Dragons (PETD), has come together in a campaign to prevent this horrific abuse and put a stop to these industries by raising awareness. The tagline " I'd rather go naked than wear dragon-hide" has become synonymous with PETD, as they showcase the cruelty that uncaring citizens endorse with their ignorance and the selfish disregard for their plight.

The problem is promotion of their ideas. Certain creatures, like pandas, have the cuteness factor that people find adorable. It is easy for people to feel pity for their plight. Dragons have no such advantage, and are like sharks. It is difficult to get people to care about them being endangered. How can PETD prevent dragons from being exterminated under these hardships?

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    $\begingroup$ Can you at least give the dragons' basic (size, behaviour, diet) characteristics? I don't even know who the Unsullied are or what video game are you talking about, but I'm positive one shouldn't use obscure references to pop culture, especially not as a substitute for concrete information. $\endgroup$
    – Mephistopheles
    Commented Feb 5, 2020 at 14:12
  • $\begingroup$ @Mephistopheles I think it's the Song of Ice and Fire books. $\endgroup$
    – Trish
    Commented Feb 5, 2020 at 14:14
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    $\begingroup$ "A descendant of the Unsullied" hmmm... how did they get to have descendants? Isn't it their inability of having such a rather essential aspect? $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Commented Feb 5, 2020 at 14:28
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    $\begingroup$ @Trish They were mowed down by NK's zombies, but the population bounced right back after several episodes (wait, that's true for the dothraki as well...) $\endgroup$
    – Mephistopheles
    Commented Feb 5, 2020 at 18:07
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    $\begingroup$ Given that the current canon is that Daenerys died, and the sole remaining dragon flew off (with her corpse in hand), and that we have no idea what other dragon there is to breed with, and that the Targaryen line ended shortly after the slaughter at Kings Landing, I am not sure why you set your problem up like that. $\endgroup$
    – KorvinStarmast
    Commented Feb 6, 2020 at 17:39

5 Answers 5

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Dragon steaks

Dragon burgers, dragon sausages, dragon spare ribs, dragon hide handbags, dragon egg omelettes...

The most populous creatures in the world are the ones we eat. If you want to maintain more than a token population of a species then you need to find some way to domesticate and then commercially exploit said species.

Egg laying species are normally fairly fecund, however predators are not generally worth keeping for food. You'll need to find a way to feed them such that they're not eating large quantities of food that could be directly fed to humans for greater profit.

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  • $\begingroup$ "You'll need to find a way to feed them such that they're not eating large quantities of food that could be directly fed to humans for greater profit." ...because that's a definite problem we have with cattle</snark>. Either way you want to look at that, this isn't an issue. Either we like dragon steak enough that we are willing to pay that premium, or we feed them stuff we wouldn't eat anyway. (More likely some combination of both.) $\endgroup$
    – Matthew
    Commented Feb 5, 2020 at 15:14
  • $\begingroup$ @Matthew, this doesn't work well as a premium product, it has to be mass market, so keeping sheep to feed to dragons is too high cost. You'd have to be able to do something like herding them out to sea to hunt whales. $\endgroup$
    – Separatrix
    Commented Feb 5, 2020 at 15:17
  • $\begingroup$ Again, we feed them stuff we wouldn't eat anyway. Modern (at least western) humans don't eat the whole carcass of most meat animals, and we don't eat some at all (horses, dairy cows, etc.). If a large part of their diet can eat meat "not fit for human consumption", then there is no problem. Yes, you're probably not going to make them as popular as steak, but that's not required for a sustainable population, and it's probably not realistic anyway. There are 1.5 billion cows. Even one dragon per thousand cows would be a pretty nice population. $\endgroup$
    – Matthew
    Commented Feb 5, 2020 at 15:24
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    $\begingroup$ Being cold-blooded reptiles actually makes dragons a lot more profitable to farm than you may think. Cold-blooded animals need about 7-8 times less food than mammals do which is not hard to manage if you are mainly feeding them waste meat. People also tend to cut carnivore feeds with corn/rice/beans etc which further saves cost and fattens them up. For comparison, in Louisiana where alligators are farmed for meat, gator typically costs about $7-15 USD per pound which is about on par with most seafood or premium cuts of beef. Farming dragon would probably be pretty comparable to gators. $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Commented Feb 5, 2020 at 16:17
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Environmental impact studies

Apex predators are a very important part of the natural food chain. If they die off, then all the prey animals that evolved alongside them will reproduce too quickly and their herds will grow out of control eating all the vegetation turning the once beautiful dragon valley into a wasteland. The lack of predation leads to crowding out of other herbivores and can affect migratory patterns which can domino effect the consequences of lost predators to adjacent ecosystems as well. Instead of trying to "save the dragons" you campaign to save the beavers, the flowers, and all the other natural things that will die out if you don't save the dragons too.

The ripple effect of apex predators can be profound. The most famous example in real life is the wolves and Yellowstone park: https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem. When the wolves died out every other form of life in the park suffered for it, but when they were reintroduced, the park recovered.

If saving nature is not enough, people will definitely want to save their farms. When faced with starvation, prey animals will turn to agricultural areas and risk their lives going closer to humans than they would normally risk looking for something to eat. The prey animals will both devour crops and spread e-coli to the food that they do not eat from the feces they leave behind.

Once you can show the government that killing dragons causes famine and disease in people, it is pretty easy to get them on a protected species list.

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Dragons are rad

Pandas might be cute, but they're on the verge of extinction because they're worse at sex than you. While sharks are dangerous, they're also more rad. Everyone wants to see the shark in an aquarium! Everyone wants to make movies with sharks! This is tenfold true for dragons, I mean, can you imagine a world without the soothing voice of Smaug?

The capacity to successfully hunt dragons on a regular basis implies a military power that can be a risk to national security

If we're talking about Drogon, then you'd still need some serious firepower to safely bring him down, firepower that can be used for terrorism.

So, to deal with dragon-hunting PMCs, PETD and Bad Dragon Enterprises inc. forms their own, state-approved PMC to hunt the dragon hunters with cyborg ninjas, rocket launchers, and the obligatory Barret M82A1.

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  • $\begingroup$ Funny consequence is that Democrats would probably become pro-dragon, and Republicans anti-dragon because suddenly Republicans could claim there IS a good reason for citizens to own assault weapons and RPGs for hunting and self defense. $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Commented Feb 6, 2020 at 17:24
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Get the military and governement on your side.

PEDT should highlight the military (or military ceremonial) uses of Dragons to the gouverning body, to get them to outlaw the slaughter of military (ceremonial) assets and instead promoting the capture and training of Dragons for the better of the country - and as a status symbol of the state.

Because it would be a shame to just waste them on the battlefield, unless there is overpopulation of them. The state should keep at least 12 around for formation flying and as relpacement for shooting a salvo into the air on foreign dignitatries. A breath of fire to the air looks much more impressive after all.

Be Pro Death-sentence

I bet, the PEDT might be squamish about this, but if you want the governement to keep dragons around, why not put them to use of the state in the judical system too? Execution by Dragon is a very effective show of the state's power! For high and capital crimes, it would show that the state - as the dragon is the symbol of the state - takes action harshly.

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  • $\begingroup$ so to protect the dargon from our citizen let them go to the battlefield to be killed by the ennemies ? seems a bit counter productive, unless only use for transprot duty or pr move, like in this question : worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19140/… $\endgroup$
    – hcocox
    Commented Feb 5, 2020 at 14:47
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    $\begingroup$ @hcocox it would ensure breeding of dragons - and of course you need to keep them around for flying parades. It's like why the M1 Garand for the US and the Kar 98k in Germany are still around: not for shooting but for parading. $\endgroup$
    – Trish
    Commented Feb 5, 2020 at 14:49
  • $\begingroup$ seems logic, but not sure if military would want to use a lot of assets and money to only breed dragon which would not be of use in active combat, maybe more like today royal guard in england where they still use horse for parade and stuff. yeah would want to see those kind of parade $\endgroup$
    – hcocox
    Commented Feb 5, 2020 at 14:53
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    $\begingroup$ @hcocox the military puts up with the Royal Guard as it allows them to get quite some prestige. But without military accepting to maintain such an "elite" unit, governement can't get it done. So you need to get military on your side because of some reason. Tradition is a good, military asset too. $\endgroup$
    – Trish
    Commented Feb 5, 2020 at 14:55
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Put out a television-based PR campaign not unlike that for the bald eagle. Point to the majesty of the creature, appeal to biodiversity and establish a positive association. 1. If it's a symbol of your nation, patriotic pride will win conservative elements of the public. 2. Reminders of the value of biodiversity should get environmentalists unmoved by nationalism to agree. 3. If Denaerys' reputation in your nation's history is positive, associate the dragons with her so that if people support the killing of dragons, she rolls over in her grave and people feel guilty. Don't bother trying to win over ranchers. Downplay their concerns and marginalize their lobbying group. It's their sheep and cattle that are getting eaten, and they will never side with you.

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