2007 Steve Kanan's blog on saving extinct animals and thoughts on LIFE- quite a classic
For many years biologists and writers have periodically profiled various mounting threats to wildlife and man's occasional efforts to save it. Many people are now aware that a myriad of species around the world lie in jeopardy. Thus various media play valuable roles in educating the public which, in turn, will be more inclined to support conservation bodies and political initiatives to protect wildlife.
As with most issues most of the time, people tend to be most responsive once they perceive that conditions have reached some type of crisis proportions. Once that recedes in intensity they either move on or have their attention diverted by competing issues. Or in some cases, if the issue persists, a sort of moral fatigue may set in and they simply become resigned to the matter in spite of caring about it. This essay will look at two simple aspects of biological diversity that are usually implicit in articles and programs on endangered species, but are seldom made explicit. Aspects which may affect public perceptions of the gravity of the biological challenges before us.
One is the magnitude of the potential decline in species across the globe we are facing, and the public's grasp of how that fits within a historical context. Thus it is not unusual to hear the following utterance made when the subject arises amongst the general public: "So species are going extinct. Haven't they always gone extinct? That is part of nature."
This is quite true. What is also true but is usually left unspoken and unrecognized, is that we are presently facing a massive die-off over the span of a mere century or two. Paleontologists have no evidence of this ever happening in the history of our planet. Even during the so called mass extinctions of the past, huge numbers of species never disappeared so abruptly. It occured over tens or hundreds of thousands of years. So what we are witnessing today is in fact not "natural". And keep in mind that not only are vast numbers of timelessly unique species in precipitous decline at our hands, but that this is unfolding in a blink of evolutionary time. One can forget about them being replaced by new speciation because that requires millions of years. And even that prospect has question marks floating in the minds of biologists.
Extinction commonly results from disease, mutation, a failure to adapt quickly enough to ecological change, or to competition with rival species. The mass extinctions probably resulted from broad catastrophic change wrought by things like geological ocean floor events, giants tsunamis, or giant asteroids. Once the effects of these events dissipated however, speciation was free to resume. By contrast, if we should experience widespread die-offs today, precipitated by the inexorable forces of deforestation, overfishing, unbridled development and climate change, there is less hope that the creative processes of speciation could ever regain traction under such ongoing environmental onslaughts. So the next you here someone blithely dismiss the extinctions of our age as natural, well, they are not.
Another aspect surrounding endangered species and the public's perception of them is the degree to which they are threatened. Societies have typically responded most swiftly to species whose imminent demise becomes all too palpable. ( Today this response is somewhat understandable. Given the burgeoning number of cases, a de facto triage condition has arisen as a form of pragmatism.) To facilitate the communication of the status of species' level of peril conservation biologists use the terms endangered and threatened. Of course this dichotomy in language results in greater attention being given to endangered species over those which are merely threatened.
One consequence of this is that a species could be skidding towards extinction but until it is classified as endangered it does not receive the protection it needs. Another problem lies in what one might ironically call the partial successes. Occasionally conservation biologists succeed, either through captive breeding, working closely with local cultures, or aggressive governmental protections, in increasing the numbers of an endangered species. What often follows is that the media, including conservation organizations themselves, will happily report the marks of progress. No one can fault them for this. They are entiltled. And who wants to hear an endless stream of doom and gloom anyway?
The problem is that progress is not success. The problem is that if a population rises from 3,000 to 6,000, or 20,000 it is not "saved". And the problem is that these temporary improvements can foster a renewed complacency in people and in governments which is not justified. When an endangered population survives another thousand years we can breathe easier about its prospects. We can take pride in keeping a tiny population on an ecological respirator for a decade, but it doesn't mean much over biological time.
The precariousness about which I am speaking is sadly illustrated by the gorilla, our closest living relative after the chimpanzee. The range and population of the three sub-species is already a fraction of what they historically were due to agriculture, wars, logging and the bushmeat trade. A sizable slide occured in the 90's, and now, scientists believe that up to 5,000 or more were lost from 2002 to 2005 due to the Ebola virus. So here you have a total population which, albeit small at some 30,000 - 50,000 individuals, doesn't seem like it is on the "brink", suddenly losing up to 25% of that population in a three year period. And no one knows if the virus will recur, if another war will erupt, if human population pressures will take a further toll, or if some harmful genetic effects will surface within small, fragmented populations, any or all of which could spell the end of gorillas in the wild.
If no new mishaps befall gorillas over the next few years and we read that the mountain gorilla in Uganda has increased from 350 to 500 individuals, or the lowland gorilla in the Congo Republic has gone from 6000 to 7500 some will reasonably respond with "whew, that was a close one." And it will remain a close one for many decades to come.
In sum, these two dimensions of public and political perceptions of endangered species: 1)how biologically unique and grave the overall crisis actually is, and 2)specifically, how tenuous a grip individual species hold over their long term survival prospects, are important elements in the public's apprehension of the challenges before us. And consequently, of how assertively it will exercise its economic and political voice to enlist the aid of organizations and governmental agencies.
Of course there is no pure relation between understanding and action. To a person in the third world living on a dollar a day, where the next meal comes from may be a consuming priority. To some hobbyists, the more a prized species of tropical fish or frog dwindles in number the more it will be coveted - and collected, even if it accelerates that species' doom. To those in commercial industries, say fishing or whaling, it seems that many are (and have been) robust in their noble quest to harvest such resources in the name of promoting or protecting jobs. Seldom is consideration given to what will happen to those jobs once the underlying populations are driven to commercial extinction, which they would be (and have been in the past) in the absence of regulatory controls. And to other vested and what I might call "personal" interests, understanding will similarly carry little weight. Just recently a newspaper carried a story about a businessman's lifelong desire to shoot a polar bear. He is prepared to spend several thousand dollars to enjoy such an opportunity. And knowledge that arctic ice is beginning to literally melt beneath the feet of the bears and poses a new long term threat to their viability is of no consequence to him, other than, perhaps, giving his pusuit greater urgency.
Fortunately there are some for whom understanding does translate into greater responsibilty and action. It may be someone who has marvelled at the engineering feat of a dragonfly's wings. Or at the majesty of a tiger or the delicate beauty of a butterfly. There are others who would like to protect nature just by knowing of it, without knowing about it, or without having ever seen it. They may never have the chance to travel to Kenya or Tanzania to witness the ecological wonder of the annual migration of a million wildebeests, 200,000 zebras and gazelles and their attendant predators, but nonetheless would like to think of that phenomenon continuing for millenia to come. And there are those who, through some mixture of education and insights, whether from materialist or spiritual sources, arrive at a place where they simply feel a reverence for life. It may be intuitive in nature or it may be philosophical. The result is the same: they respect life, all life. Life that can ponder Kantian ethics or write a doctoral thesis on string theory. And life that is merely capable of pursuing its innate drives for food and reproduction.
And finally, in being touched by animals directly, with the revelations that may follow, some have the ability to derive from their experiences a level of compassion, of empathy, which they joyfully extend to all living things. When a person interacts with, or observes an animal, and suddenly grasps something of its inner life, the impact of that event can transcend everything else he knows about animals and engender a sense of connection with their world. And then the human/animal dichotomy ( human: special, superior; animal: nonthinking, machine ) imbued in us by society melts away. Of course many people have enjoyed behavioral or psychological insights into their pets, which often becomes a "member of the family". But the difficulty here seems to be a tendency to become so emotionally involved with the pet that they stop seeing it as the fascinating construction of nature that it is. And this may short-circuit their ability to generalize from it to all animals, leaving them with the same old Cartesian dichotomy.
I have learned from my experiences and education that the process of discovery is a never-ending one. The feeling of kinship I have sometimes ebbs until a new moment occurs to remind me of my place in nature, as even the following mundane example will show.
As I was driving home on some ordinary summer day I noticed a lady bug in my car. I have seen them many times in the past just sitting or hanging onto some plant so I quickly thwarted my impulse to open the window and guide out it to freedom. Instead, upon my arrival I caught it and tore a leaf off of some plant on my way up to the living room. Three or four feet from a window I put the leaf in a small vase and the ladybug on the leaf. Then I set my tripod mounted camera with macro lens very close to it. As I attempted to focus the lens on the bug it was in constant motion on that leaf before flying to the window. I caught it, put it back on the leaf, and before I could even reposition the camera it was back to the window. After the third replay I said " fine, stay on the darn window, I'll shoot you there". ( All I wanted was a nice close-up photo. It didn't seem selfish at the time, and its not like I slowed him down by sticking him in the freezer for a while.) So after quickly bringing the camera to the window what happened? The thing was in constant motion again, this time doing laps between the wood trim.
After my initial reaction of agitation that this tiny bug wouldn't allow me to capture it on film, and after I took a moment to stop thinking of myself, I realized that I was seriously depriving it of something. I wasn't sure if it perceived that it was indoors and wanted to get out, or if it was just exhibiting a phototactic response toward the window. Whatever it was it served me a reminder that all of life is engaged in an incessant, unrelenting pursuit of its needs and interests. And if I can get by without obstructing these interests, and avoid enslaving it, and avoid wearing it, and avoid eating it, I will. Yes we are different, but hasn't history taught us that difference ought not justify exploitation? That to diminish our compassion and respect for others is to ultimately diminish something of ourselves?