Every day in my Enviromental Science class the subject of endangered comes up. We discuss how humans are causing thousands of species to disappear. We have poluted the planet, and stripped it's resources, and Americans are among the most guilty. We coming with many different ways to replenish our biodiversity. Some theories are reasonable, and some are definitly not. Now what I am about to say isn't all necessarily my oponion. I am simply throwing a question out there. How far is too far?
Some where between destroying wildlife, and protecting it, we have gotten a little extreme. It started out by raising the endangered species in captivity and releasing them in the wild. Then we began helping species have birth. It now has reached the point where people are thinking along the lines of Jarasic Park. There is movement of people who are trying to clone dead animals, in an attempt to bring a species back. I think that we are crossing the line at that point. Whether the animal was distroyed by our hands or became extinct naturaly, it is not our place to bring them back. To take that a bit further, is it our responsiblity to protect them at all? Animals became extinct long before we came along, but since we are the superior species we are responsible for the rest. Yes, the rate of extinction has dramaticly increase since human arrived on the planet. However if we consider ourselves animals, we are just succeding in world that the other animals can't. I have also wondered if our reintrocing animals to the wild, and other methods of procting biodiversty has stunted evolution. Evolution occurs so that a species can survive in their new surroundings. I think that perhaps we are crippling them from improving themselves. How are they supposed to addapt to a changing world if we don't give them a chance? I am sure that species don't evolve as one big group: they improve slowly over time. I think that humans need to realize that preventing pollution, and maintaining the animal habitats is more important then saving one species. We also should realize that nothing can live for ever, and we too will be extinct one day.
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was an animal destroyed by our hands or did it go out naturally?
Not an important question. We are natural, we are part of the ecosystem. And historically and scientifically we see that the ecosystem does better with more species diversity. If there is a niche, a role, for these species then bringing them back usually helps to balance out the ecosystem. Which is good for us. Terraforming the earth and reducing it to a system comrised entirely of cows, pigs, edible genetically-enhance plants, and trees for oxygen would give us a working system, but it would be very unstable. So I say any attempt to bring some "new" diversity is a good thing. We don't want to overdo it and destabilize anything, but the way we're heading, we'll probably want some practice fixing complex ecosystems.
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Oh, also: does anybody know the name of the song that plays during the dogfight scene of Cowboy Bebop, The Movie?
If so, please let me know @ gatorrelay251@gmail.com
Best movie EVER. Maybe. Definitely best Anime to hit the U.S.
Yes, I agree that we can't reduce our biodiversity to simply cows, pigs, and chikens. I think that however, were crossing the line, and playing God trying to bring back an entire speices. Not to mention that the species would be doomed to fail anyway. Inbreeding makes the animal more vulnerable to desease and other environmental threats. Look at the Bulldog, it can't even give birth on its own, because we have inbreed it to the point of weekness. The Bull dog wouldn't be in existance if people didn't want them for pets. That goes for almost all pets. We cleaned all of the wild out of them so that they make good pets. Is that really much better? Keeping animals alive in captivity isn't really protecting biodiversity. It is only faking it. That is all that we will be doing too. Creating animals that can never leave capivity, and at the same time saying that they are making great strides. When really the problem is what we do to the enviroment that eliminates species in the first place.
Interesting points (almost the converse of what I wrote about earlier today involving the Yangtze River Dolphin). I'm not sure what cloning programs you're talking about specifically, although I know there's plans to recreate the Quagga (a relative of the zebra) and some scientists are trying to clone a mammoth (although this is almost impssoble to ever achieve). You mention niches and such in your post, and part of the major problem is that humans aren't natural; we've removed ourselves from the natural order of things (except perhaps in live-off-the-land tribal societies). We actually use up far more resources than we need, so even though we're not very big and we don't necessarily need a lot of food to survive, we take up more land than we need and eat more than we need and use up more resources than we need (some we wouldn't naturally have access to or use for) which in turn effects ecosystems further. Some species will always go extinct; such is nature, and we can't save every species. Even so, I think we have to take a responsibility for our actions and realize that even though we're no longer living naturally, we're still tied to ecology.
Take my own state of NJ for instance. What once was forest was turned to farmland and is now a vast suburb of NYC and Philadelphia, drastically changing the habitat. We removed all the big predators to make things safer and cut down forest to have places to live in, happily mowing lawns and planting gardens. Essentially, we created deer-heaven, with plenty of food year-round and just enough space to hide away in with no major predators to control the population, leading to lots of automobile accidents, lyme's disease increases, chronic wasting disease, etc.
I'm not suggesting that nature always trumps mankind, but to paraphrase an African proverb, the earth is on loan from our children and I think that personal comfort and a lack of sacrifice is drastically altering ecology, which could have severe effects for us. I know it's a hot issue, but I consider man-made global warming a reality, and that is already starting to make big changes all over the world. Even if you don't agree with that, it is indisputable fact that the oceans are a massive carbon dioxide sink, and some plankton (the basis of the food web on which all life depends) can't form their shells properly because the CO2 is making the water more acidic, setting the seas up for a major crash which would be a major ecological and economic disaster.
Essentially, although humans (especially in America and industrialized nations) have become unnatural, we're still tied to ecology and we do not live in a vacuum; what we do here can have major effects on people in different parts of the world. If we were allowed to do anything we wanted, conisdering ourselves as just animals meeting our needs, a great many more species would be extinct and untold damage would be done to various ecosytems, as even though there is competition in nature there is also cooperation and a reliance on other species to help support ecology. Like you mentioned, the best thing we can do is save habitat or even charismatic megafauna like pandas or lions or bears, because if you set aside a place for those animals you're benefitting all the other ones you normally don't think about that live there too. It would be a wonderful thing is suburban sprawl ended and what is natural was allowed to stay that way, but I don't necessarily have high hopes for that, the sustainability of the planet coming after comfort. In the end, it comes down to personal responsibility and making some sacrifices, but the amount of people willing to make such changes is pretty miniscule.
"The trouble with having an open mind is people insist on coming along and putting things in it"-Terry Pratchett
I think that issue is about protecting the environment, but I don't think that going to these extemes is helping. Finding another way to run cars would helpful. Protecting wildlife habitats would be helpful. Preventing pollution would be helpful. I just don't think destroying a species through unnatural ways gives us the right to bring them back, in just as unatural ways.
destroy the environment so quickly. I hate the fact we restore the environment so slowly. It is wrong. I cant stand to see people litter it makes me think og every Mumble (happy feet) and Flipper and Free Willy and Nemo that might choke on that piece of trash. It just makes me sick
the sad part is that people look at me strange for calling them out on thier littering. THey think that i am in the wrong for not littering. How pathetic is that?
Peace Season
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