Endangered Species: A Question of Priorities?

[Mistermook]

Link to Article (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/08/3185863.htm?section=justin)

The new safe index is based on research which suggests populations of less than 5,000 individuals are much harder to triage.

Professor Bradshaw says he would not go as far as to say there are species Australia should not save.

"But if you take a strictly empirical view, things that are well below in numbering in the hundreds - white-footed rock rats, certain types of hare wallabies, a lot of the smaller mammals that have been really nailed by the feral predators like cats, and foxes - in some cases it is probably not worthwhile putting a lot of effort because there's just no chance."

Professor Bradshaw says when the ratio is applied internationally it suggests the Javan rhino and New Zealand kakapo are beyond cost-effective rescue.

He says the index is based on the probability of a species becoming extinct.

What do you think? Is it worth expending more effort on species that are more likely to be able to be rescued, or is this a bad idea and why?

[rcranger9]

i think we should spend more on species that we can save because if what the professor said is true, we can't save the extremely endangered ones anyway so why waste the money trying to save a lost cause? we could be using it to stop the poaching of tigers in Asia, because there are only a few thousand tigers left in the world. (this includes all types of tigers that are still alive)

[Oaktree]

It would be pretty much futile to try to save a species numbering only in the hundreds. The genetic diversity would be so severely limited at that point that a species that is tenuously fit for its current environment would almost certainly be unable to adapt to any further changes, because there simply wouldn't be enough mutated alleles present in the genome. As long as the environment and the ecosystem composed of other species remains stable, that species could possibly survive, but those things aren't stable. We are beginning to experience climate change and many other species are endangered and nearly gone. These things will lead to upheaval in the ecosystems, and will probably mean death for many endangered species.

While I think it's tragic when any species goes extinct, it is part of the natural process. Some species simply aren't suited to their current environment. That doesn't excuse the near-extinctions caused by human stupidity (transplanting organisms to foreign environments where they don't have predators, turning lakes into heat sinks, etc.) But species like pandas, which have lost the urge to reproduce, are not going to ever be able to survive on their own, unless we can somehow breed a reproductive urge back into them. I think the point of species conservation should be to help out the species that are capable of making a recovery and living without human aid after we help them get their numbers back up. Species with populations in the hundreds probably won't be able to do that.

[Rafe Weisz]

Well, it is nice when people cares about animals, but sometimes is not smart. The ants are far more important environmentally, but I do not see even one person talking about protecting them. Maybe they are not big, or cute, enough to waste time thinking about them?

[Robodl95]

Since when are ants endangered though?

[Nekowolf]

Only thing I can think of is either massive development of native lands, or, native species being wiped out by invading species (such as the Argentine ant). And especially if the latter, then it's much more difficult to deal with.

[Purity4]

Ideally, I think extra effort should be made to capture feral species that are living where they shouldn't be. In Australia, that's pretty hard to do, because so many people own cats and don't keep them indoors, and cats reproduce like rabbits. I don't know how realistic it would be to apply containment measures to fox, but I figure it would have a better outcome than with cats. The difference is the ignorant human factor. People aren't keeping fox as pets, typically, and 'accidentally' releasing them into the wild the way they do with cats.

[pinketamine]

Well, it is nice when people cares about animals, but sometimes is not smart. The ants are far more important environmentally, but I do not see even one person talking about protecting them. Maybe they are not big, or cute, enough to waste time thinking about them?

There are many different species of ants (more than 12,500 if wikipedia is correct), so I guess it could happen that one/various of those species is near extinction. Ants as a whole, however, aren't exactly endangered. Ants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant) form 15-25% of the world biomass, so there are MANY of them. I guess that is the reason why scientists are doing any effort to protect them, they (ants) don't need at all.

About the topic itself... I'm honestly not sure. I think we should make the effort of trying to save all the species, specially because we humans have a lot to do with the extinction of many of them: habitat destruction, introduction of foreign species, etc. Of course, even with all this effort, some species might extinct anyway, but my animal lover part tell me "oh come on, try to save them all".

There is also something else, Prof. Bradshaw says it is a matter of priority, but who will decide this? And, if a species isn't declared as something worth saving, will it still have special protections like hunting ban?

[Sunbee]

There are only so many resources, unfortunately, to throw at anything. We don't have the resources to save every species, and even if we did, those that have gone below a certain population level aren't savable. As the climate changes, there are going to be more species in danger of extinction. Every major climate change has been accompanied by extinction events. If we weren't warming we'd be due for another period of glaciation, so we could make a case that we're saving lots of species by warming the earth that would otherwise go extinct from a colder earth. (Pretty silly exercise, in my opinion, but we could do it.)
Some sort of triage is necessary, and I'm afraid we're already overestimating our abilities to save some of these species. We'd probably be better off in terms of keeping the species in existence to make sure many specimens are in captivity, and to make sure we have many more dna samples. We're pretty close to being able to successfully exchange dna from an sample to a viable egg, given a host parent, for a lot of mammals, if we're not already there. (Haven't been following this tech too closely, but I know we can do it in mules and sheep.)
The non-native species being able to exploit the native species is one issue, and one we could say is just survival of the fittest, another is the issue of poaching on the big species, and that's an issue that has to be addressed in an entirely different way. How many of you have the urge to go poach an animal? How many of you have all your basic needs and most of your wants met on a daily basis? Think there might be a connection there? There's a reason why poaching is much more of a problem in extremely poor areas, and it's not because mean people are hunting helpless animals for the fun of it.

[Nekowolf]

"we could say is just survival of the fittest" - actually, it would be more accurate to say survival of the most adaptive. /random point

[hotaru801]

I personally feel that things are supposed to go extinct. So I'm really not a pro-save endangered animals person... It think that it is horrible that there are going to inevitably be animals that I am familiar with that my grandchildren will not see... But the money that we put into saving animals that don't want to survive is ridiculous. And that money could be used for other things... Important human things.

But, such is the way of life. Who's gonna save us when we number in the hundreds? Definately not the pandas... They will be too busy eating and not making babies.

[Nekowolf]

Now here's a question for you, hotaru. What about species that are going extinct because of human causes, say, over-hunting? Species that were doing fine before until people started going wild and wiping them out for whatever reason. And what if current efforts are so-far successful with a species?

[pinketamine]

I personally feel that things are supposed to go extinct. So I'm really not a pro-save endangered animals person... It think that it is horrible that there are going to inevitably be animals that I am familiar with that my grandchildren will not see... But the money that we put into saving animals that don't want to survive is ridiculous. And that money could be used for other things... Important human things.

But, such is the way of life. Who's gonna save us when we number in the hundreds? Definately not the pandas... They will be too busy eating and not making babies.

Well, proportionally, I don't think a lot of money is "wasted" in saving endangered species. Of course, we could use the money we use for saving animal species in "important human things" (which would these things be?), but we could also pick the money we waste in making... weapons, for example, and use it for the important human things. That way we could solve the human problems and invest money in endangered species too.

[iCad]

While I do agree that extinction is a natural part of the cycle of life, I also acknowledge that human activity, be it through hunting or habitat destruction/environment alteration or introducing "foreign" animals and plants into places where they aren't supposed to be or what-have-you, has made "slow" extinction unnaturally common. (By "slow," I mean, not rapid-due-to-catastrophe. I mean, as opposed to, say, the Chicxulub event that wiped out probably three-quarters of the species on Earth at the time including, famously, the dinosaurs.) So, I do feel that efforts ought to be made to save what species we can of those that we have caused to become endangered.

And that's where "triage" makes sense to me. It might seem cold, but it really makes no sense to spend time and energy to save a species that cannot survive, much like it makes no sense to work on saving the life a person so badly wounded that they cannot survive while letting three other people who could have been saved die. So as much as this might mean letting a species that I really like -- like cheetahs -- die, I'd rather do that than allow five other species to die.

[SuicidiaParasidia]

While I think it's tragic when any species goes extinct, it is part of the natural process. Some species simply aren't suited to their current environment. That doesn't excuse the near-extinctions caused by human stupidity (transplanting organisms to foreign environments where they don't have predators, turning lakes into heat sinks, etc.) But species like pandas, which have lost the urge to reproduce, are not going to ever be able to survive on their own, unless we can somehow breed a reproductive urge back into them. I think the point of species conservation should be to help out the species that are capable of making a recovery and living without human aid after we help them get their numbers back up. Species with populations in the hundreds probably won't be able to do that.

bold for truth, and one of my favorite comedians has already summed up my thoughts on endangered species...in a far more articulate way than i could manage.


"Saving endangered species is just one more arrogant attempt by humans to control nature. It's arrogant meddling. It's what got us in trouble in the first place. Doesn't anybody understand that? Interfering with nature. Over 90%, way over 90% of all the species that have ever lived on this planet, ever lived, are gone. They're extinct. We didn't kill them all. They just disappeared. That's what nature does." - George Carlin

[rcranger9]

bold for truth, and one of my favorite comedians has already summed up my thoughts on endangered species...in a far more articulate way than i could manage.


"Saving endangered species is just one more arrogant attempt by humans to control nature. It's arrogant meddling. It's what got us in trouble in the first place. Doesn't anybody understand that? Interfering with nature. Over 90%, way over 90% of all the species that have ever lived on this planet, ever lived, are gone. They're extinct. We didn't kill them all. They just disappeared. That's what nature does." - George Carlin

i do not believe saving endangered species is human's way of trying to control nature. it's people realizing we really f*cked up this world and now we have to fix it.

[Sunbee]

We don't have the resources to fix everything in the world, and quite honestly, none of us really want to. If we did, we wouldn't be polluting the environment further by sitting here discussing it on line. The internet uses huge electrical resources, the byproducts of electrical production are a big part of the problem. If you drive a car, have electrical power, buy products shipped from anywhere by any means except animal power, you're doing environmental damage. If you use anything manufactured by any means other than hand, at any point in the manufacturing process, you're certainly doing environmental damage, and many hand-produced items are not benign either. Even if I were to have my own sheep (since I know how to go from wool on the animal to finished socks) I could still be damaging the environment by poor grazing processes, wool washing processes, etc.
So . . . I say it's a matter of priorities. I don't care as much about climate change as I care about having a washing machine. If the cost of modern medicine is the death of half the endangered species in the world, I'll keep medicine. I like antibiotics, oxygen tanks, blood transfusions, and all the rest.