Bye Bye Birdies

Dear Readers,

What’s the point of saving endangered species from extinction?

That question just struck me as I was waking up this morning.

I remember when I was in elementary school I learned about endangered species, and my teacher said something like, “These poor little animals. There’s only a few of them left. People are taking their homes away. How would you like it if someone came up to your house and smashed it, and then built their house on top of it? That’s pretty much what we’re doing to these endangered animals. We’re taking their homes away. We’re making them bleed and die.”

It was a lot for a nine year old to take in.

Really, why are we so concerned with preserving endangered species? Why do we care about protecting their habitats and making them feel comfortable by staying really really far away from them? Why do we alter all our plans for beautiful industrialization just because a spotted owl or whatever happens to live right where we want to build something? Why do we spend millions of dollars (taken from tax-payers, most of the time) to fight for the species who aren’t powerful enough to fight for themselves?

I’ve come up with a few explanations to my first question, "What’s the point of saving endangered species from extinction?" and rebuttals and comments about each explanation.

1] We feel like we need to protect rare animals because animals are glorious and grand and majestic.

If all animals are glorious and grand and majestic, then why do we discriminate between the animals by saying one species of animal is OK to domesticate or to hunt or to displace, while another species deserves special treatment?

What makes one life more valuable than another life, just because one life happens to belong to a minority species and another life happens to belong to a majority species? By that same logic, a person belonging to a disappearing tribe would be more valuable than you and me.

I reject that type of discrimination based on species or on minority status. All humans have souls. All animals, no matter what their species, have spirits. Rarity alone doesn’t make something valuable. A common deer is just as valuable, in an ethical sense, as a California condor. A pet hamster is just as valuable, in an ethical sense, as a spotted owl.

Also, if people are holding animals up to be majestic, divine creatures, nobler than humans even, well… why aren’t the animals fighting to save their animal brothers and sisters from extinction? Why aren’t the oh-so-holy animals waging war on humans to spare an obscure species from oblivion?

The fact is, animals aren’t doing anything to stop other species from going extinct because animals aren’t majestic or noble or anything like that. Animals are savage beasts. All they really care about is self-preservation, and sometimes the preservation of their offspring. In fact, animals usually work to drive other species to extinction! They eat each other! I’ll bet more endangered species have become extinct by the paws, flippers, and etc., of animals than by the hands of humans.

And animals poop everywhere.

And they have no respect for private property.

The only way that animals get a little more cultured and refined is if humans beat culture and refinement into them. Ever see a dog owner smack a dog on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper when the dog did something wrong? That smack is the glorious process of domestication.

Without humans around, dogs would still be out in the wilderness killing each other and having sex with strangers, like the rest of the ferocious animal kingdom.

2] We feel like we need to protect rare animals because they are a novelty, something for us to put in a zoo, or in a carnival attraction.

That can’t be it.

C’mon.

The endangered-species bear isn’t really any more interesting than the regular bear. The only reason you’re interested in the endangered species bear is because people told you it was endangered.

And none of the animals on the endangered species list are as interesting as the platypus. And if you really want to look at a bizarre animal, I suggest you stop looking in the wild and start looking in the science lab.

Ever heard of hybrid animals, like a Zonkey? A zonkey is part zebra and part donkey. And it’s real. There’s a cama, too, which is part camel and part llama. Zonkeys and camas would really rake in the dough as a sideshow attraction, more than any animal on the endangered species list.

(Do a google images search for a Zonkey and you'll have a good time.)

Plus, the enviornmentalists who are gung-ho about preserving endangered species are usually against putting animals in zoos and exploiting them for our own entertainment and stuff.

3] We feel like we need to protect rare animals because they have not been studied thoroughly enough, and maybe their blood or some of their secretions could cure cancer or something. We only need to preserve them long enough to figure out if they can be useful to us.

I like this explanation the best so far, because it recognizes that animals were mostly put on this Earth to be used by humans. Maybe animals have some other purposes, too. But I don’t know what those other purposes are. Mainly animals exist in order to provide humans with food and clothing and to help establish an ecosystem in which humans can live. God mostly made the world for humans to live on.

But explanation # 3 falls short. I think we’ve already studied the endangered species enough to know that their blood or eyeball juice or whatever doesn’t cure cancer. Even if we lost a few species, a lot of their genetic makeup could probably be replicated in science labs. (Or we can pray and God can make cancer-curing vaccines fall from the sky.)

But the best refutation to explanation # 3 is a practical one. Remember that there are plenty of species that go extinct all the time.

Somewhere in an unmapped corner of the world, a little critter, the last of his kind, is dying. He has no offspring, no one to carry on his name, no one to give his things to, and no one to pass on his legends. Try as we might, we can’t save that little critter from dying. Because we don’t even know about him!

And even if we were able to manage, at great expense, to save the critter and clone him or breed him and make more of him, (all the while making our schoolchildren wear armbands and hold candlelight vigils to raise awareness about the nearly extinct species) while we were doing all that, a thousand other unknown species would be going extinct somewhere else in the world.

Trying to save a species when God or Nature wills that it die is as futile as trying to change the weather. And we all know that there’s nothing humans can do to change the climate.

Let natural selection work. Let God work. Be at peace with a species going extinct, and be at peace with a new species coming to life. That’s the way of this world.

So an endangered species goes extinct because humans invade their habitat. Meh. There’s plenty of other fish in the sea. There's a ka-billion other species we don't even know about yet!

And there are plenty of new species being discovered all the time. Why just 4 years ago, a student at Northern Arizona University discovered a new cricket in the Grand Canyon.

http://www4.nau.edu/insidenau/bumps/2006/5_3_06/cricket.htm

Also, if discovering a cure for diseases were really a motivation for saving endangered species, then I think we would hear a lot more from cancer groups and real scientists in the health care field fighting to keep endangered species alive. Instead, most of the fuss about endangered species comes from Communist/hippie people.

4] We feel like we need to protect rare animals because we don’t like it when things die.

I'll admit that it's a bit sad to see something die, like pogs, or the Beegees, or Seinfield, or the Roman Empire, or the dodo bird. Sometimes I wish everything could stay alive forever, because everything is special! Sometimes I feel like I’d love to have a T-Rex around, or maybe a curelom or a cumom.

But... uh... things die.

And if we go to impractical lengths to extend the mortal life of things that need to go, well... that's quiff.

And death is not the end. Our souls and spirits live on. There are worlds beyond this one. Take comfort in the promise of immortality, and let endangered species die.

5] We feel like we need to protect rare animals because they're rare.

We kind of already covered this. Rarity does not equal value. I think we should preserve animals if they are actually useful. If their hides are useful, if their meat is tasty, if you can make cool trinkets out of their bones, then maybe we should work to preserve them. Or if they make honey or lay eggs, then they're valuable. Or you know, if they pollinate flowers, or they offer themselves up as food to other bigger animals that humans eat, then they're valuable. But things aren't valuable just because they're rare.

Oh, except gold, and diamonds. Those are sort of valuable because they are rare. But people have used precious metals and gems as currency, so it's valuable because a lot of people agree that it's valuable. And so it's not really the rarity that makes gold valuable, but the arbitrary value placed upon it by humans.

So I suppose if we changed our currency from dollars to the wings of a rare butterfly species, then the rare butterfly would become valuable, and we would all very quickly be interested in preserving and harvesting that rare species of butterfly.

6] I can't think of any other good reasons.

I think the desire to protect endangered species could spring from sentimentalism, and from a misguided philanthropic urge. Or it could come from communist/hippie stuff.

Really, would the world be that much worse off if the California condor or some other endangered species weren't around more? Would it really hurt the ecosystem very much?

Sure, it’s sad for some reason, to see a whole species of animal go extinct, and we get nostaligaic. But I would submit to you that it's probably more effort to preserve endangered species than it's worth.

In conclusion, I think we ought to abolish the endangered species list altogether, and stop worrying about obscure animals going extinct.

I would like someone to write back, and explain to me why preserving endangered species is worthwhile. And I’d like a clear cost-analysis type of response. I don’t want an emotional answer.

I think I’ll send a copy of this blog post to Greenpeace, and see what happens.

Oh, and I wouldn't mind the preservation of endangered animals so much if it were done through private means. Like, if a concerned citizen bought up a bunch of land and kept a bunch of animals on it, that would be fine. But more often than not endangered species are preserved by taxes and government mandates and icky stuff like that.

More often than not, trying to preserve endangered species leads to less freedom, and less prosperity.

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa