Considering 'Extinction'

The ultimate end point of every species is extinction.  Irreversible and permanent extinction.  This is a natural process, it has been happening for as long as evolution, why then should conservationists and members of the public be worried about current extinctions?  The reason is simple, although extinctions are natural, the rate of extinctions over the past 30,000 years is 100 to 1,000 times the natural rate.  Put another way, the world is currently in the midst of a mass extinction, possibly the biggest ever mass extinction.  It could take millions of years for the World’s biodiversity to recover from our actions over the next few hundred years.

Confronted with statements like this it can be hard to process them, to fully grasp the message.  This blog will present different ways to think about extinction, to make it more real, something you can relate to.

I would love to see a live wild giant sloth or a 12 foot tall Moa bird or a woolly mammoth.  I wont because they are extinct.  I can see their skeletons on the internet or in museums but I will never see a live Moa.  Moas lived in New Zealand until around 800 years ago when the first human settlers arrived and killed them.  They had not been exposed to any land predators before and would walk up to humans who would kill them with ease.  Perhaps you to think the world would be a better place if these, and other, species were still alive today?  Looking at this issue in another way we can ask what species humanity will miss 200, 500 or 1,000 years from now.  What will the humans of the future hold against us as our greatest ecological crimes.  What species will they blame us for depriving them off?  Will they inherit a world without hawksbill sea turtles, Sumatran Tigers or European eels?  Perhaps you don’t care if we lose hawksbill turtles so long as we preserve some other turtles or perhaps you really don’t care because you are never going to see them anyway.  I cannot argue with these personal valuations, we are all entitled to feel however we like about species.

I have already mentioned museums and I think that it is interesting to consider how exposure to extinct species changes how we view these extinctions.  We don’t care about the extinction of species we have never heard about, how could we?  Therefore, zoos can argue that the keeping of species which they know will never be returned to the wild can be justified in terms of their educational value.  What about videos.  If you type in ‘lyre bird’ you can watch as the bird sings elaborate songs including imitating a chainsaw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y). Having seen this video how would we feel if this species was threatened with extinction: more concerned that it should be conserved or unconcerned as it has been captured on camera and will therefore be preserved for future generations.  I would argue that the value of this bird to all who ever hear or see it in the wild (and therefore to the world as a whole) is greater than that of any video recording.

Alternatively a more moral consideration of extinction may prove interesting.  You were born onto a planet populated with millions of species, each of which is the result of many millions of years of evolution.  Each of these paths will never be replicated or repeated, no species which is forced to extinction will ever be recreated by evolution.  Therefore, every single extinction represents the loss of a valuable and irreplaceable piece of the world’s history.  Moreover, many of these species won’t end up in museums, species are being lost before they have even been found, perhaps before they have even been seen by humans.

Ultimately, biodiversity is not a luxury but a necessity.  When we force species, which provide the world with services we rely on, to extinction, we have to pay the price.  If we, as a world, make an informed decision that we would rather pay that price and lose species instead of paying an equal or smaller amount to preserve species then conservation scientists can say that they have done their best.  There is still much work to be done to reach that point of species valuation.