On the Demise of Species
EmailNobody has confirmed seeing a Caribbean monk seal since 1952, we’re told, and now, after a five-year review, NOAA’s Fisheries Service has called off the search. As far as the government is concerned, the seals are extinct. NOAA blames hunters, going back to 1494, when Columbus saw "sea wolves" on the coast of Santo Domingo. The seals, however swift in the water, were easy prey when tending their young on the beach. NOAA biologist Kyle Baker: "Humans left the Caribbean monk seal population unsustainable after overhunting them in the wild. Unfortunately, this lead to their demise and labels the species as the only seal to go extinct from human causes." The agency uses this moment to warn about the fate of the Hawaiian monk seal, which is very closely related. NOAA points out that it, at least, was declared endangered before it was believed gone. In Hawaii, the number of seals continues to drop, we’re told, but humans do not get all the blame; sharks, lack of food for young seals, and erosion of beaches are listed along with entanglement in marine debris. It is easy, when an animal species is lost, to turn from mourning to hand-wringing to finger-pointing. But what is a species worth? More than one biologist has suggested the best answer is that we really don’t know — until it’s too late to prevent its demise. Think of the variety of life on Earth as a vast web, they say. Which strands hold up things that matter to us?
Space Station Flies Over Eastern U.S. at Night 
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That’s an easy one, Ned. The human species, being the dominant one on this planet, have the most effect on all the rest of the species. But does that make us the most valuable? Hardly. It makes us the most rapacious, predatory and the least caring, therefore, as a species, we are easily the least worthy. No other species hunts for sport, nor does any other use the earth, itself, for its own purposes, to the point of depleting the very ground we stand on. I think it also points out, starkly, how much a part of the web we are. We affect everything, the air, water, ground and anything else we touch. We’re already deeply involved in befouling our own nest. We’re adrift on an ice floe in a warm sea. I wonder how long it will take for us to realize that fact.
Posted by: Andy | June 9, 2008, 7:23 pm 7:23 pm
I think it’s a long held fallacy that we can have dominion over nature and its strands. Perhaps all of the environmental strands interconnect and affect each other to a degree which is difficult for us to imagine. Maybe it’s the indigenous people who see nature the most clearly.
Posted by: katrina | June 9, 2008, 7:51 pm 7:51 pm
as humans go we’re useless! WE destroy and manipulate the world for our benefit. If we lived like every other species then the world would be extremely better and cooler :)
Posted by: rob | June 9, 2008, 8:39 pm 8:39 pm
If we lived like every other species we wouldn’t be having this discussion; we’d be, at best, living in a manner similar to our great-great-great-great-great grandparents. Our life expectancy would be about 40 years, infant mortality would be about 70%, and truly horrible diseases would be the norm. We would be sleeping on dirt floors along with most of our stock animals, working 16-18 hour days, with absolutely no conveniences or amenities whatsoever.
Should we care about all the species of life on Earth? Of course; as noted we are all part of the Great Mandella and we need to support all of our fellow travelers. Even the mosquito must have some reason for being (although that reason eludes me).
We must gauge our own impact and make adjustments when that impact on other species is too great. But, living like every other species? You haven’t thought that through, or you have never had to spend any amount of time in an area and situation where that was necessary. It is not glamorous and it sure as hell isn’t fun. As for the adventure, it has been truly said that adventure consists of sitting in a comfortable chair, with a cool drink close at hand, reading about some poor bastard in a whole world of trouble a thousand miles away!
By all means let’s look around and save as many other species as we can. But bear this in mind: Man is a part of nature too; he does not stand outside nature looking in. There is a racial self-hatred in the concept that a beaver dam, built by beavers for their own purposes is somehow morally superior to a dam built by Man for Man’s own purposes, and then not until due consideration of that dam’s impact on the environment as a whole. This self-loathing is something I don’t understand, but it isn’t necessary to understand it to see that it exists, and infects large numbers of our kind.
As for modifying and manipulating the world for our own benefit … well, there is that beaver dam to consider, isn’t there?
Posted by: Walker Evans | June 10, 2008, 12:09 am 12:09 am
aw the seal is so adorable ;]
Posted by: Jeff | June 11, 2008, 10:59 am 10:59 am
The human species are “the most rapacious, predatory and the least caring, therefore, as a species, we are easily the least worthy.” Posted by Andy___
In particular, the American species of human, or more specifically, the American Republican species, is that right, Andy?
Posted by: marco123 | June 12, 2008, 12:59 pm 12:59 pm
defication occurs
Posted by: Quietman | June 18, 2008, 4:08 pm 4:08 pm