Should we be protecting species?

[xbuzzerx]

Scientists would be the first to endorse the model.

We tend to focus on showroom species like tigers, elephants, and some favored birds. We don't hear too much about the most populous inhabitants of our planet, the insects, bacteria, and other species. It is highly unlikely that we have the vaguest notion of how many species are born or die in a given decade. We simply don't know.

That's true. And the mammal bias exists throughout the biological sciences-- something biologists will be the first to tell you. There's a whole hell of a lot more people studying marine biology than insects and spiders.

That said, this broad handwave that we're likely in some way endangering many things, even microbes, doesn't really have anything to do with pointing out that plenty of species whose important role we clearly understand within the ecosystem are being directly damaged by human activity for small benefit vs. enormous potential cost.

 

[gsdx]

A morality tale: Google passenger pigeon. A sad story...the last survivor died in Cincinnati in March of 1900. Major cause of extinction - good old homo sapiens. Once, flocks of passenger pigeons darkened the sky. And then there were none.

Google the American Bison as well:

An estimated 20 to 30 million bison once dominated the North American landscape from the Appalachians to the Rockies, from the Gulf Coast to Alaska. Habitat loss and unregulated shooting reduced the population to just 1,091 by 1889. Today, approximately 500,000 bison live across North America. However, most of these are not pure wild bison, but have been cross-bred with cattle in the past, and are semi-domesticated after being raised as livestock for many generations on ranches. Fewer than 30,000 wild bison are in conservation herds and fewer than 5,000 are unfenced and disease-free.

http://www.defenders.org/bison/basic-facts

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

Yes.

I hate the fact that humans have taken over land at the expense of an Animals habitat rather than sharing it.

 

[dpnice]

The bison is a good example.

............................
More interesting, what is the ecological impact of eliminating the bison from N. America ..............
What is the loss to the ecosystem? .........................
What study has been done to detail the impact of the absent bison?

.....................

Should one mention the starvation of native American Indians due to the elimination of their staple meat diet? Just wondering.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Of course, we don't know the exact number of species that are threatened, vulnerable and extinct due to human activity, just in the same way we don't know how many grains of sand there are on a beach. But we do know about, and have recorded that knowledge, thousands of species that are threatened, vulnerable and extinct. We know about protists, we know about fungi, we know about plants, trees, birds, mammals, lizards, fish, invertebrates, on and on. We maintain specific knowledge about where they live, why they are dying and have estimates about their declining populations. This is the result of science, and it forms the best basis for us make policy. Relying instead on a dismissive and misinformed shrug to make decisions will result in equally stupid, dangerous policy.

Moreover, we know that it's unprecedented in the biology of the earth that a single species (a weed, us) should be the cause of such a mass extinction of species.

Of course, being a weed (etc) is perfectly natural. And, if one's sense of virtue is merely that "natural is good" one may be content with our genocides. However, with a whisper of reflection, most of us don't conclude that whatever is natural is also good, and so we must meditate further on the vile nature of our actions.

 

[xbuzzerx]

Whereas it is true that we have proliferated to the detriment of the environment, and displaced other species, that is repeated throughout nature.

At some point, the bison displaced less hardy species. At some point, the proliferation of bison had negative impacts on the prairie as they overgrazed and made dust wallows, etc.

Top predators constantly are pushing other predator species out of their ranges.

That doesn't make our impacts less onerous, but it also doesn't make them unnatural.

Species constantly displace species.

You seem to be implying that species damaged or eliminated by human activity (much of which is not even directly eat-to-survive related) simply fits into precisely the same pattern of natural competition that nature engages in all the time, and is not at all unique in its scale or effects. I think you would be hard put to find scientists who study the ecology to sign that concept as accurate.

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

Whereas it is true that we have proliferated to the detriment of the environment, and displaced other species, that is repeated throughout nature.

At some point, the bison displaced less hardy species. At some point, the proliferation of bison had negative impacts on the prairie as they overgrazed and made dust wallows, etc.

Top predators constantly are pushing other predator species out of their ranges.

That doesn't make our impacts less onerous, but it also doesn't make them unnatural.

Species constantly displace species.

sound bite wot sell all ova planet evaryday ans public go ooh dat okay ten

or tis about g w bush fishin wit h bombs or sumthang not a sure fish gotta a h bomb worms thangs

anyway

- wit great public alls so nose stuff guess a alls figa wot do eons ago-

YaY

anyway ant wrestlin wit human tanks

thankyouou

 

[zoltanspawn]

The buffy tufted-ear marmoset believes you ought.

 

[Kulindahr]

A thought occurred to me recently, about whether we should be making an effort to protect endangered species.
If a species has very low numbers, surely its time is passing, like the dinosaurs? Why do we bother to try and keep them alive?

I can understand it moreso if the animal is endangered as a direct link of human influence, but otherwise, isn't it just interfering with nature taking its course?

Any thoughts?

Every species at risk at the moment is in that position because of human activity -- so it's our responsibility.

And the loss of any unique set of genetic characteristics is an immense loss, because as of yet we have no idea what utter gems there may be in that genome.

 

[Kulindahr]

Survival of the fittest was at one time the law of the land. It ensured the best genetic material prospered. Then we became humanitarian and ensured everyone survives, if at all possible. These charity people breed, continually polluting the gene pool. Do you think we've evolved to a point where we're causing more harm than good?

Actually it ensured that the luckiest genetic material prospered. Evolution is a massive crap shoot.

 

[Kulindahr]

Laws needs to be set to protect lands and trees but its only going to get worse people are using land to build housing developments and shopping centers. Its pretty sad seeing old buildings sit and deteriorate for so many years and they are cutting down the woods to build a store.

Something I really like here is that the city made the policy a number of years back that derelict buildings, especially in flood zones, are bought whenever possible, then removed and replaced with a park, or downtown, with parking (the motive for parking is that we really need three lanes each direction where Highway 101 comes through town; when there's enough off-street parking, the parking along 101 will be turned into another lane... oh, and the off-street parking has lots of trees and shrubs).

 

[Kulindahr]

A morality tale: Google passenger pigeon. A sad story...the last survivor died in Cincinnati in March of 1900. Major cause of extinction - good old homo sapiens. Once, flocks of passenger pigeons darkened the sky. And then there were none.

There's a project going to bring them back. At the moment the effort is to get enough undamaged DNA.

 

[borg69unimatrix]

I'm kind of disappointed that they haven't attempted to bring back mastadons and wooly mammoths. They've found plenty of DNA in frozen carcasses and could have elephants carry them.

 

[frankfrank]

Then we became humanitarian and ensured everyone survives, if at all possible.

If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?

Every species at risk at the moment is in that position because of human activity -- so it's our responsibility.

And the loss of any unique set of genetic characteristics is an immense loss, because as of yet we have no idea what utter gems there may be in that genome.

Not every, but certainly many of them - and probably nearly all of the ones we consider "obvious" such as endangered "higher"/larger animals. I'm sure there are some species affected/endangered/wiped out from things such as volcanoes, as some species have only a small local or regional distribution.

There are certainly no 1,000 other species (added up in total as a group, for their effects on the biosphere) that have threatened extinctions as much as humans have, during the past 300 years.

 

[borg69unimatrix]

Borg, the DNA is obviously quite old and has been deep frozen. The damage to the DNA remains a problem.

Hmmm... I was under the impression that (some of) the bodies were fairly viable. Perhaps I misunderstood... but I've seen shows where DNA was extracted from considerably less.

Edit-

Google: woolly mammoth clone

Several promising links there.

 

[Kulindahr]

I'm kind of disappointed that they haven't attempted to bring back mastadons and wooly mammoths. They've found plenty of DNA in frozen carcasses and could have elephants carry them.

Borg, the DNA is obviously quite old and has been deep frozen. The damage to the DNA remains a problem.

Only recently has sufficiently intact mammoth DNA been found to make an attempt to bring them back feasible. The issue now is that it's just one individual, which is hardly suitable for re-booting a species. Last I heard, scientists were using it as a pattern to get the sequence so they can arrange less intact DNA in the correct order, and hopefully patch and fill holes with bits from various individuals. Only once they have two fully intact sets of distinct DNA will it be reasonable to go for it.

I expect it will be attempted within the next three years, but I concede that my estimate may be skewed by eagerness to see it happen.

Oh -- one of the sources for funding the effort is a Russian plutocrat who wants to be able to put mammoth steak on the menu of his restaurants.....

 

[Kulindahr]

Hmmm... I was under the impression that (some of) the bodies were fairly viable. Perhaps I misunderstood... but I've seen shows where DNA was extracted from considerably less.

Edit-

Google: woolly mammoth clone

Several promising links there.

In those articles an issue is pointed out that I overlooked: where do we get a mammoth cell? The cloning procedures used so far take an intact cell and convince it to become an embryonic cell -- but the cells are all dead.

The best that could be hoped for would be using an elephant cell, and lifting not only nuclear DNA but mitochondrial DNA from a mammoth. But even for such close relatives, there's a chance the cell chemistry wouldn't work, and then if it did, there's a very good chance that the elephant mother's own immune system would reject the implant even before it got past the embryo stage.

One factor that gives substantial hope is that they have an amazingly intact baby mammoth. One thing that still plagues cloning of existing species is that, as with Dolly the sheep, the DNA from adult animals leads to diseases of old age in the clone very early on, so the clones don't live long, and don't live well. But the DNA from a baby should be young enough to avoid that to a substantial degree.

Rather than cloning animals long gone, we would do better at this point to build up large libraries of DNA from species currently endangered so if they go extinct, once cloning technology reaches a mature level they can be brought back.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Rather than cloning animals long gone, we would do better at this point to build up large libraries of DNA from species currently endangered so if they go extinct, once cloning technology reaches a mature level they can be brought back.

Yes, and good old fashioned conservation in the first place.

 

[frankfrank]

^
That IS being done with crop seeds, to assure the preservation of crop biodiversity, in northern Sweden I think. I'm not aware of an animal DNA bank anywhere, though.

 

[gsdx]

^ The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway: