Roger J. Wendell
Defending 3.8 Billion Years of Organic EvolutionSM
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Extinction
Humanity does not have the right |
"Each time human action results in the extirpation of a species, collectively each of us bears a part of the responsibility for snuffing out a unique part of life, forever."
- Richard E. Leaky in his book, The Sixth Extinction p. 250
Living creatures, biotic "communities," and ecosystems have an intrinsic value unto themselves. Their existence doesn't need to be justified in economic terms or as some benefit to business and commerce. Every living thing is special and has just as much right to pursue its existence as we do. Think about that for a moment - why would my right to exist trump yours or any other creature's??The sadness, of course, is the tragic loss of so many creatures, species, and living systems at the hand of humankind. Many times it's for greed, but at others it's due to simple ignorance or indifference. Whatever the reason, however, the losses continue mounting while the majority of us only concern ourselves with football scores, tax returns and television...
I hope this little page helps raise some awareness. Although it's a work in progress I don't want it to become a catalog of loss - I hope that it can contribute, in some way, to saving a few species, a bit of habitat, or maybe even change some ways of thinking...
- Roger J. Wendell
Golden, Colorado
Extinction threatens world's plants, U.N. says
by the Associated Press (March 24, 1992)
[things have only gotten worse since then...]
"World population growth, environmental destruction and modern farming practices threaten thousands of native plant species with extincion...""The Earth's plant genetic resources are a limited and perishable natural resource, and their loss constitutes a grave threat to our world food security..."
"Today's disruption of the plants' ecologlical equilibrium is taking place so quickly, and the population growth is so massive, that nature does not have time bilologically to cope..."
World on brink of mass extinction of species...
by the Associated Press (Sunday Denver Post - June 7, 1987)
[Another warning from the past that's been completely ignored...]
"Human destruction of forests and other ecosystems threatens to wipe out species on a scale unmatched since the dinosaurs diesappeared..." "Extinction surviviors, the record shows, tend to be ecological opportunits. They reproduce quickly, eat indiscriminately and tolerate a wide range of conditions - characteristics we associate with pests...""Plankton that bloom uncontrolled after a marine extinction, birds like house parrows and starlings, and the rats, cockroaches and weedy plants that flourish in disturbed environments all suppress the recovery of diversity by their prolific reproduction and intense competition for resources."
Extinct Species Take Others Along, Study Finds
Reuters News Service - September 13, 2004
"WASHINGTON - More than 6,000 species of butterflies and other insects, as well as mites, fungi and assorted unloved but important species, will also be wiped out when listed endangered species go extinct, scientists said.""We estimate that 6,300 affiliate species are 'coendangered' with host species currently listed as endangered," an international team of researchers wrote in their report, published in the journal Science. "Up to 50 percent of species are predicted to be lost in the next 50 years," they added. "Current extinction estimates need to be recalibrated by taking species coextinctions into account."
"Up to 50 percent of species are predicted to be lost in the next 50 years," they added. "Current extinction estimates need to be recalibrated by taking species coextinctions into account."
"The team, led by Lian Pin Koh and Navjot Sodhi of the National University of Singapore, compiled a list of 12,200 plants and animals currently listed as threatened or endangered. They then looked at insects, mites, fungi and other organisms that are uniquely adapted to some of the species."
"What we found is that with the extinction of a bird, or a mammal or a plant, you aren't just necessarily wiping out just one, single species," said Heather Proctor from the University of Alberta in Canada, who also worked on the study."
"We're also allowing all these unsung dependent species to be wiped out as well."
"For example, a vine that became locally extinct in Singapore took along with it a species of butterfly, Parantica aspasia, that was dependent on the vine for survival."
"When we lose this vine, this beautiful butterfly dies off with it, and we'll never see it again except in photographs at museums," said Proctor."
"While coextinction may not be the most important cause of species extinctions, it is certainly an insidious one," the researchers added.
Edward O. Wilson
The Diversity of Life
"This vision of the origin of diversity raises a troubling question with ethical overtones: if evolution can occur rapidly, with the number of species quickly restored, why should we worry about species extinction? The anser is that new species are usually cheap species. They may be very different in outward traits, but they are still genetically similar to the ancestral forms and to the sister species that surround them. If they fill a new niche, they probably do so with relative inefficiency. They have not yet been fine-tuned by the vast number of mutations and episodes of natural selection needed to insert them solidly into the community of organisms into which they were born." pp. 73-74"A recent survey by the Center for Plant Conservation revealed that between 213 and 228 plant species, out of a total of about 20,000, are known to have become extinct in the United States. Another 680 species and subspecies are in danger of extinction by the year 2000. About three fourths of these forms occur in only five places: California, Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Texas. The predicament of the most endangered species is epitomized by Banara vanderbiltii. By 1986 this msall tree of the moist limestone forests of Puerto Rico was down to two plants growing ona farm near Bayamon. At the eleventh hour, cuttings were obtained and are now succesfully growing in the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami." pp. 257-258
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