Farewell, Fellow Travellers
The rate of species extinction may now be as high as one
per day.
RELATED CONTENT
By Tom Turner
June 17, 1987, is not a date most people will remember for
long. On that day, the last dusky seaside sparrow in the
world was found dead of old age in its cage in Florida. His
species had fallen victim to the space program, a
mosquito-abatement project, fire and Walt Disney World. It
is the latest species to be declared officially extinct. It
won't be the last.
There's nothing quite so final, so irrevocable, as
extinction. There's no appeal, no rematch, no instant
replay to see who should be penalized. And driving
thousands of species from the face of the earth is as big a
crime as we could possibly commit against the future.
Besides—and ultimately more important than—the
loss of directly exploitable economic benefits when a
species becomes extinct, the continuing smooth operation of
our planet is threatened. Biologists sometimes liken the
diversity of species on earth to the numerous rivets in a
piece of equipment. The dispersion of the load through the
rivets makes the machine flexible and durable; a few of the
rivets can be lost without disaster. Once a certain number
pop out, however, massive failure occurs. The diversity of
species in the earth's ecosystems provides this flexibility
and serves humans by stabilizing the climate, processing
wastes and returning nutrients, generating and maintaining
soils and controlling pests and diseases.
Cataloguing the Morgue
In the 108 issues (and 18 years) since MOTHER began her
life, several thousand species have been extinguished
worldwide. The number is unknown and unknowable. Estimates
vary widely. Norman Myers, an Englishman who has spent his
life studying the wildlife in East Africa, estimates that
we may be losing a species a day at present. That rate
could increase to a species per hour by the year 2000.
We do know some facts about extinction rates, thanks to the
Endangered Species Act of 1973. That law set up an
elaborate system for listing various species worldwide as
endangered or threatened. Species are added to the list
after a review by officials in the Fish and Wildlife
Service's (FWS) Office of Endangered Species.
This is a fiercely political process, and greed often wins
out over biology. The presence of an endangered species can
halt any development that might threaten that species'
habitat, so there is incentive to prodevelopment types to
keep that list as short as possible. (During the first
three years of the Reagan administration, for example, only
two species were added to the lists, despite near-unanimous
agreement that there are thousands of as yet unlisted
species in need of protection.)
Page: 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
Next >>
