Why Must We Protect Endangered Species?
- Thread starter Commodore
- Start date
I have altered the natural ecosystem. Pray I do not alter it further.
serious answer: Everything in nature is dependent on other organisms, directly or indirectly, and the removal of one could be the catalyst for the removal of many more, and so on and so forth, until humans are directly affected as well.
serious answer: Everything in nature is dependent on other organisms, directly or indirectly, and the removal of one could be the catalyst for the removal of many more, and so on and so forth, until humans are directly affected as well.
But if it happens naturally, who are we to interfere?
We protect endangered species for two reasons. The first reason is purely sentimental, and so can be logically discarded if you want to. The second reason is that endangered species are proxies for collapsing ecosystems, and so we endeavour to keep the species healthy in order to actually keep the ecosystem healthy.
Healthy ecosystems are more productive and are also more resistant to stresses.
Healthy ecosystems are more productive and are also more resistant to stresses.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
Next on the Kooky Discussions Threads show, the following topic title incites wacky conversation: "Why should the rich not give to the poor? If the poor are poor due to natural market forces, who are we to intervene?"
Since they are mainly being killed off by human action, we are interfering if we do nothing.
wilycoyote
King
A day doesn't pass without me feeling great sadness at the thought that I will never know what dodo tastes like. That and woolly mammoth.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Actually, a number of ecological problems worldwide are the result of the opposite: human influence causing uncontrolled growth of a species. In the U.S., some of those problems include overpopulation of dogs, cats, deer, and pigs. With dogs and cats, ironically, it's our desire to take care of cute and fluffy creatures that leads directly to their overpopulation.
Mother Nature eliminates species fairly regularly, based on their ability to survive (or lack thereof). But the natural ecosystem does not make "intelligent" decisions about who is the weakest link. The decision is the result of billions of individual creatures all trying to survive and some getting edged out by others. No reason to expect any differently of humans; the only reason for our large environmental influence is our brains and opposed thumbs, and our effects on the world are merely the result of our desire to live.
Most of us humans, when faced with a grizzly bear intent on making a snack out of us, would tell Mother Nature to bugger off, pull that .45 pistol out of our pocket, and start shooting.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, BC. A plague of rabbits is ecosystem destruction and kills a bunch of other species. "Protect endangered species" doesn't mean "protect all organisms".
I bet you can name twenty things which "happen naturally" which we intervene in for very good reasons.
I bet you can name twenty things which "happen naturally" which we intervene in for very good reasons.
Ecosystems tend to be far too complex to predict how the loss of one species will impact others. Imagine a nematode that regulates a soil food web. Part of its life cycle is living in the intestines of sheep. Sheep go locally extinct. The nematodes are now unable to reproduce and the soil degrades.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
If humans die of cancer naturally, who are we to interfere?
If humans can't fly naturally, who are we to interfere?
I assume the question has been answered?
IdiotsOpposite
Boom, headshot.
Well they're not protecting themselves, and someone has to!
More or less it has been. I understand why it is in humanity's best interest to do so, I was just wondering why it was considered to be our responsibility.
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
Because extinction is immoral.
~Corsair#01~
Deity
A lot of people will be upset if cuddly animals go extinct, therefore preserving endangered species is a matter of human well-being. That's my take on it.
So animal welfare of all kinds is worth whatever value we place on it, no more and no less.
So animal welfare of all kinds is worth whatever value we place on it, no more and no less.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Exactly. And events such as plagues of rabbits happened all the time in nature, before human beings ever existed. And not always for the better, either. Without humans in the equation, ecosystem destruction is simply part of the system.
According to the laws of Nature (which are really mean and cruel) bad genetic code needs to be eliminated in order to prevent things such as birth defects from polluting a species. When a species has lots of bad genetic code in it, what happens? Its ability to survive is impaired, and the species (usually, but not always) goes extinct. But Nature is pretty haphazard about this; a number of species are able to deal with whatever handicaps their genes inflict on them.
The problem lies in figuring out which extinctions are actually bad, and which are beneficial. Human beings are an exercise in failure on that score; when a child is born with sickle cell, or hemophilia, or cystic fibrosis, or whatever other genetic disorder, what do we do? We try to save the poor kid--and thanks to our advanced medical technology, we generally succeed. Result: genetic disorders propagate in humans at accelerating rates. This doesn't happen in nature, because most infants born with such disorders die before they get a chance to reproduce.
So we come down to the question--which extinctions of endangered species are actually bad?? When we preserve endangered species, are we doing a good thing, or allowing poor genetic code to propagate in a system? (we do the latter all the time with our own pets.....)
I'm not sure it counts as "poor genetic code" or whatever when the destruction and extinction is happening over a period of years or decades due entirely to human intervention. Equilibirium isn't perfect without human intervention, but the sort of change we wreak, and the rapidity with which it is wrought, has basically no "natural" analogue.
There were no rabbits in Australia prior to 200 years ago. They eat everything, destroy ecosystems, destroy native animals because they're alien and nothing is adapted to them. That's not "poor evolution", that's us. Native Australian animals are rather highly adapted to the unique and harsh landscape here (well, at least until we change it - again, very rapidly). The rabbits aren't "better evolved", because once they kill everything they're not exactly sustainable. Which is why we use bounties and fences and genetically engineered diseases to try to eliminate the rabbits.
Oh, and "According to the laws of Nature bad genetic code needs to be eliminated in order to prevent things such as birth defects from polluting a species" strikes me as rather teleological and anthropormphising. What is "bad genetic code"? What is "polluting"? There's plenty of objectively disadvantageous genes which survive and prosper simply because they don't get in the way of reproduction enough to disappear.
There were no rabbits in Australia prior to 200 years ago. They eat everything, destroy ecosystems, destroy native animals because they're alien and nothing is adapted to them. That's not "poor evolution", that's us. Native Australian animals are rather highly adapted to the unique and harsh landscape here (well, at least until we change it - again, very rapidly). The rabbits aren't "better evolved", because once they kill everything they're not exactly sustainable. Which is why we use bounties and fences and genetically engineered diseases to try to eliminate the rabbits.
Oh, and "According to the laws of Nature bad genetic code needs to be eliminated in order to prevent things such as birth defects from polluting a species" strikes me as rather teleological and anthropormphising. What is "bad genetic code"? What is "polluting"? There's plenty of objectively disadvantageous genes which survive and prosper simply because they don't get in the way of reproduction enough to disappear.
