🚀 go-pugleaf

Theodore M. Smith (tedsmith@netcom.com) wrote:

: 	According to the story, scientists wrote an article in the March
: issue of Conservation Biology suggesting that there be no interference with
: "natural" extinction.  They say that humans should not interfere with 
: "heroic" efforts to save a species dying out naturally.  (The suggestion
: is that the butterfly is dying because of thousands of years of climatic
: changes.)

: 	Many environmentalists went through the roof.  An EDF specialist
: is quoted as saying he doesn't know whether the species is becoming
: extinct naturally.  (There may be good reason for this.  Another newspaper
: story recently said that butterfly poachers have savaged many species, 
: including the fritillary, to sell to collectors, and some may even have
: wound up in the Smithsonian, which is now investigating.)  He also said that
: "it's unwise to simply stand back and say we shouldn't do anything to 
: preserve the greater biological diversity [the butterfly] represents."

This is not a new debate; the same debate was raging 10-12 years ago on
the issue of the California Condor.  The California Condor is very
definitely on a natural extinction course, a course that started 
with the mass extinction of large mammals after the end of the
last episode of glaciation.  The population that existed in the wild
at the time of the European colonization of North America was restricted
to an area near coastal California, much restricted over the Pleistocene
distribution that went across North America to Florida.

Anyway, in the early-mid 80's a large debate raged on how much effort
should be expended in saving the remaining Condors, given that they
were on an obvious course towards natural extinction.  A group argued
that the massive expenditures towards saving the Condors would be
better spent on recovery for species endangered by human encroachment
where a possibility of long-term recovery was possible.  Leading the
anti-recovery group was Prof. Frank Pitelka,
then an emeritus faculty member at UC Berkeley.  Leading the 
pro-recovery group were the staffs of the San Diego and LA Zoo's - both
institutions that have used their Condor recovery efforts for publicity
and fund-raising.  I am not sure that species recovery is always the end
goal of all concerned.

- rick warner -