Endangered species
Our latest biology assignment required us to do a little research on endangered species, among which, the tiger, marine turtles, the great apes, etc.
I went hunting for information on the great internets--naturally being that I was dealing with endangered species, my first stop was the official website of the WWF at www.panda.org. I decided to look up the section on tigers to see if there was any information available on the Malayan tiger, which is a recently-identified new subspecies of Panthera tigris.
I found what I was looking for, and more besides. Imagine! While you and I sit by enjoying the comforts of modern life, tigers and other beautiful animals are fighting it out with us for the right to survive into the future. Of three subspecies in Indonesia, there remains only one, while its other brethren cling precariously to existence due to the usual suspects: habitat loss due to logging, agriculture, and poachers (the b****rds) who hunt them for their skins, and in the case of the tiger and rhino, their body parts as supposed aphrodisiacs. I cannot help but roll my eyes at the insistence of certain quarters that these actually work. There exists no scientific evidence whatsoever that these "cures" have any effect. If eating tiger's balls made you more manly, then perhaps we have a flawed definition of manliness?
But that's neither here nor there. What I want to say is this: the single greatest cause of extinction in modern times is us. Few though understand or rather they choose to ignore it as being too great a disruption to their comfortable lives. This state of affairs leads to successive generations pushing off vital conservation measures, measures to safeguard our ecological heritage to the next generation. Surely it will not be in our time was the refrain of past generations who despoiled oceans, rivers and forests, taking all they had to offer in wood and land, game and crops and fish, not caring whether nature could replenish what we took. This they said, our generation and those of the past.
But the question begs asking: Has the time finally come? Have we pushed the equilibrium of nature, fragile, delicate, easily ruined past all balancing? All around us the signs are appearing and more appear everyday, from unseasonal rains and droughts to the dying-out of species.
It has been estimated that "as many as 50,000 species disappear" every year. Much of it is being caused by human activity. Even now, species that were never known, never seen, heard, or studied are vanishing, taking with them an infinitely precious part of the Earth.
We are destroying our species only home, and dragging other non-sentients with us into the abyss as well. But long before the last ragged survivor of humanity looks out upon a dead barren world, the intervening generations will have undergone hardships we cannot imagine of in our lives in the present because we took no thought for their welfare when we exploited the Earth's resources.
One day in the not too distant future, the tally of extinct species will bear the words Homo sapiens as the very last entry. That name will stand as a memorial to the thinking man who thought, and created tools, and discovered wondrous things, yet had little of wisdom as he was too short-sighted and blinded himself to reality.
I went hunting for information on the great internets--naturally being that I was dealing with endangered species, my first stop was the official website of the WWF at www.panda.org. I decided to look up the section on tigers to see if there was any information available on the Malayan tiger, which is a recently-identified new subspecies of Panthera tigris.
I found what I was looking for, and more besides. Imagine! While you and I sit by enjoying the comforts of modern life, tigers and other beautiful animals are fighting it out with us for the right to survive into the future. Of three subspecies in Indonesia, there remains only one, while its other brethren cling precariously to existence due to the usual suspects: habitat loss due to logging, agriculture, and poachers (the b****rds) who hunt them for their skins, and in the case of the tiger and rhino, their body parts as supposed aphrodisiacs. I cannot help but roll my eyes at the insistence of certain quarters that these actually work. There exists no scientific evidence whatsoever that these "cures" have any effect. If eating tiger's balls made you more manly, then perhaps we have a flawed definition of manliness?
But that's neither here nor there. What I want to say is this: the single greatest cause of extinction in modern times is us. Few though understand or rather they choose to ignore it as being too great a disruption to their comfortable lives. This state of affairs leads to successive generations pushing off vital conservation measures, measures to safeguard our ecological heritage to the next generation. Surely it will not be in our time was the refrain of past generations who despoiled oceans, rivers and forests, taking all they had to offer in wood and land, game and crops and fish, not caring whether nature could replenish what we took. This they said, our generation and those of the past.
But the question begs asking: Has the time finally come? Have we pushed the equilibrium of nature, fragile, delicate, easily ruined past all balancing? All around us the signs are appearing and more appear everyday, from unseasonal rains and droughts to the dying-out of species.
It has been estimated that "as many as 50,000 species disappear" every year. Much of it is being caused by human activity. Even now, species that were never known, never seen, heard, or studied are vanishing, taking with them an infinitely precious part of the Earth.
We are destroying our species only home, and dragging other non-sentients with us into the abyss as well. But long before the last ragged survivor of humanity looks out upon a dead barren world, the intervening generations will have undergone hardships we cannot imagine of in our lives in the present because we took no thought for their welfare when we exploited the Earth's resources.
One day in the not too distant future, the tally of extinct species will bear the words Homo sapiens as the very last entry. That name will stand as a memorial to the thinking man who thought, and created tools, and discovered wondrous things, yet had little of wisdom as he was too short-sighted and blinded himself to reality.