By Elina Milimoh
On December 28th, 1973, the US congress passed the endangered species act to protect species and plants threatened by extinction. The endangered species act as of December of last year turned 50 years old, 50 years of dedication towards the preservation and protection of endangered species in the United States. The World Wildlife Fund is considered one of the world’s most comprehensive sources of global conservation when it comes to critically endangered species. WWF works to reverse the effects of deforestation, poaching, and pollution on these environments and its wildlife to give them a better chance of survival. There are claims that the conservation of endangered species is an “ethical responsibility” that we have as human beings to serve and protect the health and wellbeing of this planet. But that is not our responsibility, nor is it an act born out of any real consideration for our planet’s sustainability. Scientists agree that conservationists and ecologists have not taken a realistic or long-term approach to how we view the destruction of our at-risk habitats.
Extinction is a periodic occurrence that happens every 50 million to 100 million years, removing around 95% of earth’s species and as of now our earth is amid our sixth extinction, according to scientists. Recent estimation determines that two mammals per century, which has been said to be twice as high as previous estimation and caused by humanities negative effects on the environment. The destruction of animal habitats correlates with the expected nature of our cycle of extinction, which includes factors such as the various changes in climate, geographical patterns, and the anthropological relationship to our ecosystem. Our intervention in that cycle is more abusive than we may realize. Scientists at the University of Stanford refer to this as a form of “Biological Annihilation” with a moral imperative (according to Pope Francis when he addressed the topic). Concern has also grown around severe decay of biodiversity that comes with extinction. The act of having those same animals’ lives preserved without the act of extinction cannot make way for the evolution of other species.
More human involvement will not solve the issues created by human involvement. The impact humanity’s choices are not brought up out of spite for other organism or as a calculated attempt to destroy competition through Darwin’s theory of evolution but born out of the positions we happened to hold within our given ecosystem, no matter the circumstances that human beings have been presented with, we would have led ourselves to the same outcome, no matter the amount of intervention we take. The actions that lead these species to extinction should not be actively prevented but encouraged. The preservation of high trafficked animals like the African elephant or the mountain gorilla were put under protection due to their popularity among poachers and game hunters. The murder of these animals for sport compared to what we would consider a stereotypical death by predator or natural causes, are expected as part of this animals’ ecosystem, its death is not any different than if other animals of this same ecosystem would have been hunted to extinction by invasive species or the overpopulation of predators.
“Bioprospecting” is described as the active discovery of bioresources which includes microorganisms, plants, and valuable information related to biological studies towards the benefits of society. Concerns have also risen that this would be a major part of what extinction could lead to the loss of the ability to Bio prospect. This rationale does not account for the evolutionary space that creates even more resources for us to benefit from. Humanity is also on the way to extinction by our own means; the same means that lead to the demise of the last black rhino, spotted by the international union of the conservation of animals in northern Cameroon, which failed to be found. So, for the sake of humankind and at the mercy of diminished living creatures like the remaining 300 the black-footed ferret and 10,000 blue whales sailing along the seabed: let them die.
