Extinction of species may be exaggerated
A new scientific report says humans are eliminating about 1 percent of all animal species each year. The census of wildlife says that more than one in four species have disappeared in the past 35 years. Pollution, the expansion of farming and cities, and over-hunting are said to have caused the most rapid decline since the extinction of the dinosaurs. WWF warns that climate change can add increasingly to the wildlife woes over the next three decades.
Extinction numbers are easy to find. Environmental organizations are more than eager to present them in order to train us into obedience. It is much more of a challenge to find how many formerly unknown species that have been discovered in the past decades. There are numerous reports on the Internet about new species being discovered all over the world, but so far I have not seen any compilation of the results.
The golden-mantled tree kangaroo was just one of dozens of species discovered in late 2005 by a team of Indonesian, Australian, and US scientists in New Guinea. In 2007, scientists find 24 new species in Surinam, including a fluorescent purple toad and 12 kinds of dung beetles. Dozens of fish, shrimp and coral species, including two new types of a shark that walks on its fins, have been discovered in waters off New Guinea in the South Pacific.
A chance discovery by a teenage spelunker has revealed the existence of eight new animal species in an underground cave in Israel, including the first terrestrial animal with no known relative found only in a cave. WWF scientists have announced the discovery of 11 new animal and plant species in a remote area in central Vietnam. More than 50 new species of animals and plants that have never been seen before have been discovered in a “Lost World” on the island of Borneo in just 18 months.
Species go extinct all the time. New species are constantly being discovered. How can we tell how many percent fall victim to human domination of the planet?
Also, in the discussion on loss of species, there is a general confusion on what happens locally and globally. If a specific species disappear on a local scene, it does not mean it is also extinct on a worldwide scale. In the Netherlands for example, many (local) species have disappeared, due to urbanization, industrialization and road building. But net, there is a gain. Due to the building of the Donau Rhine channel, over the last 10 years, some four hundred (foreign) species from the Balkan, have settled in the country (according to Dr Arthur Rorsch).
No doubt, habitats are changing under the influence of human activity. But extinction?
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Who is to say what is extinct? Just because an animal hasn’t been spotted in a while doesn’t mean it’s truly extinct. How many people are charged with the task of certifying a species extinct, and to what extent do they look in every nook and cranny around the globe to verify a species extinct.
Look here:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1594/is_6_10/ai_57800738
Here’s an exerpt which makes the whole issue pretty iffy. The most laughable comment below is that 3 species are lost every hour, but some of them were never catalogued in the first place (Huh? How do you count lost species that were never known in the first place?) :
The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) pegs the current worldwide rate of extinction at about 27,000 species per year, or three species lost every hour. Many of those plants and animals were never even catalogued. According to USFWS Consultations and Habitat Conservation Chief Rick Sayers, once a species is branded extinct, it essentially drops off the agency’s radar screen. It also falls off the endangered species list–if it ever made it there in the first place. “To be honest with you,” says Sayers, “if we’re really convinced that a species is extinct, we don’t make a particularly strong effort to continue looking for it.”
But extinct isn’t necessarily forever. As Bruce Stein, a senior scientist at The Nature Conservancy (TNC), explains, “A lot of times, you simply don’t know if something hasn’t been seen for a long time because it’s really gone, or because no one has bothered to look for it. You can never be absolutely certain about extinctions.”
Apparently the Greens think that an expanding Polar Bear population means extinction!
As Nunavut government biologist Mitch Taylor observed in a front-page story in the Nunatsiaq News last month, “the Inuit were right. There aren’t just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears.”
And….
“Fortunately, in 1973, an international agreement banned the hunting of the polar bear, only the native Inuits being allowed to kill them. Since the ban, the polar bear population has steadily increased and the current population worldwide is now between 20,000 - 40,000.”
There’s extinction for you!
It is quite unimportant how many per cent of the total biodiversity that goes extinct. What is important is the difference between the current extinction rate and the so called background extinction. According to E.O. Willson (in The Diversity of Life) the rate is between one hundred and one thousand times higher now than before “human impact”.
How can we quantify rates of extinction when we have not yet enumerated all currently living species, nor do we have information on numbers of species that existed in former eras.
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