Agreed. I think most of us can relate to your sentiment. The world perspective might be the animals, trees, and water are connected to us. When these animals die, it's the canary in the coal mine. Our time is coming. You figure when everything is dying around us it's for a reason. One species over there is a singularity, two species is a coincidence, 25% of all living things is indication that something is terribly wrong and it's only going to get worse.
Sort of, until you realize that 99% of all creatures that have ever lived on Earth are extinct. [1] It's not unnatural for animals to leave the planet and never return, but it's is still sad.
Its more 'natural' if a volcano erupts and kills them all? Or a flood? Or an asteroid? Its not 'normal', I admit that. Extinction by definition can't be a normal event. But natural? I guess if everything man-made is defined as 'unnatural' then sure.
It's amazing that we can throw nuclear weapons at both of those huge objects (volcano and meteor) and there is actually a chance that we can prevent them from destroying the world.
In other news, terrorists and other enemies of the US are trying to make the Yellowstone volcano explode, that's scary. Can we not "cool" the magma under Yellowstone? Maybe even use that heat? Are geothermal plants too expensive?
But it's natural of wolves hunt their prey to extinction and as a result, starve themselves into extinction?
Animals killing animals is still "natural" predator:prey survival. Humans killing an entire species by shooting them isn't any less natural than wolves hunting their primary food source to extinction.
The difference is humans don't go extinct when we kill a species - because we aren't dependent on them as a primary source of survival.
Most animals are foragers (eg. squirrels) or hunters (eg. lions) and some can be both (eg. bears) but very, very few animals are creators of their own food.
I cannot think of any other animal that aids another species in breeding for the sole purpose of consumption for survival. Although I can think of a few bacterium examples or even symbiotic relationships. It's not quite the same level I'm arguing for here.
I cannot think of any other animal that aids another species in breeding for the sole purpose of consumption for survival.
Not quite the same thing you're talking about, but some ants farm aphids to eat something they produce. I would give a citation, but there are a ton if you search, and I don't know if any one is notably better.
>Some farming ant species gather and store the aphid eggs in their nests over the winter. In the spring, the ants carry the newly hatched aphids back to the plants.
I'd say that counts. The others don't seem to be on the "same level" as to what I'm thinking - though the distinction is possibly even arbitrary.
Right, but do the ants practice animal husbandry? Do predatory fish eat the lazy skunk shrimp to ween the herd?
I think the point they were trying to make is that there is no other sapient symbiotic relationships, but there are few sapient species so it's kind of moot.
>>But it's natural of wolves hunt their prey to extinction and as a result, starve themselves into extinction?
The problem is that we aren't starving ourselves into extinction as a result of overkilling rhinos. We're simply moving on to the next species and driving them extinct, then moving on to the next, etc.
So basically, by the time we are extinct, it may be too late.
That's the leap I object to: that somehow losing the rhino's matters one whit to our survival. The popular mythology takes it as a premise. I reject it, as not based on any evidence or reasonable argument. Will my Angus beef dry up because, rhino? No.
>The problem is that we aren't starving ourselves into extinction as a result of overkilling rhinos.
That's my point - and I don't see how it's a problem unless you consider the extinction of the human race a good thing?
>We're simply moving on to the next species and driving them extinct, then moving on to the next, etc.
So it's as if wolves ran out of moose and deer so began hunting rabbits and small game. They still hadn't figured out how to raise their own food and will eventually run out of food sources. Thankfully, humans have the "food sources" problem sorted out. [1]
>So basically, by the time we are extinct, it may be too late.
Late for what? Even "without human interaction" - animals still go extinct. It's a natural thing, even a very normal thing. With 99% of species going extinct I would argue it's not normal for a species to not go extinct.
Humans are largely against other species going extinct though. I guess there's that tinge of guilt for being the "root cause of the problem". Though to pretend it is somehow unnatural and not how the world works is silly and childish. Predators have caused prey to go extinct for hundreds of thousands of years.
[1] Because we grow food and raise animals for consumption. Most species don't do this.
That's very true. But consider: millions of creatures went extinct before our time. What we see today is just those that happened to be extant as we came to civilization. Are they more important than all those that came before? Are they significant at all?
Some say yes; others think perhaps an albino tiger isn't all that pertinent, when we can (soon) create a pink polka-dot tiger that fetches your slippers.
According to WWF, 52% of the Earth's biodiversity has been lost since 1970.
Mass extinction events from millions of years ago are not really relevant to discussion about protecting existing endangered species from human exploitation.