Who, Exactly, is on the Road to Extinction?

© Yellowstone National Park

As I read my various news sources, I see that there are fruit farmers in British Columbia who are advocating a cull of mule deer to protect their crops. At the same time, I’m working with a deer biologist whose findings show that, after mule deer populations decline, there is a robust rebound in population size: what is sometimes called “compensatory mortality.” Meanwhile, not only are we working to prevent culling of the same species in several British Columbia communities, but in forested areas, there is a mysterious continuing decline in mule deer—something preventing that rebound effect.[teaserbreak]

No one knows what it is.

All of this is shared with news about the need to kill off bullfrogs in British Columbia, where they are not a native species, and where, originally put there for the benefit of people, they threaten survival of the last redoubt of the northern leopard frog in the province. Here in Ontario, we’re fighting to protect bullfrogs: a hunted species in serious decline for a multitude of reasons, most derived from human action.

I’ve also read a list of other “alien” or “invasive” species that are harmful to human interests, or out-compete native species, and are not wanted (along with the native species that manage to thrive in the company of humans and, thus, are also not wanted). The irony is that it is such species, and the tiny percentage we have domesticated, that are most likely to survive us.

South of the border, a national leadership is working overtime to reduce the planet’s ability to sustain life, to sustain species diversity, and to support commerce in the long term. It’s incomprehensible, really—as though profit can be prioritized over the survival of so many other species. And, much of it reflects a damaging degree of intolerance of others, both within our own species and of other species.

The end result is this mad ride toward an increasingly impoverished environment with depleted landscapes and acidic oceans, with scientists like Stephen Hawking predicting human extinction within 1,000 years (which is far more optimistic than the predictions of his peers).

Meanwhile, the best we can do is continue to fight the good fight: to try to protect the wonderfully alive world we inherited. That is what all of us at Born Free USA are trying our best to accomplish.

Keep wildlife in the wild,
Barry