Saturday, August 20, 2011

How Did A Spider Get To Be So Rare?

I don't think of bugs as being endangered. I mean, how does it happen? I can see it with mammals (tigers, mountain gorillas), birds (Dodos) and even fish (humans love fish so much they've treated some tasty species like they were American Buffalo, as if there were a never ending supply, no matter how many you kill), but a damn bug?

image by Maarten Bos under Creative Commons

a picture of the horrid creature (Ladybird spider)



The striking bug was on the brink of extinction in the mid 90s when a single colony of just 56 spiders was left in the UK. Since then, conservationists have striven to spread the critter further afield...(Britain’s Rarest Spider Released Back Into Wild)


WTF? Spread the ugly mini-monster "further afield"? If a bug can't make it on its own, doesn't it deserve to go extinct? Isn't human intervention in fact anti-environmental? These wackos would go back to preserve the dinosaurs if they could. What are they, a bunch of god-believers? Preserving God's precious creation? If you know that evolution is real, you also know that extinction of species is part of what it's all about. Get with the program, man, and let the spider die!







7 comments:

  1. I don't think of bugs as being endangered. I mean, how does it happen?

    Usually loss of habitat.

    If a bug can't make it on its own, doesn't it deserve to go extinct? Isn't human intervention in fact anti-environmental?

    It was human action that causes a lot of extinctions in this day and age. Most mass extinctions are due to environmental catastrophes, but since the migration of humanity across the globe, our actions have altered the landscape and wildlife, often indirectly as a result of our effect on the environment.

    Evolution is not magic, as I'm sure you're aware. Things aren't just supposed to die off at the rate we kill them. Many ecosystems are delicate, and they end up irreperably damaged by our actions.

    Considering just about all of our medicine comes from plants and animals, I have a vested selfish interest in maintaining biodiversity and discouraging needless extinctions.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was human action that causes a lot of extinctions in this day and age.

    But how do we know it was human action in the case of this spider? Maybe it's meant to go extinct. The dinosaurs had to go to make room for the next stage of evolution. And aren't humans themselves part of nature? Maybe that's our role, to create such a hostile environment for all other species that we speed along an end to the whole evil history of life on earth (and all its suffering).

    Having said that, I'm still in favor of preserving those things that might prove useful to human life, and agree that if human action is responsible for endangering species, we should do something about it.

    Evolution is not magic

    Stop trying to burst my bubbles, dude! It is magic I tells ya!

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  3. But how do we know it was human action in the case of this spider?

    It's insignificant if it's our fault, because my reasoning for protecting a species is not hinged on a duty imposed by guilt, but is primarily focused on maintaining a wealth of genetic diversity.

    In this case, it's my understanding that introduction of non-native species of "rhododendron scrub and pine seedlings" are responsible for the habitat of this spider being threatened. At any rate, it's a simple matter of clearing certain plants from an area in order to create a suitable environment for them to flourish. I'm surprised you care about this when we have, say, Pandas being coddled to the point of having porn made for them.

    Maybe it's meant to go extinct

    That sounds awfully religious. I'm not sure how you can say anything is "meant to go extinct." Some species may seem to inevitably go extinct, I guess that's close. Nothing is meant to go extinct, some species just do.

    I think you would be interested in the various projects around the globe that make genetic records of as many species as they can, the idea being that if something does go extinct, we might be able to clone it, if not now, then at some point in the future. There are also seed banks which do the same thing, but with plants (usually food-bearing). Most of these are government efforts, but still, you might find it interesting.

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  4. Most of these are government efforts, but still, you might find it interesting.

    Governments are a major cause of starvation. And of course, it it weren't for their intellectual "property" "laws", we wouldn't have companies like Monsanto able to attempt to control the world's food crops.

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  5. These seed and DNA banks aren't for GMOs, but are instead primarily heirloom and regional varieties, and their primary function (like those built in areas that experience permafrost or deep inside mountains) is to provide the means of accessing the organisms in the event of a disease wiping them out elsewhere, or even after a nuclear war.

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  6. There is absolutely no reason the state is need for that. And many private organizations are doing the same.

    As for nuclear war, that possibility is another gift from the state you seem to think is so necessary.

    ReplyDelete
  7. That sounds awfully religious.

    Here's what sounds awfully religious: divorcing the human race from the rest of nature. That's what you do when you lament the actions of humans destroying other species. Humans evolved naturally and what they do is part of the whole natural story.

    We conquered pretty much the entire planet because of our adaptability and evolutionary superiority over all other species. That doesn't mean that what's "natural" is the same as what's good or right, but I'm not making that claim, those that want to save one species of spider are.

    ReplyDelete

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