IamMoose

That's what I say!

Is it, would you say, something that's typical to males of EVERY species? *thinks of drunken blokes outside a pub on a Friday night: 'bet you I can pee higher up that wall than you!' 'bet you can't' 'okay, I'll prove it ....'*. Though I've never seen any homo sapiens doing the handstand part..

IamMoose

Yeah but they're so ker-yuuuuuute!

It might be only in captivity that they're not prepared to mate .. i am not entirely sure of the facts on this. I do know that in captivity they are generally artificially inseminated though.

As to working to preserve just one species .. that's not really what i meant. Surely we should work to preserve ALL the species that our rampaging through the landscape has threatened? I don't see anything wrong with that . Take gorillas, for example .. they're a pretty significant and interesting primate but they are also endangered and without human help could well disappear. Should we let them? I would say not. And it's not THAT much of an effort to try and save them.

IamMoose

Yes. As far as I am aware, encroaching into the bears' natural habitat is what is endangering them in the first place. We can be extremely cretinous when it comes to safeguarding the 'rights' (prolly not the right term for it, but it will have to do) of creatures. Has anyone read Bill Bryson's book 'A Walk in the Woods' in which he cites a case where the Forestry Service - I think twas they - managed to discover and eliminate an entirely new species of fish all in one afternoon? Or another in which a hunter found an example of a bird which had been hitherto believed to be extinct and promptly shot it (yay!). It's enough to make you want to cry.

Anyway there was such a lot that was fascinating about these creatures .. I marvelled at the way in which, not being gregarious, they track each others movements purely through scent markings to avoid having to come face to face (except presumably to mate). Even their courtship rituals are done this way. Excellent stuff .. it would be a shame to lose such an enterprising creature .

Albion

So, once pandas go extinct, is the Asian continent going to drown under an overgrowth of bamboo, or are there any other major eaters of it?

Monad

Not usually but he's not infallable. I'm a big big fan of David Attenborough but I cring everytime I watch "Life of Mammals" and see the part where he refers to Hyaena's as dogs - sloppy research perhaps but I'd have thought he would have known better himself. I don't think anything he has done can touch the majesty of Life on Earth and the Living Planet (Blue Planet and Life of Plants probably next best - Trials was a real dissapointment to me)

Nic Tamzek

I suspect you're probably just trolling, but it needs to be said that this is a stupid argument. On this logic, we should be burning libraries and dynamiting famous geological formations. Who gives a rip about natural beauty and genetic information that took millions of years to develop, when we could have another strip mall?

Go read some Aldo Leopold.

Nick

Knurd

I think saving the panda is enlightened self interest. If we don't care about it we will strip the earth of its biodiversity one species at a time. By some accounts it seems that the rate of extinction is growing. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...t_species_dc_3
Ever heard of the snowball effect?

How will we know when the environment is too damaged to support ourselves? When suddenly we're in the same situation as the Panda and it's too late for the human race? By saving the Panda we may learn to save ourselves.

Looking at it from another direction, saving the Panda is focusing on the symptoms. The real problem is that humanity has not yet learned to live within the physical restraints of the earth. We often pretend that we are so above other creatures that they hardly matter, that growth is always good, and that the eath's resources are infinite.

premjan

How did they manage to extinct the fish? Sorry I don't have a copy of the book. Generally, yes, I guess we should safeguard the total diversity of life, without exceptions. Each organism is a unique energy cycle through the environment and it is not possible to easily distinguish between them in value (even viruses).

IamMoose

I can't remember .. I will try and dig out my copy later. To be fair(ish) I think that they only discovered them once they were, erm, dead .. I remember Bryson pithily remarking that it was quite a unique feat to 'simultaneously discover and eradicate an entirely new species.' Something they dumped in the water killed them, but I can't remember why it was dumped in the first place.

Bryson noted in parenthesis that a cpl years later another colony of these new fish were discovered, alive and kicking, so I suppose all is not lost.

IamMoose

Yeah and it sucks . I watched another docu the other day about a guy who lives on the banks of the Mississippi river and is totally self - sufficient. He made the point that we are just animals really, even though we create totally artificial environments for ourselves and pretend that we're not. We are the only creature on earth, I think, that is so totally destructive and disregarding of our fellow creatures. I would what the world would be like today if we'd never evolved? there'd probably be more pandas, I suppose.