urbpan: (Beach Man)
[personal profile] urbpan
A group of zoo staff recently went as a group to a local beach to help restore habitat for shore birds, including piping plovers. A friend posted on facebook about it, how much they enjoyed the day, and how he appreciated learning about the complexities of doing conservation work when different stakeholders have input and so on.

A friend of his commented: "There's a part of me that feels like the piping plover is sort of just going through a natural survival of the fittest type situation because they're not very good at evolution. They lay their eggs on exposed rocks! I want to be more sympathetic to them but... ? "

That is a cruel sentiment, expressed stupidly.

I didn't say so, because, perhaps she was commenting quickly and off-the-cuff, something she hadn't thought through. I've certainly posted comments on Facebook, and probably even Livejournal, that I thought better of later. What I did post in reply was:

"By that model all we'll have left are rats and house sparrows. Almost all species fall into either the pest category or the 'not very good at evolution' category, simply because of human influence. (An oversimplification of course, but not far from the mark). If we let the piping plovers go extinct, what's next?"

How stupid are these loser birds to have evolved a breeding system where they lay eggs out on an open beach, where humans and their loose dogs can trample right over them? Sure, it worked for millions of years, allowing them to see from a distance when the predators they evolved alongside would be coming, but why didn't they anticipate human colonization of North American coastlines? What a bunch of idiots, doing what nature and their genetics programmed them to do over countless eons, only to be squashed by cars driving on the beach.

My oversimplification is, I think, basically accurate. There are living things that happen to have adaptations that allow them to thrive alongside human changes to the planet (most of the living things I post about here) and then there are those that do not. If we follow the ethic expressed in the comment at the top, we will lose all the species that do not. Or we can decide that these creatures have inherent value, and that it is our responsibility to make room for them. We can write policies and regulations that ensure the survival of ecosystems and species that otherwise suffer from our presence. We can try to foster the belief that all living things have worth, that biodiversity is a value unto itself.

We will always have the rats and house sparrows, no matter what we decide.

Date: 2011-09-19 04:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ndozo.livejournal.com
I can imagine blurting out something like that. But what I would have meant was: I wonder how these little Plovers have managed to survive all this time even before human encroached on their territory? It seems amazing that any of their eggs ever lasted long enough to hatch considering how vulnerable their nests are.

Date: 2011-09-19 05:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] urbpan.livejournal.com
Plovers nest out in the open because the camouflage of their eggs and chicks is so effective that avian predators have a hard time seeing them. The plovers can see mammalian predators coming from a long distance on open beaches--they won't successfully nest if there is vegetation that mammals can hide behind or in. If a mammalian predator gets close, plovers perform a distraction display to lure it away from the nest. It seems weird, but it worked until cars and dogs got to the beaches.

Profile

urbpan: (Default)
urbpan

May 2017

S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
1415 1617181920
21222324252627
28293031   

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 16th, 2025 09:54 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios