Thanks Nicole, for a really good article that lobbies for creatures that can't lobby for themselves. Unfortunately, most of us are hardened to the plight of the species we are driving to extinction; interesting that I'm the first poster, even though you've tried to appeal to baser economic instincts.
We are living in the dark ages after all, or so they will be remembered in the unlucky (and probable) event that humanity survives.
The "sanctity of life", what a joke, only applies to humans, I'm afraid.

Squeers

Catching up on my OLO reading, appalled to find this article so neglected.

Continuing my pessimism I predict that the silence will be as deafening from our pollies in the lead up to the federal election on all things environmental.

Biologically diverse ecosystems, AKA 'wilderness', are not a blip on the radar and their importance to continued 'life-as-we-know-it' lost on much of our population as it is on our politicians.

<<< If anything, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and its big fish deserve more safeguards, given their tremendous value and the many threats they endure. Climate change is an especial concern, as adverse effects from coral bleaching and ocean acidification have already been documented. The failure of the Copenhagen climate change talks to provide a global solution to greenhouse gas emissions and resulting climate effects underscores the need for nations, such as Australia and the US, to double up national efforts to reduce emissions. In the face of climate change and burgeoning human populations, no-take areas on the Great Barrier Reef and other locations within the bumphead’s range are imperative to ensure this key ecosystem actor and other big fish can persist. >>>

Severin says:

"Catching up on my OLO reading, appalled to find this article so neglected."

How can you be sure this article is being neglected? Have you checked the 'Today's most popular' listing, here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/ ?

Bear in mind one of those articles in the display, as frozen in this screenshot here: http://twitpic.com/1ain7s , has come back into popularity after publication one month ago. You will be able to note from the screenshot that as of 10:21 AM AEDST on Wednesday 24 March I, too, had read the 'Bumphead Parrotfish' article.

I have seen a few OLO articles that made their point so comprehensively that comment was seemingly superfluous. Perhaps this is one such.

I would be interested in your views as to the OLO 'Today's most popular' display, if the subject tweaks your curiosity, here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3534

Nicole, imagine you have entered the boardroom, flashed up your “PowerPoint multi-media extravaganza”, and promptly been asked to re-cut it and come back later. Why you might ask, might that be?

Each adult “bumphead parrotfish” consumes 5 tons of dead coral per year.

So there is and always has been dead coral upon which this fish has evolved to feed? So how many of these fish are there? What is the extent of their surveyed habitat range? What is the total tonnage of coral consumed within the measured range? Do they consume only dead coral? What percentage of total dead coral do they consume? Is the total mass of dead coral growing? Is the growth/decline in coral volume and range due to too many or too few bumpheads? What other factors govern the dead coral volumes on a percentage basis? Is the bumphead an endangered or protected species? Are bumpheads themselves a threat to our reef? How many bumpheads are taken per year, by whom and how? What percentage of the breeding population does this represent? What impact does this have on the total population? Is the bumphead suffering the same fate as the “polar bear”, if so, how? If the bumphead is facilitating coral growth, where is this growth happening and to what extent?

Since as you say << The bumphead’s vulnerability to fishing has been well-documented by scientists >> and you have a PhD in this subject, I’m sure you will be able to supply the answers to these questions?

Whilst I support conservation, I cannot support conservationists. I never seem to get any information from them, just emotional rhetoric and alarmism, seemingly focused upon locking away from the public, huge tracts of our great natural wonders. Only “authorized” personnel get unrestricted access, Rangers and Conservationists.

Its articles like this that give conservationists a very bad name, eco-warriors will love it but you need to address a wider audience with some “facts” rather than gooey eyed emotion. This is not the work of a PhD; your missing data is why you have been asked to leave the boardroom.

Amen spindoc. All this propaganda does get tiresome.

Looked at another way, the bumphead parrotfish is a positive danger to the reef.

"The Bumphead Parrotfish needs healthy coral reefs for habitat and to meet its weighty dietary requirement: each individual Bumphead consumes more than five tons of coral per year, including living coral"

http://www.wildearthguardians.org/Portals/0/support_docs/parrotfish-factsheet-FINAL.pdf

Living coral, eh? How come the article forgot to point that out?

That sentence could equally easily have been used as the foundation of a "destroy all bumphead parrotfish, before they eat our reef totally away" campaign.

Especially if you couple it with this sentence from the same document.

"...by being a major coral predator and the primary erosion agent where it occurs, this parrotfish fundamentally shapes coral reefs."

This fish is the "primary erosion agent" of the reef. Good grief.

And they say that as if it is a good thing.

I'm sure the author means well. The reef would be nothing without all the pretty fishes. And yes, the reef is probably the most attractive single natural feature that Australia has to offer.

But why is it always necessary to spin the facts? We are mature enough to understand the bigger story, surely, without having to check every breathlessly-sensational factoid ourselves.

Severin,
either silence, or the jeering of cynics from the other side.
Forrest,
I did read your (unpopular) thread on the topic of popularity, but couldn't think what to contribute. Do you have a theory about these anomolies?
Spindoc,
I would hazard a guess that the extra information you seek can be found in the appropriate journal. Do you really think the author had room to go into all that detail, or that it would have suited an OLO readership? Excluding your learned Self of course.
Pericles,
according to your logic, we should kill all the humans before they destroy the planet!
As for your "research", I'll go out on a limb (or reef, I should say), and suggest that poor old Bumphead plays a sustaining role within the ecosystem of the reef? It did after all evolve there!
I also am sure the author meant well, and clearly yes, it was an environmental pamphlet--not "spin" though, I wouldn't think. Anyway, thankfully we have you and Hasbeen and spindoc to see through this kind of woolly compassionate nonsense.
Excuse the tone, I'm just dirty because you've trumped me for the most cynical line of the week.
I said, <The "sanctity of life", what a joke, only applies to humans, I'm afraid.> (I should have said "some" humans).
Your much cynical suit was:
<The reef would be nothing without all the pretty fishes. And yes, the reef is probably the most attractive single natural feature that Australia has to offer.>
Thank heavens we're here to appreciate the aesthetics of the reef (before it dies), otherwise it would be ... "nothing".
Ever the pragmatist eh?

It all depends on how you present the facts, Squeers, that's the point I was trying to bring out. There's obviously a penalty for attempting to be subtle, though.

>>Pericles, according to your logic, we should kill all the humans before they destroy the planet!<<

Not sure how you extract that from my post, but never mind.

>>I'll go out on a limb (or reef, I should say), and suggest that poor old Bumphead plays a sustaining role within the ecosystem of the reef? It did after all evolve there!<<

Don't have a problem with that. I was simply pointing out that headlines may be manipulated to suit the angle required. But, too subtle, obviously.

But this puzzles me a little.

>>I said, <The "sanctity of life", what a joke, only applies to humans, I'm afraid.><<

"Sanctity of life" is a concept that we tend to invoke when discussing such topics as abortion and euthanasia in humans. It is somewhat odd to see it applied, as I think you intend it to be applied, to the entire population of living creatures on earth.

Are you suggesting that we should put the survival of other species ahead of our own?

That would be very much against nature, which puts survival and procreation at the top of its to-do list.

Squeers, what a curious set of excuses you make for Nicole.

That you <<would hazard a guess>> I’m sure you would and yes it would be a hazard.

<< that the extra information you seek can be found in the appropriate journal>> It is not “extra” information Squeers, it is fundamental research critical to any article of this nature. If it can be found in any “appropriate journal” then where is the reference?

<< Do you really think the author had room to go into all that detail? >> Why not? I did it even within our word limit. Nicole should cover the research or reference it. She has a PhD for goodness sake!

<< or that it would have suited an OLO readership?>>. Yes it would Squeers, that’s what we do here on OLO, remember?

Since when did YOU get to decide what “suits an OLO readership

All is rhetoric, Pericles, even faux-objectivity.
The "sanctity of life" is, as you imply, traditionally vouchsafed for humans. Certainly nature doesn't hold with such twee notions. And as you say, <It is somewhat odd to see it applied, as I think you intend it to be applied, to the entire population of living creatures on earth.>
But surely since human's are capable of a great deal of "subtlety", outside their brutish needs, they can afford the luxury of empathising with other sentient beings?
I'm suggesting we should put the survival of other species on par with our own, since we have intellectually transcended brutish nature (or perhaps not). And as to your rhetorical question, <Are you suggesting that we should put the survival of other species ahead of our own>?
At going on 9 billion, I think we can afford to be magnanimous? Clearly you would prefer we follow nature's blueprint: proliferate at any cost?
Spindoc,
I hope the author will come on and defend herself.
There's no doubt scientists seem to be entering the PR war since being routed by the "spin" of the minimifidianists.
I have the utmost respect for the intellectual quotient of OLO, and its strong academic representation, but the average article's what, a thousand words? compared to 5 or 6 on average in a journal. And most of them are testing the water, or fomenting for one cause or another, surely? Like this author.
<Whilst I support conservation, I cannot support conservationists. I never seem to get any information from them, just emotional rhetoric and alarmism,>
Perhaps you should expand your reading; do you mean to suggest there is any doubt about our abuse of the planet, or that this "must" have consequences in a closed system?
Do you really put such articles down to spin and alarmism? Spin needs the right environment to get traction.
I'm more concerned with human potential than eco-politics; we are capable of assessing our actions, ethically and pragmatically, so why don't we?
This is the only game in town you know.

Well of course it is, Squeers

>>All is rhetoric, Pericles, even faux-objectivity<<

That's what we do here, is it not?

>>But surely since human's are capable of a great deal of "subtlety", outside their brutish needs, they can afford the luxury of empathising with other sentient beings?<<

Ye-e-e-e-es. Empathy is good. If unique - or most advanced, perhaps - in humans.

>>I'm suggesting we should put the survival of other species on par with our own<<

That's what I thought. And that is what I consider to be behaviour contrary to nature.

>>At going on 9 billion, I think we can afford to be magnanimous?<<

Going on seven, actually. A thirty percent exaggeration does nothing for your argument.

>>Clearly you would prefer we follow nature's blueprint: proliferate at any cost?<<

My word is survive, rather than proliferate. Most advanced countries already operate below replacement rate, which would seem to indicate that we broadly recognize what survival entails.

>>I'm more concerned with human potential than eco-politics; we are capable of assessing our actions, ethically and pragmatically, so why don't we?<<

In which case, why do you give animals equal status? Surely, pragmatism involves a realistic assessment of whether our chances of survival are improved or damaged by this approach.

Sentiment is a wonderfully human emotion, but it can also be detrimental to our health.

Well thanks for the response, Pericles, though there's nothing persuasive in it.
<Going on seven [billion], actually. A thirty percent exaggeration does nothing for your argument.>
Not an exagerration, old chap, but an error (reminds me of the Samuel Johnson admission; when asked for an explanation as to his (erroneous) curious, and presumedly learned, definition of a horses "pastern", the great man answered, "ignorance, dear Lady, sheer ignorance".
While I'm not averse to rhetoric, I deplore exagerration.
<My word is survive, rather than proliferate. Most advanced countries already operate below replacement rate, which would seem to indicate that we broadly recognize what survival entails.>
Apologies here too, I hadn't realised the human race was so precariously placed!
<why do you give animals equal status? Surely, pragmatism involves a realistic assessment of whether our chances of survival are improved or damaged by this approach.>
I give animals equal status, or at least consideration, due to my sense of ethics. Though, pragmatically, I also recognise bio-diversity, and sufficient species/habitat representation, as vital to human survival. The biosphere is of course a matrix of interdependent life forms; the imbalance we continue to precipitate is bound to have dire consequences--and not merely aesthetically; "the pretty fishes" etc.
Believe me, Pericles, I'm not wallowing in mere sentiment.