rename Garrett "peter pinochio"
sonofgloin,
Pinochio talked sense ! Also he had solid wood between the ears whereas your candidate has solid bone.

oooh!, that was nasty individual...poor PG
NSB

Hi KerryAnn,
This extinction of many species is a curly one....do we have the right to extinguish species of our own volition?, as living creatures, we all have the same right to life I reckon. If I could choose what creature(s)I would like to extinguish, I would extinguish people who raise crops that need heaps of water, like tomatoes, and especially cotton and rice, it is a terrible drain on the most precious and vital resource that we have, that which requires large amounts of water to grow the above mentioned, should really be imported from those areas abroad which have an enviable amount of water falling on their country.
Cheers Kerryann.
NSB

Lexi there are two sides to this story.

Yes, we do make it hard for many species, however, we also provide more food for many others than they could have possibly imagined.

As such, they breed in plague proportions.

So the big question is, do we stop and go back to the stone age, or, do we do what we have been doing for years now and do our bit for the sake of all on the planet.

<< If this process continues, according to biologists, more than a million species will be extinct by the end of the century. >>

Lexi, I totally share your concerns. But may I complicate the matter somewhat, from my ecologist’s viewpoint.

Firstly, not all species are equal. There are key species with major impacts in their ecosystems, which would change things greatly if they went extinct. There are insignificant species that could disappear with little consequence for other species or for their ecosystems. And there is everything in between.

There are lots of species with close evolutionary relatives. Arguably if species with close relatives disappeared, we would not be losing as much biological heritage as for really distinct species with no close relatives.

And there are lots of species with close ecological niche relatives. That is, with others sharing the same or similar niches. If they disappeared, others would just fill in the gap, whereas if a species that occupies a niche that others can’t easily fill, the impact could be much greater.

Then we have the eternal problem of the definition of a species. Many closely related forms could pretty arbitrarily be considered to be different species, different subspecies or just different variants or populations of a species. There is a lot of inconsistency across the biological field in this regard. For that matter, there is glaring inconsistency within many families, genera and even relatively small groups of species.

And then there are changed ecological conditions which change species balances, favouring some and prejudicing others, thus causing a lot of upheaval and death of individuals without involving extinctions.

continued

There are probably many species that are just surviving and would be pushed out by small changes, if not caused by humans, then by something else in the near future. Species come and go naturally. Some of them would be at a point in the cycle where they are about to drop off the planet anyway.

Some species are greatly advantaged by human activity, not least weeds and feral animals. Many weeds and ferals greatly affect other species, even in areas not disturbed by human activity.

So the whole story is complex.

However, this does not lessen the fact that humanity is having an almighty impact on species and ecosystem around the world.