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There are dates that really stick in the mind. Take 1844, in that year the blight that
decimated the potato crop in Ireland arrived and one million people would die
as a result. Such times deserve closer
inspection because they often signal a sea change. Just as for all of us there are years that we remember for all
sorts of emotional/practical reasons.
Ask anyone and they can usually site their own year to remember, often for
catastrophic reasons. The year
everything went pear shaped. So, I was
fascinated to read of the history of the Great Auk. The original penguin was originally so numerous that Iceland and
Newfoundland were packed with these flightless birds. Then humans got stuck in and used them for meat and mattress
stuffing as pointed out in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by
Elizabeth Kolbert
“You do not give yourself the trouble of killing them,
reported an English sailor, “but lay hold of one and pluck the best …. You then
turn the poor penguins adrift, with his skin half naked and torn off to perish
at his leisure.”
It was June 1844 when the last of this unfortunate species
was strangled by Icelandic hunters. A
sorry end to a once abundant species.
Of course we’ve been here before.
The Dodo’s are portrayed almost as a humorous creature deserving of
extinction. If you are careless enough
to forget how to fly – you really deserve everything that comes to you, seems
to be the bottom line.
But even those who fly are being wiped out. Last year the usual millions of monarch
butterflies that return to the mountainous fir forests of central Mexico every
year for the first time in living memory did not appear on the 1st
November as usual. Traditionally the
butterflies are thought to be the souls of the dead returned and Mexicans celebrate
it as a holy Day ‘The Day of the Dead’.
In 2012 there was concern when only 60 million of the butterflies
eventually turned up. By the end of Nov
2013 only three million arrived. The
spectacular migration, many think, could be approaching collapse.
The causes are human ignorance. We cannot blame Icelandic hunters or cruel mid nineteen century
sailors. No, it is due to the way we
choose to farm, ploughing every scrap of earth, the use of Roundup a herbicide
that kills virtually all plants except the genetically modified to survive
it. Millions of acres of native
species, especially Milkweed have been wiped out. In one study Iowa was shown to have lost 60% of its milkweed and
then another study depressingly claimed 90% was actually gone. We have sterilized our agriculture
landscape. So what I hear some
ask? Well, 80% of our food crops are
pollinated by insects primarily bees.
They like butterflies are in trouble.
The intricate food web that connects life forms on this planet is being
ripped apart. The intricacies of
interdependence that we are only beginning to understand and wonder at, is
being destroyed at a frighteningly wanton rate.
Some Monarchs finding themselves parasite laden, turn to
more toxic types of milkweed which helps kill their unwelcome guests. Bees have long used resins from aspen and
willow trees to line their nests and these anti fungal, anti-microbial and
antiviral substances help them fight infection and diseases. Such wonders of nature are being treated
with cavalier indifference and ruthless expediency. When you insist on a nice green lawn you’ve created an insect
desert. Have a front yard with a
wildflower meadow and the same area can accommodate 20/30 species of bees and
butterflies.
But unfortunately it doesn’t stop at flightless birds and
insects. By recent estimation one third
of reef corals, one third of freshwater molluscs, one third of sharks, a fifth
of all reptiles, a quarter of all mammals and a sixth of all birds will be like
the Great Auk, extinct this century.
The last great extinction (the fifth) happened 66 million
years ago. It has been entitled with no
exaggeration ‘The worst day ever on planet Earth’ and three quarters of
all known species were wiped out.
However, in truth, an even worse extinction happened 252
million years ago when 96% of all marine species, 70% of all terrestrial
vertebrates and the only mass extinction of insects ever to have occurred. In fact, it took life on our planet 10
million years to recover. Extinctions
do happen, they may be many millenniums apart but they are a feature of our
planet. One 450 million years ago was
due to the movement of the earth’s plates into the southern pole region which
caused global cooling and mass extinction.
Another extinction was caused by a collision of an asteroid. I suppose the accurate summary here is, shit
happens.
It is no comfort to note that present extinctions are not
something that has happened to us by chance or fate but by our own hands. I suppose the truthful summary here is –
sometimes we make shit happen.
