Why a Rat Had To Die

When the last pig-tailed bandicoot disappeared from Australia 80 years ago, there were no mourners. Such a muted reaction is understandable, given that the bandicoot looked like a very large rat. It’s also one of many small mammals that have gone extinct in Australia over the last two centuries.

The pig-tailed bandicoot is noteworthy because it encapsulates the contradictions conservationists face when they rail against the extinction of plants and animals. I drew the bandicoot example from the new book titled The Future of Life by Pellegrino University Research Professor E. O. Wilson, who spoke at ARCO Forum last week about the crisis facing thousands of species of plants and animals that have been driven to the brink of extinction in part by human activity. He makes a very convincing argument that humans can save untold thousands—perhaps even millions—of species by protecting their habitats and halting wholesale exploitation of wilderness areas. But Wilson does not convincingly explain why we should save any specific plant or animal species.

Certainly, some species of plants found only in remote rainforests could be the source of potent human drugs. Some animals are necessary to keep pests from eating away farmers’ fields. But vast numbers of species are unlikely to be useful to humans. They may be interesting for scientists and pleasing to look at, but the pig-tailed bandicoots of the world are not often missed. That unconcern may be for the best. Spending millions of dollars to save, say, the California condor can divert precious resources away from saving entire ecosystems with scores or even hundreds of species. The sad truth is that the natural world cannot be preserved in its current state. Worrying about single species obscures the larger challenge of preserving entire ecosystems.

Even so, the question remains: is it really bad if species such as the pig-tailed bandicoot go extinct? Wilson attempts to explain the value of biodiversity, using a combination of utilitarian and purely moral arguments for saving species. Humanity, he argues, is driving straight for a cliff, and driving fast. Two hundred thousand humans are born each day, and conservative projections have the world population topping off around 10 billion late this century. With so many humans competing for rapidly-shrinking resources, both food and water are likely to become exceedingly scarce. And when animals have to compete with humans for food, the animals always lose. Humans are just not playing fair.

Our species has driven other species to extinction for thousands of years, and the process has only sped up in the last 200. A 1999 report in the journal Science showed that the extinction of a large Australian bird called Genyornis newtoni 50,000 years ago was likely due to the colonization of the continent by humans. Around the same time, a whopping 85 percent of Australian land animals larger than about 100 pounds went extinct. The evidence shows that the Australian penchant for barbecues was significantly responsible for that die-off.

There seems to be something innately wrong with the extinction of thousands of types of animals and plants every year. But when Wilson tries to explain what is wrong, he flounders. “There is no way to make a full and final valuation of the ivorybill [woodpecker] or any other species in the natural world,” he writes. Their value comes “from scattered and unconnected facts and elusive emotions that break through the surface of the subconscious mind, occasionally to be captured by words, although never adequately.”

This mystical view of the value of a species, which Wilson calls “biophilia,” may be valid. But people also like big houses, televisions and SUVs. The profit that comes from the clear-cutting a tropical rainforest usually trumps any biophilia felt by the citizens of developing nations. Wilson refers to the human “occupation” of the earth in much the same tones as one would refer to the Chinese occupation of Tibet. But the occupation is here to stay, and the question is how we treat those plants and animals that live under our domination.

Instead of worrying about individual species, environmentalists should worry primarily about entire ecosystems. The pig-tailed bandicoot had no mourners. But the ecosystem in the entire Australian outback is the concern of millions of people. It is in our best interest to preserve large swaths of wilderness and thereby save as many species as possible. It plays to human self-interest because a diversity of species makes land and sea more productive in the long-term. Many conservation groups have been involved in drives to buy up tracts of wilderness to preserve them from rapacious corporations. Such efforts (which Wilson endorses) are the best hope we have for saving many of earth’s species. And if a few obscure beasties must die to let the others live, that’s the price we all must pay. Let the bandicoots die in peace.

Jonathan H. Esensten ’04 is a biochemical sciences concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.