By: Jim Taylor
Facing
extinction
The news announced that there are only 14
spotted owls still alive in the wild.
Fourteen.
That’s all.
Fifteen years ago, there were
200. Before commercial logging started, over a thousand.
Once upon a time, perhaps millions. They lived in a
small area of old growth forests north of Whistler, B.C.
But the human hunger for
timber-framed houses, and the corporate hunger for profits, meant that most of
their habitat has been destroyed by clear-cut logging.
Now there are 14 of these owls
left in the whole world.
They don’t know about the rest
of the world, of course. But they do know about their immediate shortage of
potential partners.
I wonder how I would feel if
there were only 13 other members of my species left. There are, by coincidence,
about that many people living along our lane. Suppose every other human being
on earth were to disappear—poof!—leaving just our lane, to survive on our own.
Or to perish…
Would the men battle over women
of child-bearing age, killing off more of our already limited gene pool? Would
the women become baby machines?
Or would we just sink into a
slough of despair and wait for the inevitable end?
I’m filled with a great sadness,
that we should inflict this crisis on any species.
An ongoing process
Yes, I know, species have gone extinct before. And species will
go extinct again. But we seem to have come to a cusp of history, when their
demise can be traced to human intervention—intentional or not.
The World Conservation Union
issues an annual Red List of Endangered Species. This year’s says that one in
three amphibians, one in four mammals, one in eight birds, and an astounding 70
per cent of plants are believed to be at risk of extinction, with human
alteration of habitat the single biggest cause.
The main changes from previous
assessments include some of the animals we think of as icons, such as
Two friends—separately—visited
the great gorillas. Both called their peaceful encounters with the huge hairy
beasts among the most spiritually moving experiences of their lives.
I felt the same way about
seeing a tiger. Up close. Live. And
wild.
A sense of loss
We may be the last generation to have that
opportunity. By the time my granddaughter is old enough to travel, there may be
no gorillas, polar bears, or tigers left to see—victims of climate change and
ever-expanding human population.
Perhaps, if you believe these
species evolved by chance, by random mutations, you’ll see their demise as a
natural progression, nothing to get upset about.
I don’t believe that God
created them, in their current format, in seven days, 6,000 years ago. Nor do I
believe that the present state of nature was God’s ultimate intention, umpteen
zillion years ago. God’s creation continues to unfold.
But I still feel a deep sense
of loss. For spotted owls and polar bears, and for me.
*****************************************
Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study
groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
*****************************************