Reptiles On The Brink

It was only a matter of time before conservationists got around to evaluating global reptile populations. And when they did—surprise, surprise!—the news was not so good. Science Daily provides the details in Slithering Towards Extinction: Reptiles in Trouble.

Feb. 14, 2013 — Nineteen percent of the world's reptiles are estimated to be threatened with extinction, states a paper published February 14 by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in conjunction with experts from the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC).

The study, printed in the journal of Biological Conservation, is the first of its kind summarising the global conservation status of reptiles [link below]. More than 200 world renowned experts assessed the extinction risk of 1,500 randomly selected reptiles from across the globe.

Out of the estimated 19% of reptiles threatened with extinction, 12% classified as Critically Endangered, 41% Endangered and 47% Vulnerable...

Dr. Monika Böhm, lead author on the paper: "Reptiles are often associated with extreme habitats and tough environmental conditions, so it is easy to assume that they will be fine in our changing world.

"However, many species are very highly specialised in terms of habitat use and the climatic conditions they require for day to day functioning. This makes them particularly sensitive to environmental changes," Dr. Böhm added.

Extinction risk is not evenly spread throughout this highly diverse group: freshwater turtles are at particularly high risk, mirroring greater levels of threat in freshwater biodiversity around the world.

Overall, this study estimated 30% of freshwater reptiles to be close to extinction, which rises to 50% when considering freshwater turtles alone, as they are also affected by national and international trade.

The image accompanying the text is taken from the Turtles In Trouble, a 2011 report by the Turtle Conservation Society which focuses on the world’s 25+ most endangered tortoises and freshwater turtles.

You can read the study itself here (pdf, Biological Conservation 157 (2013) 372–385).

I do not feel like beating around the bush today.

Life on Earth is in the early stages of a rapidly accelerating mass extinction due to the rapacious activity of a bipedal, big-brained primate which can neither control its own population size, nor curb its bottomless appetite for greater convenience and more stuff, including other animals.These primates are only peripherally aware that their actions are wreaking such great destruction, as I shall demonstrate with this quote from The Guardian—

But the risk of extinction was found to be unevenly spread throughout the extremely diverse group of animals. According to the paper, an alarming 50% of all freshwater turtles are close to extinction, possibly because they are traded on international markets.

Possibly because these freshwater turtles are traded on international markets?

You get my point.

We are entitled to ask some simple questions about the future trajectory of this mass extinction, to wit—

What will a survey like this one find 40 or 50 years from now? That 50% of  the world's reptiles are on the verge of extinction? That almost all of the world's tortoises and freshwater turtles are gone?

Will conservationists even be doing such surveys 40 or 50 years from now? Maybe they won't be able to carry them out, or maybe they'll be saying "what's the point?"

The first video below (reptiles) has had 954 views on youtube. The second one (mass extinctions) has had 7 views.

Justin Bieber's As Long As You Love Me has had 113,827,555 views.

So please remind me now in 2013 — what's the point?

 

 

Comments

[Diogenes]

Who th'fk is Justin Bieber? Guess I'm way out of touch - and I'm not gonna go looking.

For anyone interested, last December Summer Rayne Oakes uploaded her 2010 film eXtinction...

http://vimeo.com/26854560

15,700 views so far on Vimeo - bout a thousand on youtube.

I "hope" all those views aren't just for the boobs.

"What's the point?"...my eastern brain is saying "no-point"

Thanks

[Dave Cohen]

@Diogenes

Who the fuck is Justin Bieber?

You poor man, you're just so out of touch ;-)

-- Dave

[NoHype]

More proof that "markets" (i.e.: macro expressions of human behavior) are neither self-regulating nor rational. The more scarce something becomes, the more it is traded. The more traded it becomes... well, you get the point.

[Oliver]

I have asked myself that very question ever since I was a pissed off 17 year old and an avid reader of Kurt Vonnegut, listener to Pink Floyd and viewer of Monty Python.

Decades later, I have concluded that the point is, there is no point. This statement seems facile and glib at first sight, but to me it means that we - or rather, some of us - are always searching for a reason to explain the way things are, and in particular, why they are a monumental fuck-up, when in reality there is no reason involved. It's just the way things are (which is probably what the last freshwater turtle will be thinking, as it looks in vain for a mate).

Religions are invented to divert people from this realization. Other forms of denial and diversion are available to stop sentient people from going for a long walk on a short pier.

The upside is I enjoy chewing the cud with you Dave, and your other readers. It's a form of Epicureanism, which is the studious avoidance of pain wherever possible.

[Jack Jones]

A month or so back I read an account from somewhere in Mongolia that two females of our species had hacked one another to death with machetes over the last piece of firewood in order to cook that nights dinner. Pretty much what can be expected for the balance of our species.

So it goes..... K. Vonnegut

[Diogenes]

"...always searching for a reason..."

No problem. "Good reasons" are plentiful...they're everywhere - like blades of grass in a big green yard. Go out, cover your eyes, spin around and grab one.

There y'go...then,on to the next.

[Shawntoh]

Thanks for the update, Dave, on the reptiles even if it's not what we want to hear and I've never heard a single sliver of sound that I could identify as Justin Bieber but I'm still astonished how prescient Ian Curtis could be in his lyrics in May of 1978...

The Drawback
(by Joy Division)

Seen the troubles and the evils of this world
I've seen the stretches between godliness and sin
I've had the promise and confessions of true faith
And the hypocrisy that always lies within
And they left it for you - all of this for you --

I've seen the products and the other world of waste
I've seen the colour of corruption deep within
I've seen them lose themselves in dignity and taste
To see in black and white and through to black again
And they left it for you - all of this for you --

And they left it for you - all of this for you
And they left it for you - everything for you
I've seen the troubles and the evils of this world
I've seen the ones who can succeed but always lose
I've seen what's left of poor technology and work
And watched them dying as they leave their ship of fools
And they left it for you - all of this for you --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dupVBWmM_g

[Mike Roberts]

Justin Beiber seems to be in the news frequently and regularly. I use the term "news" loosely as most of what is in the "news" is centred around celebrity. Look at the coverage given to Oscar Pretorius (the famous South African paraplegic runner, who runs as fast on prosthetic legs as many top able bodied runners) when his crime was one of over 40 such murders per day in South Africa, which get no coverage outside of South Africa (assuming that New Zealand overseas "news" is typical). So, with the masses being fed images and stories of things that matter not at all to anyone, it's hardly surprising that the connected masses will look for Justin Bieber (or any other celebrity) when they go to get their You Tube fix. The stuff that does matter has to be searched for; people have to actually do some work to find it, instead of having it spoon fed to them in what claims to be "news" programmes or "news" papers.

Yesterday's post ripples through everything. There is no authentic hope.

[Makati1]

Anyone who is so out of the loop that he doesn't know who J.B. is is the lucky one. I only know through my young friends who are addicted to such drivel.

We homo sapiens are destroying the world just as the asteroid did 65 million years ago. When we are extinct, Mother Nature will have to start over. I hope it happens this century so there is something left for her to work with.

[art]

There probably is no point but it makes me feel better to know there is someone out there who knows what is going on.

[Alexander Ač]

What would Brad DeLong have said to this? Because one cannot be BOTH depressed by lack of economic growth as well as by species destruction/extinction. So he MUST be happy about reptiles in trouble!!

Cheers,

Alex