It’s a blasphemous question; of course it should be saved. Anytime a species is threatened with extinction our response is consistent—we do what we can to save it. But is this always the right response?
The sage grouse population has dropped precipitously due to human activity and a shockingly low resistance to the West Nile virus. A study in 2004 found sage grouse had zero antibodies for the virus. On February 18, 2014 an emergency federal order came into effect drastically regulating human activity in sage grouse habitat in Alberta and Saskatchewan in the hopes of saving this beautiful bird. This emergency order is controversial because of the burden it places on those industries that share this geographical region with the sage grouse and because it’s unclear how effective this plan is.
The utility and efficacy of the emergency order is not the subject of this article. My question is larger. The Earth is entering uncharted territory. For the first time in history there isn’t a square kilometer on Earth that isn’t affected by humankind.
This has long reaching consequences. Humans are increasingly in competition with other species for habitat. While some species are adaptive and resilient, most are extremely sensitive and fragile because they live in narrowly defined environments (small ranges and geographically concentrated). Human population has shown no signs of abating for the foreseeable future. And as the competition for habitat increases the number of threatened species will rise even more. If you believe in climate change the situation is more dire. According to a 2004 study published in Nature between 15-37% of species will become extinct by 2050 due to climate change. Any projections of the future aren’t perfect and obviously the exact numbers are in dispute, but it’s safe to say if things continue as they have been more species will become threatened that we can save. Think of the resources already committed to saving the sage grouse, a single species, now multiply that by 10 or 100 or 1000.
We won’t be able to save them all. And if we cannot save all of them we need some way of deciding which ones live and which die.
There are two schools of thought when it comes to conservation. The first is to somehow return areas to a pre-human Edenic condition. While this may appeal to our romantic ideas about nature this conservation philosophy is becoming increasingly unrealistic. The second, more pragmatic, method is to manage eco-systems. We protect the areas we can and other areas we concentrate our resources to protect the species that are vital to eco-systems. We do this using the best science we have about which species are critical components of the ecological web (keystone species)—and which are not. Of course, we will make mistakes because our knowledge of the biosphere isn’t perfect. But it will get better and better.
So we return to our main question—should the sage grouse be saved? I don’t know, but as painful and difficult as it might be—the answer is not an automatic yes.
Medicine Hat News. May 2015.