The Last of Their Kind - endangered species - includes related articles on Endangered Species Act, and 10 threatened species

E: The Environmental Magazine, May, 1999 by Jim Motavalli, Jennifer Bogo

As the War on Wildlife Continues, We're Losing Species at an Incredible Rate

The big, slow-moving Galapagos tortoise is one of the most endangered animals on Earth, confined to dwindling populations on just five islands. On one of these islands so memorably visited by Charles Darwin, a solitary male tortoise survives. Galapagos tortoises, which can grow to over 500 pounds, live to 100 and take 20 years to reach sexual maturity, are protected today, but there is a long history of calamitous contact with the human race. Nineteenth-century whalers used to toss a clutch of live tortoises on their backs in the ships' holds, using them as a valuable source of fresh meat and oil. These days, the tortoise's main enemies are domestic animals, introduced species like goats, dogs and pigs.

The Galapagos tortoise's survival in the wild is in doubt, but that doesn't mean the wealthy are denied the pleasure of keeping one as a pet. The live reptile trade has grown enormously in recent years, and more than nine million turtles and snakes were exported from the U.S. in 1996. The Captive Bred Wildlife Foundation in Arizona (its slogan is "When Turtles Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Turtles") would be happy to sell you a young Galapagos tortoise for $3,500, and it's perfectly legal provided you have a federal permit. What's more, for just $20, you can get a TROVAN microchip transponder implanted in its body so you're sure the valuable tortoise in question is your own. Jeff Gee, who runs the reptile farm, says that a species' value is "intrinsic, based on rarity or availability of the animal. I guarantee you could take a canary, put it on the Endangered Species list, and tomorrow it would be worth $250."

Endangered species remain global big business, despite worldwide treaties like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the Species Survival Commission of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), as well as national protections like the Endangered Species Act, now undergoing a contentious renewal process (see sidebar). Protection on paper is no guarantee that a species will recover. Not only do all the laws and treaties contain loopholes, but enforcement on the ground is difficult at best. Endangered animals are slaughtered for trophies and traditional medicines, made homeless by development, caught up in wars and eaten as "bush meat."

Though species have a definite right to exist for their own reasons, it's also true that they're disappearing before we fully understand their ecological significance to the planet as a whole. That's a tragedy when applied to rare medicinal plants, but it's relevant for animals as well. An entirely new bird species was discovered in Tanzania in 1991. Unfortunately, the specimens were in a bird exporter's shop, and two were already dead and the other two dying. An increasingly endangered West African chimpanzee subspecies, Pan troglodytes troglodytes, was recently revealed to harmlessly harbor an AIDS-like virus that could solve the mystery of the disease's origins in humans--and lead to a cure.

The numbers are as stark as ever, pointing to what biologist E.O. Wilson calls a "sixth extinction" of species comparable to the mass die-off of dinosaurs. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) calculates that one-third of all U.S. plants and animals are at risk of extinction. Since European discovery of North America, 110 irreplaceable flora and fauna have disappeared forever, and another 416 are "missing" and presumed lost. Almost 7,000 U.S. species are threatened. According to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, 50,000 plants and animals become extinct worldwide every year. Within 50 years, one quarter of the world's species could be gone.

Larry Master, TNC's chief zoologist, says the group must perform a kind of triage, devoting resources only in specific instances where it thinks intervention will provide a survival edge. TNC's protected land, some nine million acres in the U.S. and Canada, is the only extant habitat for some severely depleted species. But for every modest success story, like the piping plover and the Peregrine falcon, there are many losses.

Compassion Fatigue

Just as "compassion fatigue" has been identified as an unfortunate syndrome, so too have warnings about imminent extinction sometimes fallen on deaf ears. "Save the Whales" is derided as a slogan from the 1960s, and as a crusade whose goals have already been achieved. Whales are more popular than ever before--as symbols of the majesty of nature, or as entertainment--but whale-watching expeditions don't in themselves save species. One reason endangered whales aren't bouncing back from the brink is that illegal and irresponsible hunting still occurs. According to the journal Nature, Harvard biologists recently found, through DNA testing, that whale meat for sale in Japanese markets came from a rare hybrid bluefin whale caught off the coast of Iceland, supposedly for "scientific" purposes.