Scottish conservationists are expending time and effort to hunt down American mink and shoot them.
Their intent is to protect local species such as water voles and moorhen, who apparently cannot compete with minks.
Why the favoritism? Why should we care whether one species is predominant, or another?
It's one thing if a species, foreign or domestic, is causing direct damage to humans. But if it's just displacing one set of species in the ecosystem with another, what's the problem?
The ecosystem will adapt.
Showing 4 out of 4 comments, oldest first:
Comment on Feb 1, 2011 at 19:25 by j
Look at the Dust Bowl in the '30's which was partly caused by the introduction of cattle over bison so an invasive species over a native one.
Yes, the eco-system may adapt but people are affected in many, many ways.
Comment on Feb 2, 2011 at 12:59 by denisbider
Conservation of endangered species only because they are endangered seems a suspect goal to me. Especially if the intent is to conserve such species in the wild, because it implies a commitment to long-term, large scale ecosystem management to prevent the weak species from going extinct.
I sympathize with conserving species that provide some benefit to humans, e.g. polar bears because they're iconic and cute.
But I'm not really passionate about moorhens. As far as I'm concerned, their existence doesn't provide any greater value to me than the existence of mink.
Preservation of weak species in the wild is a futile effort because it's evident from past evolution that infinite preservation is not intended. Things come, things go. If we try to conserve things, we should try to conserve the few that we really like, for some reason, not any and every weak species just because it's going extinct.
Comment on Feb 11, 2011 at 12:39 by Anonymous
Wait and see. Vervet monkeys will overthrow the government soon.
Comment on Feb 11, 2011 at 17:41 by denisbider