We lost a dolphin last year (the baiji) but we may actually save the polar bear, and countless other species with it, including ourselves.
take the ghost stirring in an animal (Robin Blaser)
First, the bad news: the baiji is functionally extinct. This, the Chinese river dolphin, “the goddess of the Yangtze,” is the first aquatic mammal since the 1950’s to succumb to human impacts. It is also the first cetacean (whale, dolphin, porpoise) to disappear in recent history. It did not die from being overhunted, it died because of its tendency to be bycatch and to be pulled up by nets targeting other species. Our freshwater systems remain the most endangered in the world, and the loss of the baiji is evidence that we cannot outrun the devastation we continue to inflict upon them for long.
Each species is a world in itself. (E. O. Wilson)
Days after the scientists that probed the Yangtze searching for the dolphin announced it’s demise, the Bush Administration unexpectedly declared that they would propose listing the polar bear as an endangered species. The implications of this listing are monumental, as the primary agent causing the polar bear to be threatened is global warming and the melting of the arctic ice. These amazing creatures live in enormous ranges passing around the Arctic circle from Alaska to Siberia and back, swimming between the ice floes. As these ice flows disappear, the polar bears risk drowning as they traverse the top of the globe, searching out food.
make us see far (Rg Veda 8.48.4)
Their listing, and the hopeful strengthening of the presently gutted Endangered Species Act under a Democratically-controlled Congress, will mean that direct action to curb global warming and protect the Arctic will become mandated. It means we may have hope that our sluggish, backward looking ship of state might turn itself around and move in a way that will slow, stall, or even prevent, the storm of extinction that threatens on the horizon.
For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life. (William Blake)
Related Links
http://www.baiji.org/start.html
http://worldwildlife.org/freshwater/projects.cfm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20061227-12111300-bc-us-polarbears-crn.xml
http://www.terrapass.com/
