Certain animals, like dolphins, polar bears, whales and the northern hairy-nosed wombat are struggling for their existence while other animals, such as cows and chickens are not. Why is this? Are there general rules we can be extrapolate from this phenomenon? If so, is it possible to use these rules and a little economics to reverse this seemingly irreversible trend?
Well let’s see…
One main difference between the species that are endangered and those that aren’t is that we kill more of those that aren’t. Cows, chickens and lambs are slaughtered everyday while any whaling expedition is met with outrage by much of the international community. This raises the question: why are whale populations declining so dramatically while those bovine counterparts are doing just the opposite? Indeed, it’s arguable that if it weren’t for humans, cows would’ve gone extinct a long time ago. However, deciding that we should allow anyone to slaughter all the whales they want is a bit extreme.
Let’s examine this a bit further.
Why are cows and chickens being slaughtered en masse? The most obvious answer is: nutrition. We, as a species, started to domesticate animals in order to derive nutrients from their meat, their milk, their eggs, and so forth; not to mention their ability to do work for us such as in tilling the soil. So, logically, people started to keep these animals for themselves to provide a source of wealth and sustenance. Then, at some moment in time, some enterprising individuals had the foresight to realize that they could keep more than they needed and sell the excess produce for a profit. It then became in their best interest to keep these animals’ populations sustainable. In other words, farmer John won’t slaughter all of his cows tomorrow because after feasting on beef for a couple weeks, he will not have anything left to eat, nor to use for making money. This guarantees that cows will continue to roam our pastures for the foreseeable future.
Whales are also used for food, oil, perfume, and other products. Why then, aren’t the fishermen trying to keep them alive and populations thriving as well? The reason is simple: ownership. If a whaler in New Zealand decides not to slaughter a whale, he knows that a Japanese whaler will, and be all the better off for it. It is in no one’s interest to let these creatures live, since they can be snatched up at any point by someone else.
Our proposal, therefore, is to allow ownership of these creatures. If certain whales, as well as their offspring, are owned by someone, that person will not want to kill them off. Of course, we will have to allow these people to use and/or sell them for their own purposes, but we will be virtually guaranteed that they will not die out, since that would be in nobody’s interest.
We recognize that it is impossible to keep whales fenced in and while we are by no means experts in this field, we do believe it would not be too hard to tag whales and keep track of their offspring (through genetic tags) as is currently done with other animals, such as sturgeon. Of course, it might be easier to start a pilot program with penguins.
Tragedy of the Commons! (google it)
A small stylistic point:
Most TV and radio reporters nowadays use the expression “begs the question” to mean “raises the question”. We are probably witnessing one of those evolutions in English usage, whereby the expressions have now become interchangeable. Traditionally, however, “begging the question” is a form of logical fallacy. For example “Americans wanted to have an African-American President, so they elected Barack Obama.” By this reasoning, America could just have easily elected Janice Jackson as President.
Or Latoya, who is demonstrating the most impressive diplomatic skills on British celebrity big brother. And if you can bring peace and goodwill in there, you can probably do it anywhere.
As for protecting whales and penguins – it’s a fascinating idea, has it ever been considered publicly before, that you know of?
Senectus: Touché. I assume you meant Janet Jackson in your example.
Rebecca: I don’t think it has yet, but it should be started. For penguins there could be an “Adopt a penguin” foundation. You heard it here first.