Nature: That's Just Species We Haven't Eaten Yet

On the same day that I was laughing at the uproar caused by a Tongan family eating their dog, I heard an environmentalist complaining that the flying fox was moving south.

To both these things, I have to ask, “so what?” (This is not existential angst driven by another approaching birthday, either.)

First of all, and I reckon we can knock this one on the head pretty quickly, some people ate their dog and the New Zealand SPCA got their knickers in a knot about it. The Chief Exec had this to say:

"Over the next few days, we hope to talk to Tongan community leaders and enlist their involvement in making the community more aware that slaughtering and eating pets is unacceptable,"

This racist goes by the name of Robyn Kippenberger. Her family were obviously famous for slaughtering kippens for their meals, so she needs to pull her head in. I bet she’s a vegan, so, you know, she’s undernourished and in a bad temper. I hope the Tongan community leaders answer the front door to her while thoughtfully chewing on terrier leg.

She’s a speciesist, as well. The last time I met a cow, it had the biggest brown eyes, and the cutest eyelashes, and it knew when to go in to be milked and definitely recognised its name. I also had the yummiest steak for dinner. Robyn hasn’t ear-bashed my community leaders yet.

Why does this relate to flying foxes moving south? Well, yet again, I feel there’s some one-eyed self importance going on, but this one is harder to justify.

The flying fox is moving south, reportedly because of climate change and there is a significant risk that more cases of Hendra virus will occur because bats are excellent carriers of it.

Apparently, the virus is particularly rough on horses. If the horses are stupid enough to be kissing bats, they get what they deserve. But, with the equine flu epidemic fresh in my mind, I have to ask again - what the hell do we use horses for anyway? They are not useful for anything other than gambling and I bet Aristocrat could fill that gaping chasm if it appeared.

Ok, I’ve gone off track here a bit, but the same person who was bleating on about bats migrating, was also telling me how bad species extinction is in general. Like it’s never happened before. On any other day, I would probably basically agree with them, but the holier-than-thou tone stuck in my craw, so I started thinking of how I would argue with them if I was doing the interview.

First of all – preservation of species. Really. For what reason? We haven’t been able to do it in the past. In fact, we’ve only been here for ten minutes and before us there were mass extinctions all the time. The Cambrian explosion saw the beginning of most types of complex life, but almost none of it survives today. What nostalgic yearning makes us believe we can halt the process? There’s epochism going on as well. Suspending evolution maintains things in their niche. Where are the niche fillers of the future going to go if we’ve stopped everything? (Like we could.)

If the answer is that we are the cause of the die-off and therefore should stop it, that’s sort of like saying we’re operating outside nature and shouldn’t really be here. In the grand scheme of things, we should also legislate against big meteors slamming into the earth.

If the argument comes from flat-out self-preservation, I can respect it. We need the Amazon because of all of the likely cures for stuff we will find in there, but don’t get all misty eyed about the spiky haired, six toed marmoset, he’s done nothing for you lately, except look cute.

The next time some sandal wearer marches into an area and announces that it’s of environmental importance, they should only be allowed to stop people from farming there if their own family is willing to live on exactly the same income as the locals.

I want to hear an environmentalist get righteous about the extinction (or near extinction) of polio and smallpox. If they don’t, they’re just being hypocritical. The bio-diversity argument is only attractive while you’re defending charismatic mega-fauna. As soon as the kids are put at risk, all bets are off.

The mosquito is the deadliest animal on earth. If you could drive into extinction the mosquito that carries malaria and save a million human lives a year, I reckon you’d be mad not to give it a go. (And possibly immoral. I’m not sure. I find ethics confusing.)

As for those panda breeding programs that are finally starting to become successful… well, there we are just fooling around with the forces of evolution in ways that will come back and bite us on the bum anyway.