Re: Baiji Dolphin
Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 4:27 am
diplodocus wrote:
> so sorry I missed the 'thylacine' and the passenger pigeon, but
> I don't know if they were caused by mankinds activities
They were. Hunting.
> I'm sure if you asked most people to name a major extinction in
> living memory they wouldn't come up with those without a google
> search
Both are given in GCSE Biology classes as 'classic' exemplars of extinction.
What worries me more is the tendency [subconsciously alluded to by your
good self] to concentrate on so-called 'higher' species- the rest of
the biota [i.e. most of it] is equally if not more important, and removal of
ANY species from a food-web has immediate and drastic inplications for all
the others.
Thousands of insects are now extinct entirely as a result of human activity;
my particular obsession is the wholesale extinction of species-flocks- the
copepods of Lake Baikal [pollution], the galaxiid 'Austral Trout' of New
Zealand [introduction of Northern brown- and rainbow-trout], and even
the fantastically-diverse cichlid fish flock of Lake Victoria is down from a
count in the 70s of some 200 species, to about 40 [competing species/
overfishing/destruction of habitat].
> so sorry I missed the 'thylacine' and the passenger pigeon, but
> I don't know if they were caused by mankinds activities
They were. Hunting.
> I'm sure if you asked most people to name a major extinction in
> living memory they wouldn't come up with those without a google
> search
Both are given in GCSE Biology classes as 'classic' exemplars of extinction.
What worries me more is the tendency [subconsciously alluded to by your
good self] to concentrate on so-called 'higher' species- the rest of
the biota [i.e. most of it] is equally if not more important, and removal of
ANY species from a food-web has immediate and drastic inplications for all
the others.
Thousands of insects are now extinct entirely as a result of human activity;
my particular obsession is the wholesale extinction of species-flocks- the
copepods of Lake Baikal [pollution], the galaxiid 'Austral Trout' of New
Zealand [introduction of Northern brown- and rainbow-trout], and even
the fantastically-diverse cichlid fish flock of Lake Victoria is down from a
count in the 70s of some 200 species, to about 40 [competing species/
overfishing/destruction of habitat].