Exactly. This article would be more appropriately named:

100 most endangered species listed with this question: Are they worth saving from humanity?

I have a member of my extended family who is very passionate about being pro-life. Today on FB she posted a status with her disdain that it's illegal to disturb a sea turtle nest but perfectly ok to have a choice on abortion (I am pro-choice for the record). I simply posted a link to this article and said:

Reason we protect sea turtles and allow women to have choices: Global Sea Turtle population <<< Global Human population

Enough said. She had no come-back!

As long as man had nothing to do with their decline in numbers, then I say let natural selection take its course....

Hell, dinosours are distinct and I'm sure every single person is quite happy about that!

shame on your selfish sociopathic self!!!!!!

Troy1101,

Homo Sapiens is the most endangered species on the planet. But they never list that species as an endangered species. I wonder why not.

The poll should have included saving animals from MAN. If we cause the animal to be near extinction then we need to remedy it i.e. Rhino's, Siberian tigers, Mountain Gorillias, Elephants etc. Man sucks this planet dry. Makes me sick to know that Ivory even sells in today's markets and sells well. Don't get me started on Rhino horns. Sickening.

Considering extinctions are happening at a rate 100,000x more than the normal rate, humans are the major cause.

The irony is is that it will eventual lead to our own demise.

Mother Nature is laughing at us.

Ido, sadly for you, just like gay people, progressives keep being born.

99% of species to have ever lived have gone extinct. It is natural. Conservationists and the like are just crazy. Stop man made killings, but other than that, nature takes its course.

I'd do anything if spiders were on that list. And I'd be the loudest advocate to let them die.

Of course they are worth saving. Humans tend to think they are the most important beings above all else. we do not have the right to drive them to distinction and saving them should be a top priority. We spend money on worthless things-politicians, conventions, bridges to nowhere, sulindra, both parties and the human race is to blame.

I think that the cause of the extinction needs to be part of the equation. If the extinction is do to man and loss of habitat then working to save them is one thing, if the extinction has nothing to do with man and is just part of nature then it should be allowed to happen. Over 99% of all of the species that have ever existed are now extinct. Extinction is part of natures plan and man should not interfere with it unless he is the one causing it to start with.

Ido... What are you talking about???? The current white-house is stacked with progressives... Woodrow Wilson and FDR would be right at home...

Wow! Do nothing to prevent their extinction because they have NO ECONOMIC VALUE ?!?! I do agree that if they are on their way out due to natural processes, then some consideration could be made to allow that to happen. BUT, there can be little argument that many of these animals face extinction from pressure exerted on them by humans, be it hunting, collecting or habitat destruction. Besides the intrinsic value of life and diversity, each of these species could contain unique information that may provide answers to current problems. You never know where the next medical discovery or answer to a genetic question will come from.

I sort of agree. The only options were to spare no expense, try but use cost saving measures, or let them go. Personally, extinctions ARE natural - which is the third choice, HOWEVER almost every endangered species is endangered because of man either killing them, or taking their habitat. With that in mind, those extinctions ARE NOT natural. As for the lady who is pro-choice and whose pro-life family member complained that you can't disturb a turtle nest but you can have a choice about a baby - please remember that these are the people who don't believe Global Warming is happening. They do not understand the difference between having a CHOICE whether or not to get an abortion and having the actual abortion. They don't realize that the majority of people who are Pro-Choice would prefer to use EDUCATION and MEDICATION to PREVENT the need for an abortion rather than make it illegal. (Notice that the ANTI-CHOICE people are also ANTI-BIRTH CONTROL and ANTI-SEX EDUCATION as well.)

ULDog: I saw that too. If they want to use whether or not something has economic value as an indicator of whether a species should be saved, there are some politicians and other people who would really make the argument for the Human Sapiens to go extinct. (People that put the question "huh?" behind the term Sapiens. Fortunately, a lot of them tend to win Darwin awards.)

JSinSD: Correct. Like if you saw an endangered animal eating an endangered plant. What do you do?

I a species has to be kept caged up in a zoo to be saved from extinction let it become extinct.

Considering extinctions are happening at a rate 100,000x more than the normal rate,

What is the normal rate...who gets to decide this and by what standards are they measuring it, I am pretty sure that man did not have anything to do with the extinction of dinosaurs or prehistoric mammals for that matter yet they are all gone...millions of species. Just saying something does not make it true

humans are the major cause.

Again...prove this...and No I am not saying man is not responsible for the extinction of many species but there are species that have died off and have had no contact with man. Species go extinct...they have been since the advent of life...It is this thing called evolution that so many of you like to talk about...evolve or die.

Our planet and the live on it are constantly evolving...those that adjust and adapt will survive and those that can not will not.

Yes they're worth saving but I'm with Blake above (post 1.3)...

As long as man had nothing to do with their decline in numbers, then I say let natural selection take its course

And for past extinctions (e.g. Thylacine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine I would even support cloning from serviceable/reclaim DNA if the extinction came about b/c of man.

People have no @!$%#ing respect for nature any more and pisses me off. So just kill an animal just cause it serves no purpose to you. People are @!$%#ing stupid, all they see is the environment as a place to set up shop. When the last endangered animal dies we will wish we did something about it.

Mickey I have said for years that humans are so stupid that if we weren't such prolific breeders, we would have been extinct a long time ago. As it is our prolific breeding is what is going to be our downfall. We are over breeding to the point that we are destroying all the resources that keep us live.

car31jou,

"As it is our prolific breeding is what is going to be our downfall. We are over breeding to the point that we are destroying all the resources that keep us live."

Yes, I think you are probably right about that. We are about to outgrow our means of support.

Are middle-class Americans on the list? If not, they should be.

Michael - spot on!

The fact that they are current members of the ecosystem means they are necessary for the food chain and vital for the health of said ecosystem. Each member of the system has filled a unique niche. Whether or not we can make money off the organism is irrelevant. By hunting and destroying habitat, we are steering the course, not letting nature take its course.

Each member of the system has filled a unique niche.

That is, unless they have, or are destined to become extinct through evolution. Now the question becomes" Is human expansion and development all part of evolution?

The liberals wring their hands over the POOR animals that can't make it. I say let them go. I won't miss them a bit. Why not care more about the poor human animals?

Actually I think it would be much less than a 1000 years at the rate that we are going.

Because that would be stupid.

There are over 350 million of us.

White, conservative women should be on this list...

Sherrie, I share your vote.

But as for cockroaches and mosquitoes, don't forget that many other animals make their living preying on these species: birds, lizards, spiders, other insects, etc. John Muir was right: everything IS connected, and we humans haven't the right to decide which species are important and which are not. ALL are part of the web of life, each a building block sustaining the entire web.

There are plenty of species of small insects, mites, & ticks which do not bite humans. The real question to extinction is habitat and competition. How do we choose between animal habitat and farmland in a poor overpopulated African country? In Australia the native tiger quoll now has to compete with introduced feral house cats.

Whoa there! Save everything except the ones I don't like?

You guys I think she was kidding. Man one thing about the web we need a joking script and a sarcastic script.

If you want to get rid of Mosquitoes, build bat houses nearby (Make sure you put screens over open orifices in you home or you will get them there too.) Some species of bats and some birds will eat mosquitoes.

Some species of bats and some birds will eat mosquitoes.

And some small fish and other aquatic life eat the mosquitoe larvae.

We currently have two colonies of bats in our home, They can squeeze in a smaller hole than a field mouse

Bats are a real nuisance. I hope that they will become extinct very soon.

Clarence24,

Bats actually serve a very important purpose...like ALL creatures.

What purpose DO YOU SERVE?

I was with you until you posted your inane political chatter. Way to go, goober. I do wholeheartedly agree that mankind is the problem, and there are no meaningful solutions being put forth. It's times like these I am glad I don't have children. To think of the ruined world they are inheriting is a sad thought indeed.

Eric Mills

Are you talking about this James Lovelock?

‘Gaia’ scientist James Lovelock: I was ‘alarmist’ about climate change

James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too….

“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium….”

He was wrong about his doomism before, he is wrong about Gore now, and he is apparently uninformed about basic climate observations.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/23/469749/james-lovelock-finally-walks-back-his-absurd-doomism-but-he-still-doesnt-follow-climate-science/

And from Think Progress no less.

Well said, Eric. Well said.

Leaving out the last part of your comment for the sake of the thread. Did you ever consider based on your vast knowledge of the universe that if the humans all drown or starve to death that most likely the animals will as well?

Probably not but consider the source.

Basically all Lovelock said was that climate change will take a bit longer than he originally thought. Warming has not stopped. Take this July, for example. According to NOAA, "It was the second warmest July in the Northern Hemisphere, behind only the record warmth of 2010." And 2011? It was the warmest La Niña year ever recorded.

yes, the world is warming up...once it gets warm enough it will trigger a super volcano which will cause an ice age...that is, if a meteor doesnt kill us all first. as long as population keeps growing there is nothing we can do to stop it...we need to either stop reproducing or spread out to other planets.

Can you back up anything you say about 100 species going extinct a day from man?

What matters are human beings. I'll let the liberals wring their hands and gnash their teeth over the miserable animals. I won't spend a second worrying about them.

Why?

So humans who may starve because we are "saving" this animal can view them?

No, so that we do not tip the balance of our ecosystem. Removing any niche organism could have unintended effects, even disastrous effects, for those organisms at the top of the chain, i.e. man. Let's say we allow something as "insignificant" as a fungus to go extinct. Many fungi, bacteria, even some virus have commensil relationships with plants. They produce compounds which protect the plant from pests. Knock down the fungal diversity, soon you are affecting the floral diversity. Next goes the animals that rely on that flora for food. Next goes the predators that feed on those animals.

Now imagine that the fungus in the above example had a commensil relationship with corn, or hay. There goes all our livestock. There goes us. Nice knowing ya.

The "Why?" question should be so fundamentally obvious, it is actually scary that someone posed it.

MmmmMmmm.....Yes and if a butterfly flaps its wings, a hurricane could destroy Miami.

Also, did you know that we didn't really land on the moon?

Did you know that George W Bush was in on 9/11?

You all are tools.

Brent,

There is such a thing as biodiversity and it is this term that gives this planet life. As biodiversity is lessened the other lifesystems on this planet are either forced to adapt or die leading to the possible collapse of ecosystems. Like it or not if some as "insignificant" as kelp were to die off our seas would be well on their way to becoming lifeless.

They'll never get it Brent. They'll cry for all the fungi of the world, without realizing that most species that existed before man, died out before man came along, around 99%. Species go extinct. But for some reason, the people who claim to be on science's side, know nothing about it.

When I read articles of this sort, and read the comments, it reminds me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FgSmdfRUus,

take from it what you will.

Oh Brent, what are we to do with you?

Read Darwin and the studies of his work.

No, they're not a vital role, just simply a role. People tend to equate an ecosystems as a mechanism where each species is a cog where if one goes missing, it no longer works. That's incorrect.

It's more like grains of sand in a sand castle. You need a bunch to make it work, but if a few go missing, it still remains a sand castle and goes on. (Though some are definitely more important than others)

Mitchell

Start with yourself Derek.

I'm confident that you and other enlightened ones are capable of determining just who gets "thinned out". How very Mengele of you.

Nope. There's no "right to kill babies". The pregnant woman, however, does have the right to remove a parasite from her body.

Did you just call a baby a parasite?

Hambone

It's a real shame you're mother didn't have an abortion when you were the "parasite" in her womb!

Brent,

that is the proper medical metaphor for a fetus. They are not living people by medical definition and law until they are birthed. No amount of religious pandering/yelling is going to change this biological fact. A fetus acts exactly like a parasite but we deem it to be a beneficial parasite in most cases. Fetuses will die without a host (aka mother) to feed it via umbilical chord and if that chord becomes twisted, damaged, or is cut before it's organs have developed the fetus can die because its own organ systems are not developed enough until 22 weeks, at the very least, to survive on its own.

That sounds like a text book definition of a parasite to me and it also happens to be the truth no matter if you find it distasteful.

@Ron

The only thing immoral about abortion is some people's fervor to tell Women that they cannot do something with their body and are making such Big Brother enforces it.

Geowil,

You do realize that there are some parasites on the Endangered list right? Back to your cave.

So it is just a parasite? Did it choose the host or did the host's body create it?

What if the "host" is in a car accident and the "parasite" dies, do we not charge the drunk driver of the other vehicle for "killing" the "parasite"?

What if the "Host" was driving to an abortion clinic when she was hit by the drunk driver - charge them or thank them??

As I recall, the mother and father of the child engaged in an action with full-knowledge that there was a possibility of this outcome.

@Bored: In a sense, it did choose its host. If the fertilized egg doesn't attach to the lining of the womb, no parasite.

@Brent: I didn't call a baby a parasite, I called a fetus a parasite. Which it is.

And, as I recall, if I eat raw meat (and it happens to be infected with tapeworm), I am engaging in an action with full knowledge that there was a possibility of getting a tapeworm.

@CT: Agreed. But she didn't, and here I am. I'm glad you are as compassionate towards your fellow human as you are for a barely living clump of cells.

@Brent: I didn't call a baby a parasite, I called a fetus a parasite

A fetus is not a parasite, It is of the same genetic material as the mother and father, A tape worm is a parasite, A leech is a parisite they are not and can not evolve into the same genetic material as their host, Parasites consume the host many times causing the host to become weakened and many times fatal, The baby within the mothers womb be it human or animal is part of the mother, It grows and the mothers body changes to feed and care for the baby.

Lost,

Fetuses can cause death as well. Look up Maternal Mirror syndrome. Also fetuses cannot form without external material. It does not matter how you twist it around, a fetus acts exactly like a parasite does because it is, at some level, a parasite. Fetuses are not capable of cognitive thought until late in the pregnancy either. Up until then it is all instinctual as far as that goes.

As for the other stuff, it is all part of nature, that does not means it is sacred. Nature is as Nature does. If the mother does not want the baby who is anyone but the father to tell her she cannot abort it? Who puts those people in charge of morality and what gives them the power to exercise that right under law?

He probably thought the command to be good stewards of the earth was clear enough, but he should have made smarter people.

If he made smarter people there would be no religion Jock; it is a vicious cycle.

I think you should save the planet by removing yourself immediately.

(By the way that was a joke, please don't go do that.)

But they are delicious resources.

"save the enviroment"

Can we count on you to be the first to volunteer to "disappear"?

When something like a snail darter causes suffering to thousands of people, I say fry them up and be done with it, would we actually miss them if they were gone, and the same goes for that lizard the environmentalistnut jobs are trying to use to shut down the oil fields in West Texas, is one less lizard going to be the downfall of mankind. And who determines how a species is classified as "endangered", in the case of the Texas lizard they stand around for an hour and if they dont see one, its classified as "endangered", so if they stand around in an uninhabited part of Alaska and dont see a human, would they then classify humans as endangered? Environmentalist junk science at its best.

Ah ah CT, I was expecting that one. You get the prize.

It's a free sterilization to decrease funny genes.

Malthusian warnings have abounded for a long time. All of them WRONG.

It just has to be correct one time, though.

Andrea

The problem with our planet right now is there are TOO DAMN MANY PEOPLE!

Are you willing to downsize our population by volunteering to be euthanised? I am fairly certain the line want be very long so you might even get to be first. However, it is people such as you, who do make a very good case for abortion, it is such a shame you're mother didn't agree.

There are tissue samples preserved of all endangered species in captivitiy, and probably others as well. It's best if it doesn't have to come to that, however.

Its best if you start realizing that there must be some cost-benefit analysis done here. Saving a minnow shouldn't over-ride feeding the world.

Nope. We don't kill endangered species in the womb, either.

Oh, were you talking about abortion? Humans are hardly and endangered species.

How many species went extinct before humans?

80 gazillion

How many species went extinct before humans?

I don't see how that relates to my statement. But to clear things up, I never said anything about "saving" endangered species. As a matter of fact, I think the very idea that we can "save" the planet or the environment or endangered species is the very definition of hubris.

Yes, and Bigfoot will take over as well.

For one thing, cloning is expensive. For another, cloning a clone would be like making a copy of a copy. Over time, errors in the genetic code would creep in until cloning would no longer yield fully-functioning, living organisms. Also, clones can't inter-breed because they're like genetic twins. It's only an expensive way of delaying the inevitable.

Ehh...the world will not perish because of a minnow.