301
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_33
Chapter 33
Moral Choices in an Epoch of Angst
33.1 Conservation Success and Failure
Carl Safina, an Endowed Professor at Stony Brook University and Founder of the
Safina Center,
1
recently framed a set of biodiversity statistics with unusually effective sangfroid, a lyric ode to what can be done, despite the rush toward the cliff. He
reiterated a few of the more iconic, pressing data: the harrowing declines among
populations of avifauna, the ones that used to be seen so easily, almost from a backyard, enormous aggregates of those far out at sea who are starving unseen (by us),
North American freshwater bivalves and amphibians in the wild, bats, invertebrates,
the “sharks and rays,” vast “mortality events,” “over 700” of them since the late
1800. All leading to his logical conclusion: “At this point in the history of the world,
humankind has made itself incompatible with the rest of life on Earth.” (Fig. 33.1)
But Safina, like so many who have devoted their lives to saving life (as opposed
to giving up on its prospects, lodged silently between complacency and depression,
a condition bound to perpetuate ecocide, what Safina likens to a “psychic numbing”), has good reason to point to conservation success stories. And, as he makes so
many others make clear, there are an endless array of anecdotes and heavily documented eco-restorative sagas involving the concerted rescue of numerous species
and/or populations from a clear trajectory toward oblivion in the wild. Safina references peregrine falcons and ospreys, brown pelicans, condors and the emblematic
saga of bison, short-tailed albatross, musk oxen, Przewalski’s horse, the Mauritius
kestrel, black rhinos, and gray whales.
2
Other well-known conservation triumphs
include the loggerhead shrike and Chatham Island black robin, particularly an individual female named Old Blue who kept delivering eggs years beyond the statistical
1 https://www.safinacenter.org/
2 “Psychic Numbing: Keeping Hope Alive in a World of Extinctions,” by Carl Safina, February 26,
2020, YaleEnvironment360, https://e360.yale.edu/features/psychic-numbing-keeping-hope-alivein-a-world-of-extinctions, Accessed March 26, 2020.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_33
Chapter 33
Moral Choices in an Epoch of Angst
33.1 Conservation Success and Failure
Carl Safina, an Endowed Professor at Stony Brook University and Founder of the
Safina Center,
1
recently framed a set of biodiversity statistics with unusually effective sangfroid, a lyric ode to what can be done, despite the rush toward the cliff. He
reiterated a few of the more iconic, pressing data: the harrowing declines among
populations of avifauna, the ones that used to be seen so easily, almost from a backyard, enormous aggregates of those far out at sea who are starving unseen (by us),
North American freshwater bivalves and amphibians in the wild, bats, invertebrates,
the “sharks and rays,” vast “mortality events,” “over 700” of them since the late
1800. All leading to his logical conclusion: “At this point in the history of the world,
humankind has made itself incompatible with the rest of life on Earth.” (Fig. 33.1)
But Safina, like so many who have devoted their lives to saving life (as opposed
to giving up on its prospects, lodged silently between complacency and depression,
a condition bound to perpetuate ecocide, what Safina likens to a “psychic numbing”), has good reason to point to conservation success stories. And, as he makes so
many others make clear, there are an endless array of anecdotes and heavily documented eco-restorative sagas involving the concerted rescue of numerous species
and/or populations from a clear trajectory toward oblivion in the wild. Safina references peregrine falcons and ospreys, brown pelicans, condors and the emblematic
saga of bison, short-tailed albatross, musk oxen, Przewalski’s horse, the Mauritius
kestrel, black rhinos, and gray whales.
2
Other well-known conservation triumphs
include the loggerhead shrike and Chatham Island black robin, particularly an individual female named Old Blue who kept delivering eggs years beyond the statistical
1 https://www.safinacenter.org/
2 “Psychic Numbing: Keeping Hope Alive in a World of Extinctions,” by Carl Safina, February 26,
2020, YaleEnvironment360, https://e360.yale.edu/features/psychic-numbing-keeping-hope-alivein-a-world-of-extinctions, Accessed March 26, 2020.