302
life expectancy (for 8 years) of her species. She seemed to know she was saving her
kind, and her human steward, the late New Zealand ornithologist Don Merton readily conceded as much.
In most cases of extreme survival challenges, the resurgence of the pattern of
rescues is largely indebted to the 1973 Endangered Species Act; to research stemming from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the
United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and its 193 signatory nation
“Biodiversity Action Plans”;
3
as well as countless NGOs around the world, most
notably the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, the Wilderness
Society, the Audubon Society, the Center for Biological Diversity, Global Wildlife
Conservation, the Nature Conservancy, US Fish & Wildlife Service, and the
European Natura 2000.
Conservationists, who do not like the word triage, have generally concluded
across the broadest suite of taxa that at least 4000 individuals are needed, in largely
undefiled habitat, to provide genetic robustness and the evidence of survival probabilities over numerous future generations. Of course, any number of breeding pairs
represents a vast improvement over those documented individuals who are the last
of their kind, like Martha, the final passenger pigeon who died at the Cincinnati Zoo
in 1914. One century after Martha, the IUCN (International Union for the
Conservation of Nature) celebrated “50 years of conservation.”
4
Other, less charismatically recognized species than those referenced by Safina were profiled in the
3 See https://conbio.org/policy/policy-priorities/treaties/cbd, Accessed March 26, 2020.
4 The IUCN Red List – 50 Years of Conservation, by Jane Smart, Craig Hilton-Taylor, Russell
A. Mittermeier, Series Editor Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier, CEMEX NATURE SERIES, Earth in
Focus, Inc., Washington, D.C., 2014.
Fig. 33.1 Florida Panther (Puma concolor coryi), Critically Endangered. (Photo © M.C. Tobias)
33 Moral Choices in an Epoch of Angst
life expectancy (for 8 years) of her species. She seemed to know she was saving her
kind, and her human steward, the late New Zealand ornithologist Don Merton readily conceded as much.
In most cases of extreme survival challenges, the resurgence of the pattern of
rescues is largely indebted to the 1973 Endangered Species Act; to research stemming from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the
United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and its 193 signatory nation
“Biodiversity Action Plans”;
3
as well as countless NGOs around the world, most
notably the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, the Wilderness
Society, the Audubon Society, the Center for Biological Diversity, Global Wildlife
Conservation, the Nature Conservancy, US Fish & Wildlife Service, and the
European Natura 2000.
Conservationists, who do not like the word triage, have generally concluded
across the broadest suite of taxa that at least 4000 individuals are needed, in largely
undefiled habitat, to provide genetic robustness and the evidence of survival probabilities over numerous future generations. Of course, any number of breeding pairs
represents a vast improvement over those documented individuals who are the last
of their kind, like Martha, the final passenger pigeon who died at the Cincinnati Zoo
in 1914. One century after Martha, the IUCN (International Union for the
Conservation of Nature) celebrated “50 years of conservation.”
4
Other, less charismatically recognized species than those referenced by Safina were profiled in the
3 See https://conbio.org/policy/policy-priorities/treaties/cbd, Accessed March 26, 2020.
4 The IUCN Red List – 50 Years of Conservation, by Jane Smart, Craig Hilton-Taylor, Russell
A. Mittermeier, Series Editor Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier, CEMEX NATURE SERIES, Earth in
Focus, Inc., Washington, D.C., 2014.
Fig. 33.1 Florida Panther (Puma concolor coryi), Critically Endangered. (Photo © M.C. Tobias)
33 Moral Choices in an Epoch of Angst