Transcript What, exactly are our moral obligations to the sooty tern?

What, exactly are our moral
obligations to the sooty tern?
Some ruminations on our ethical
responsibility to maintain a world
that does not totally suck.
The Sooty Tern
• From the title of the talk, you
may have guessed that the
sooty tern, Onychoprion
fuscata, is endangered.
• It isn’t.
• It is, however, a very cool bird.
• It is one of those animals that
lives an interesting and
complicated life, and in many
ways, interacts with aspects of
the environment we might, as
humans modify, and in the
future, lead to its extinction.
• I think it might be a good idea
to think about how to save it
NOW, before its extinction is
even in question.
• It is probably too late to save
pandas.
• The sooty tern is actually one of the most abundant seabirds on the planet.
• It is very widely distributed on tropical islands, especially coral atolls, it
migrates large distances at sea, hardly ever coming to land, and eats fish.
Since the last ice age, this species has actually rebounded from much
smaller numbers.
• This bird is migratory and dispersive, wintering more widely through the
tropical oceans. Sooty Terns breed in colonies on rocky or coral islands. It
nests in a ground scrape or hole and lays one to three eggs. It feeds by
picking fish from the surface in marine environments, often in large flocks,
and rarely comes to land except to breed, and can stay out to sea (either
soaring or floating on the water) for between 3 to 10 years.
• It belongs to the family Sternidae, which has 44 species, within the
Charadriiformes order, class Aves, phylum Chordata.
• Our common ancestor with this species probably lived about 280 million
years ago. It is part of an adaptive radiation of birds that began in the
Cretaceous period, 120 million years ago, and continues today….and will
most likely continue with renewed vigor after we are gone, as ecological
opportunities opened by the extinctions we create allow for the adaptive
radiation of new birds.
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Among the terns, there are some birds that are endemic to very small regions.
For instance, the Inca tern, Larosterna inca, nests on a few islands of the coast of
South America, is restricted in its foraging to the Humbolt current, is dependent
upon the nests of Humboldt penguins, and eats anchovies and lobsters, both of
which are species that humans exploit.
Right now, the Inca tern, is near the point at which people might start calling it
threatened, but not nearly so much as many other birds.
In fact, it has many attributes which potentially put it in the path of the human
mass-extinction event at one point or another.
If we are to save the Inca tern, I think it is imperative that we start thinking about
it now if we want that species to survive.
• The Inca tern is a very cool bird, it is one
example of the extent to which life on this
planet is not identical from one place to
another, it is an example of global
biodiversity.
• If this species ever goes extinct, we will
have truly lost something beautiful.
– From a taxonomic standpoint, we will have
killed off the unique outgroup of all the
other terns.
– From an aesthetic standpoint, we will have
extirpated something that is very beautiful,
and exists completely independently of our
needs and our creative processes.
– From a global standpoint, we will have lost
one more cog in the biosphere, though
other species, including the sooty tern, will
pick up the slack.
• In short, during our lifetimes, this bird may
go extinct, and in passing, the world will
go on as before. Humans will not be
impacted in a practical way, and yet, the
world will suck a little more than it did
when there were Inca terns.
This species is cool and
very endangered
It is the San Bruno Elfin, Callophrys
,
mossil bayensis a butterfly
endemic to a particular set of hills I used
to play on as a kid.
This particular butterfly hadn't been
documented in the area for many years,
bit was was rediscovered on a particular
hill I used to visit, last May
• It belongs to the Lycaenidae, the second-largest family of butterfllies,
with about 6000 species worldwide.
• Many of these are endangered because of the very things that make
them cool, their intricate coevolution with ants. Some are parasites of
ant colonies, some may be mutualists, but the larvae need ants to raise
and protect them, and particular host plants upon which to lay their
eggs.
• Lycaenid larvae are often flattened rather than
cylindrical, with glands that may produce
secretions that attract and subdue ants.
• Their cuticles tend to be thickened. Some larva
are capable of producing vibrations and low
sounds that are transmitted through the plants.
They use these sounds to communicate with
ants.
The San Bruno elfin is
part of an adaptive
radiation of
herbivorous insects
that began 120 million
years ago in the
Cretaceous period,
with the evolution of
flowering plants.
It is part of a very old
adaptive radiation that
has played out over
vast periods of time.
Part of that adaptive radiation took place in California, the
place I grew up. As tectonic activity pushed the ocean
floor up against North America, abundant coastal hills
provided ideal conditions for speciation.
California harbors tremendous biodiversity, much of it
endemic, most of the endemic biodiversity is threatened.
• It is probably too late to save the San
Bruno elfin.
• It lives in such a restricted habitat, has
special ecological needs, and of course a
great metropolitan area has grown up to
encompass most of its former home
range.
• When it goes extinct, the planet we live
on will suck, just a little more than it did
before.
• The biosphere will get by without it. It is
a minor player, and the communities it
occupies will probably reorganize in such
a way as to get by without ant-lycaenid
mutualisms.
• I chose this last example because the
particular habitat in which it exists, is the
habitat I came to know and love, and a
world without San Francisco would
definitely suck ass.
• This, of course brings me to the true point of the talk.
• I have chosen three species, one very common, one less
so, but not endangered yet, and one critically endangered.
• The efforts we would need to make to save each species
are not the same-to save the elfin would involve major
economic sacrifice, to save the Inca Tern would involve
public concern, protection of habitat, and sacrifices by
fishermen that may not see the tern’s survival as a major
priority. To save the sooty tern, we must look into the future
and simply not destroy the oceans, and the functioning of
their ecosystems.
• The biosphere can get by without all three species. If we
loose the first two, we can say to ourselves that those
species were particularly extinction-prone anyway. If we
loose the sooty tern, we will probably not be affected directly
in any practical sense, but it would be an indication that the
biosphere might be heading for collapse. When species
that abundant go extinct, something is wrong.
• Which brings me to my next point:
– What, exactly, are the ethical justifications for
conservation?
– How can we justify annihilating a species that
has existed for million years in terms of
human self interest? At the same time, when
is it reasonable for us to expect sacrifice?
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Self Interest
Compassion
Aesthetics
Obligation to Future Generations
Justifications for Biodiversity
Conservation
• Human centered
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Aesthetical
Recreational
Economic
Scientific
• Life centered
• Nature centered
(Holistic)
• Theistic
A rationale for biodiversity
conservation: the selfish obvious
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Food
Medicine
Materials
Water supply
Climate regulation
Science &
technology
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Recreation
Inspiration
Spiritual stimulation
Contemplation
Peace of mind
Ethical arguments for
biodiversity conservation
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1. Every species has a right to exist.
2. The custody over nature is an agreement with God.
3. All species are interdependent.
4. We have obligations toward our neighbours.
5. We have obligations toward the next generations.
6. Respect for human life and diversity is compatible
with respect for biodiversity.
… a sufficient justification for biodiversity conservation? …
Conservation of natural
monuments
Views on nature conservation:
ethics
Kuna delegate -4th World Wilderness Congress, 1987
• “For the Kuna culture, the land is our
mother and all living things that we live on
are brothers in such a manner that we
must take care of her and live in a
harmonious manner on her, because the
extinction of one thing is also the end of
another.”