A recent documentary on Antarctica showed a base station several miles from the sea. Occasionally, sea animals (like seals) sometimes get lost and wander inland by mistake. People in Antarctica are instructed to let nature take its course and do nothing, which usually means that the animal will die because of its mistake.
OTOH, our local TV station occasionally shows personnel on Cape Cod rescuing dolphins or sharks or whatever that get trapped in the wrong place.
Should people help or leave them alone. In the specific case where humans caused the situation (e.g. dolphins in a fishing net), I feel humans should intervene. Otherwise, let evolution correct the problem.
Saving an animal or two won’t change evolution’s plan (especially seeing as such as thing doesn’t exist), and if it makes people happy, then I say they should do it.
In terms of dolphins, sharks (and whales) getting trapped in shallow waters, who’s to say that it’s not a result of humans causing a situation…namely accelerated climate change changing temperatures and acidity in natural habitats and depletion of foodstocks through overfishing.
This reasoning shows an erroneous, albeit common misunderstanding of how evolution does and doesn’t “work.”
It’s actually centered around a purely religious notion, replacing the required gods, with a vague idea that “nature” has the best interests of all creatures in mind.
I say hornswaggle, myself. Balderdash and nonsense. MOST known “evolutionary events” haven’t made any sense. The dinosaurs weren’t EVOLVED away, they were massacred en masse. “Mother Nature” isn’t PLANNING anything out. The idea that whether people intervene here and there makes a difference in evolution, or even more ridiculous, is interfering with some grand moral principle, is just plain “woo.”
Agreed. It certainly does no harm, and, if the benefit is trivial, well…it’s people indulging the better side of their nature. Why would anyone want to stop someone else from doing good?
We have a problem here on the Pacific Coast where sea lion mothers will leave their pups on the beach while they go hunting in the sea … safer for the pups … but then some semi-evolved hairless rodent comes along and swears it’s abandoned … scoop it up and all of a sudden the local wildlife rescue folks are full of sea lion pups … pups that can’t be returned to their mothers … what a mess …
Then there’s the twelve-year-old who finds a cute cuddly teddy bear cub and then mama bear comes along … general a bad outcome for the twelve-year-old …
For every animal you rescue … a clutch of vulture chicks die …
I wonder how “people in Antarctica” or their instructors would feel if they themselves were stranded there and in need of rescue. Would they feel we should let them die and let some impugned “natural selection” takes its course, because after all, they were stupid enough to go down there?
And if we have such awesome respect for natural selection, how come we permit ourselves to be instrumental in decimating entire species or driving them entirely to extinction? Where’s the respect for nature there?
As so often happens, I suspect that these instructions are mostly a matter of expediency, because resources are so limited down there. Rationalizing it as the majesty of nature seems hypocritical. It’s absurd to claim some Darwinian principle as the basis for not saving an individual creature in distress.
My sister’s cat had a litter once and she (the cat) deliberately neglected one of the kittens. I tried to rescue it and feed it with a rubber bulb, but mama cat came over and took it away and killed it. Horrible, but obviously there were forces in play that I did not understand.
By preferentially rescuing the cute animals, we add increased evolutionary pressure in favor of cuteness. So if you like cute animals, I guess that’s a good thing.
I was going to comment that it’s probably a negligible effect, but then again… The amount of pressure we exerted in favor of cute, friendly wolves probably started out pretty minimal, and now we have corgis and shih tzus and miniature poodles and so forth. (Of course, we eventually went much farther than just helping out the ones who strayed from the pack.)
Yes, it’s unfortunate about those yappy little dogs, an embarrassment to the canine species, but we do also have Real Dogs – the ones that bear a visible connection to their majestic wolf ancestry: the Husky, the Bernese Mountain Dog, the German Shepherd, the Border Collie, and many dozens of others in the “working dog” category! As Dave Barry astutely points out, it’s not a real dog if it can’t knock you over and drool all over you.
this seems very wise and I lol’d
as for nature “taking it’s course” I would personally rescue the animal. since I am PART of nature and this is MY course.
As Dave Barry astutely points out, it’s not a real dog if it can’t knock you over and drool all over you.