There were only 115 Devils Hole pupfish alive in the world last April. They live only in Devils Hole in Death Valley. On 30 April a trio of drunken yahoos shot the locks off the security fence, trod through the water where the pupfish live, and left a pair of soiled underwear in the water. One pupfish was found dead, and an examination revealed that the fish had died within two days of its discovery, meaning it’s possible it was killed by the intruders.
Wired also has an article. The Yahoo link at the top of this post has video.
Wow, I guessed the right fish, but I was guessing it would be at the Las Vegas casino that has some of them in an aquarium (which may serve to repopulate the hole if all of them die there.)
The wife & kids and I stopped there before it was a ‘thing’ and all the fencing & stuff was done. We could go right to the water’s edge. No parking, no pavement within miles and just a sign.
Many people are just plain no good.
Was a most interesting thing to be out in the desert like that and have it just ‘be there.’
‘If polar bears can’t hunt without ice floes, then they have no chance on the planet anyway. Time to stop coddling species that are doomed.’ But isn’t there value in having them? There were two species of gastric-brooding frogs that existed in Australia. How did they brood their young in their stomachs? We’ll never know because they went extinct 30 years ago. The last I heard there are 1.8 million species of organisms on Earth. Looking it up just now, scientists believe there are 8.7 million. Estimates go as high as 100 million, though admittedly that is a very high estimate. It’s possible there is a cure for cancer out there, and we just have to find it. Can we learn anything from the Devils Hole pupfish? I don’t know. But biodiversity is important. Saving one endangered species has an umbrella effect that saves other species in the biome.
Other than that, I agree with your second sentence. When humans are extinct, it’s not the End of the World. It’s just the end of us. Every niche will be filled by organisms we took with us. But why rush it?
On behalf of the drunken idiot community I completely apologize. Poor sweet little dogface fish or whatever. Please send back the underwear when you get a chance.