Evolution; Endangered Species

Evolution, evolution is a very touchy subject. It is also a very debatable subject in regards to many different things and the way that they’re taken. But it is something that I personally find very interesting. There’s something that I question actually and it’s not exactly on topic of evolution but instead of an occurrence, extinction. We all know that extinction is the dying off of something, but specifically in this case species. So my question is, if extinction is so posed to be a natural part of life on Earth, why should we care about protecting endangered species?

This pie chart here is a proportion of all assessed species in different threat categories of extinction risk on the IUCN Red List, based on data from 47,677 species. Source: IUCN, pie chart compiled by Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2010) Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, May 2010.









This visualization here are the threat statuses of comprehensively assessed species by IUCN. Source: IUCN, compiled by Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2010) Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, May 2010.


Endangered species are species in which are dying off due to natural or some other source of endangerment to their habitat. A very good point is that trying to save each and every endangered species is something that is practically impossible. Things we do everyday kill our world and animals habitats in a way and these aren’t things that can just change, their things that take time. But against that you can say that we are doing things to try and help like helping clean, recycling, coming up with different gases, and solar energy. A question for your thought on this though is, is it all worth it?

Personally i am a big believer that it is worth saving endangered species but not all them individually. I feel that an ideal strategy would be to focus on putting limits for human impact to entire ecosystems instead of protecting individual species based on some chances that they have of recovery over others. Chris Packman a TV naturalist did hit a good point in an article i read on extinction. He say's, "Extinction is very much a part of life on earth. And we are going to have to get used to it in the next few years because climate change is going to result in all sorts of disappearances." This was said in an article about saving Pandas (pandas in which are part of an endangered species) to where he is on the side of yes and is for saving them. But in that same article chief scientist at World Wide Fund for Nature says no, and because he feels that to much has already gone to them and not the purpose of habitat.  

I guess the answer to my question ultimately comes down to personal belief and opinion towards the subject. Although something that can be taken from this is that human-induced warming is already rapid and is expected to further accelerate. We as humans are not only harming habitats by doing stuff we have become accustomed to but also hurting ourselves with endangering our environment. 

A great video on this is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS0gpU6P-6M

Sources:
1) http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/23/panda-extinction-chris-packham
2) http://www.createdebate.com/user/viewprofile/PungSviti
3) http://www.globalissues.org/article/171/loss-of-biodiversity-and-extinctions
4) http://www.skepticalscience.com/Can-animals-and-plants-adapt-to-global-warming.html