Endangered species protection or selective salvation?

Fractalis

Fractalis

Heavy Weapons Guy
Mar 3, 2011
699
1
16
I as a fishkeeper know that there are several species of fish that are endangered or threatened and I am quite sick of hearing about how this cute bear or that pretty bird seem to get most of the attention and similarly most of the money. Any organization that uses cute animals to preach about how species are becoming extinct will find themselves with a small fortune in a small amount of time. Other creatures such as endangered fish lizards and various inverts often find themselves completely forgotten or just overlooked.

It seems to me that any creature that does not look good or give people a fuzzy feeling about helping are just doomed to die off while those who care about them can only watch in vain as the populace goes about their lives oblivious to the fact that another wonderful unique species is dead.
 
Woah...what happened? You threw a lot of anger out in this post and I'm not sure what you are trying to say or if you are just venting. There are allot of animals that need saved, and we can't save them all its tough deciding which ones deserve the most attention or funding. Some get money as a political gain, some get money just to bring attention to conservation, some get saved to prove a point. There are hundreds of facets to conservation, I don't know how you can just group them into one.
 
anger? unlikely; if I want to blow off some steam I'll just head off to slay some virtual monsters. My intentions were to be blunt and to get people to think about whether these organizations are businesses that protect species for profit or people who actually genuinely care about the welfare of these species.

another thing to consider is how they distribute money according to species do they spend the majority of their money on their poster child species or those that are indeed on the brink?

after all everyone (or the majority of the people you ask) knows pandas, whales, and gorillas are endangered.
few if any know about the roundnose grenadier, the vernal pool tadpole shrimp, or the death valley pupfish (people on here may know of these but your average John Doe doesn't) and thus if they do not know of the plight of these species they will not care. And if you did educate them about how these species are endangered few people will care because in their eyes these are deep sea creatures you will never see, creepy crawly bug things, or just a fat ugly (in the people's eyes) fish from death valley.
 
Sure, I know about lots of things not as cute that are endangered. Do I have any influence in how funds are spent? I would have no clue even how to begin to have any.

So, because this is so misdirected, being spouted to a forum of mostly average joes (and janes), I'd agree with the other responder in this thread. Obviously something in the endangered species work must be ok, because YOU know about those other examples. If they were so absolutely neglected no one would have a clue if they disapeared including you.
 
Perhaps a better use of time would be to find organizations whose premise you agree to and then focus your time/effort/funds there and maybe provide links or information to average Joes.

Look at how a charity uses funds, rather than how it gets them. Think about the bigger picture.
 
A lot of money is directed towards "cute and fuzzy" animals because that is what the general public is willing to put their money towards, and a lot of conservation work is based on donations.
I do feel that we probably waste a lot of time and money on species that probably should go extinct. Like the panda.... (covers head from flying axes). They aren't really important to their ecosystems, and what the heck happened in their evolution? They eat a food that their bodies aren't even designed to digest, and they suck at breeding on their own.
 
I'm going to be honest, while I think conservation efforts are... important to a degree, I think more so (also prepares for flying axes) that if a species cannot adapt fast enough to survive then by the very foundations of evolution and life it should die out. Just because it serves an important part in the ecosystem doesn't mean it had more of a right to survive than something like Pandas who serve as giant cuddlemonsters. If it cannot survive it should not survive. If that causes damage to an ecosystem than that is the natural order of things an the ecosystem must rebalance itself. Humans spend so much time thinking and saying "this is how it WAS, so this is how it should be!" when in reality that is incorrect thinking - change is the only absolute.
 
*throws axes
 
**dodges with amazing skill, until a rotten fish is thrown, at which point no one really remembers what happened**
 
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