Evolution or Climate Change?

Something that I am surprised that scientists do not hear the idea expressed in this article more often. I will try to break it down but the central concept is expressed in the headline:

Let the polar bears die, liberals: It's only your beloved evolution at work

The author sums up here feelings quite nicely a few paragraphs down:

But here's a question that's rarely asked: Why should we necessarily bother saving a species - any species - from extinction? And what's so gosh-darn special about the polar bear? Yes, animals are dying. But death - of a single animal or a whole species - is a part of life.

At least, that's what Darwinists tell us. In fact, if you think hard about it, animal conservation should actually be anathema to the Darwin-loving liberal agenda, which holds up evolution - and not altruistic compassion - as the final word on the survival of a species.

Sure, it's possible that we're crowding out the polar bear - but aren't we animals, too? And don't animals sometimes crowd each other out? Isn't it entirely possible that the polar bear is simply going extinct, like countless species before it?

These sentiments make sense until you dig deeper into the problem. Extinction is one of the most often overlooked parts of evolution but as recent papers have pointed out, and many people knew just based on common sense, is that we would not be here were it not for the extinction of the dinosaurs and mass extinctions give rise to new niches for species to fill (Smith et al., 2010). So extinctions in and of themselves are good and an important part of evolutionary theory. What is more is that there are always background levels of extinctions. So is the author of this piece right?

Well the answer is no not really. Eventually given enough time every species that is alive today would be extinct, yes even those that closely resemble their ancient ancestors are considered different species. The main problem is the rate and how species are going extinct. A recent paper argued that it may have taken upwards of 10 million years for species diversity to recover from the end-Permian mass extinction (Hu et al., 2010). While the end-Permian was an extreme mass extinction the time frame from the K-T extinction may have been similar.

But why am I referencing mass extinctions and not just the loss of a single individual? Simple, this extinction will not just involve the loss of one single species. If climate change continues it will threaten total ecological collapse in the arctic and antarctic. This means that not only will the polar bear die off but most if not all species of flora and fauna in these areas will as well. But it is not just the poles that are threatened but the entire planet. Temperature changes will push many flora away from where they currently live, with the loss of the base of the food chain a total collapse will likely follow. While less likely to occur elsewhere it is a possibility.

Another way of looking at it is by what I am calling the Yellowstone Wolf effect. In general the idea is this: As top predators when the wolves were all killed in Yellowstone it allowed the primary source of food to reproduce almost unchecked, there are other animals that will feed on elk but tend to do so less often than wolves. This damaged the amount of plant life present and hurt animals that will then have to compete with the elk for food. When the wolves were reintroduced this put stress on the elk as their numbers declined many different flora where able to better survive it also increased the amount of food available for scavengers and other predators such as Bear and Coyote (Smith, 2005; White et al., 2005).

The concern for the polar bears is therefore not just for the bears themselves but for the entire ecosystem. We have hurt it in ways we are not completely sure of yet but if we have the power to prevent a total collapse, which we likely do in some areas, shouldn't we?

Sources

Hu, S.-x., Q.-y. Zhang, Z.-Q. Chen, C.-y. Zhou, T. Lü, T. Xie, W. Wen, J.-y. Huang, and M.J. Benton. (2010). The Luoping biota: exceptional preservation, and new evidence on the Triassic recovery from end-Permian mass extinction. Proc. R. Soc. B published online before print December 23, 2010, doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.2235

Smith, D.W. (2005). Ten Years of Yellowstone Wolves 1995–2005. Yellowstone Science. 13 (1), 34-41 (Freely available here)

Smith, F.A., A.G. Boyer, J.H. Brown, D.P. Costa, T. Dayan, S.K.M Ernest, A.R. Evans, M. Fortelius, J.L. Gittleman, M.J. Hamilton, L.E. Harding, K. Lintulaakso, S.K. Lyons, C. McCain, J.G. Okie, J.J. Saarinen, R.M. Sibly, P.R. Stephens, J. Theodor, and M.D. Uhen. (2010). The Evolution of Maximum Body Size of Terrestrial Mammals. Science; 330 (6008): 1216-1219 DOI: 10.1126/science.1194830

White, P.J., D.W. Smith, J.W. Duffield, M. Jimenez, T. McEneaney, G. Plumb. (2005) Yellowstone After Wolves: Environmental Impact Statement Predictions and Ten-Year Appraisals. Yellowstone Science. 13 (1), 34-41 (Freely available here)

Say it ain't so Wyoming

I was born in the state of Wyoming (I lived there for 2 months oh the memories) and both my parents went to the University of Wyoming so I will read a story about the state when I happen across it. Lately the stories that I have been seeing haven't been so pleasant. I know a lot of people still remember what happened right around a year ago now with the University of Wyoming Geological Museum, this was bad enough to get my dad to pull some of the money he give to the University and instead gave it to the group that kept the museum open, if you don't remember Chinleana has the reasoning, the University posted an article about the people who donated to help keep the museum open, (also if you are on facebook become a fan of, or like or whatever the heck it is, the Save the University of Wyoming Geological Museum). Over the past week a few other stories have grabbed my attention and these ones are not good either.

The first one I found here (the Guardian article and NPR article that inspired it). I don't know why I didn't say something when I first read it but now the author has another article in which he mentions sending a letter to the Governor of Wyoming and he asked for help. I figured I would say something even if it is just my little blog with very few followers. The story comes down to the state owns some land within Grand Teton National Park, to see all the federal land within Wyoming go here (for your own state go here), that is to be used for educational purposes but the Governor is planning on selling the land off to private citizens. While this would be allowed if the Governor used the money for schools, which he said he would, it would be a severe disappointment and would drastically reduce the beauty of the area if a private developer put houses or what have you within the park. Now states all over the country are looking for money right now so I guess I understand why the Governor would want money. Oh wait maybe not:

We're not short of revenue. We're in pretty good shape. Our revenues are ahead of projections. We’re sitting on about $800 million in cash reserves and we expect the next projections to show revenue probably $200 million to $300 million over projections. So this thing about the Grand Teton is not driven by that.

I remember going through the Tetons when I was like 5 years old between that the Geologic Museum and Yellowstone that is all the I remember from Wyoming. The problem is that the Governor of Wyoming doesn't really seem to care what people outside of the state think (see next story) so it is going to come down to people within Wyoming sending angry mail to the Governor before he is going to stop.

So this next story just makes me shake my head. Years ago, 1995, wolves were first reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in Idaho and Wyoming. This was an attempt to get back these animals to number before humans had hunted them to extinction in the Western United States (the Wikipedia article is a good read). Last week a federal judge angered people in Idaho and Montana when he ruled that since Wyoming isn't being very protective of the wolves the EPA cannot allow hunting to go on in those two states. Since Wyoming allows the killing of wolves within 80% of the state by whatever means this will prevent wolves from getting back to sustainable numbers within the state. I ran across another story today in which the Governor says that if the Federal government want to save the wolves than they can pay for them. No seriously he did:

“I don’t want to spend any state money on it,” he [Governor Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming] said of wolf management. “Let the feds do it. Why should I pay state money to be a toady to the federal government?”

Why should you pay state money, oh I don't know, maybe because people in your state killed them all off, yes I know the people who did it aren't alive anymore point still stands. Later the article says this:

The most recent court decision stripping Montana’s and Idaho’s authority over wolves said the Endangered Species Act couldn’t be bifurcated across state lines. In other words, wolves in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana either all had to be under federal protection or all under acceptable state plans that ensure their persistence.

That could make Montana and Idaho put pressure on Wyoming to reject the predator zone in favor of trophy game status statewide. Under such a scheme, wolf shooters in Wyoming would need a license, although seasons and limits could be liberal.

But Freudenthal said he didn’t care about pressure from other states.

“Neither has 100 percent of the state in the recovery area,” he said. “We do.”

This is why I don't think he will care if people from outside of the state of Wyoming care about the selling of land within the National Parks. He doesn't care what people think of his state, that he could lose tourist dollars apparently doesn't scare him much either.

Govenor please stop playing politics with the environment!