And if not, why not? What do you mean, you've never heard of him - or her - or it? Are your minds closed and your hearts made of stone? I am referring to the well known, Lake Pedder earthworm who, alas and alack, passed into a state of extinction some time in the last ten years. Truly may it be said, in Pythonese, that this earthworm has ceased to exist, this is an ex-earthworm! "Right! Fine! Er, sorry and all that! By the way, what's for dinner?" These may be just a sample of the thoughts that crossed your minds as I disclosed this distressing news, and I confess, I share them with you.
But - you guessed there was a 'but' coming, didn't you? - if I replace the name of the Lake Pedder earthworm (R.I.P.) with that of the polar bear, then, oh, what a wailing and gnashing of teeth there would be. Indeed these signs of grief are already to be seen and heard as the American Interior Department puts poor little polar bears on the endangered species list. Even my e-friend 'Fallen Monk', normally a good, tough, ol' Southern boy even if he is a total Leftie, has been caught wiping a surreptitious tear from his eye and blaming the whole thing on AGW/oil companies/the Bush administration (delete, or not, to taste).
Well, we now know the hard way that the American intelligence services are as arrogant and dim as our very own, home-grown versions, so I suppose it is hardly a great surprise if the American Interior Department claims to know more about Arctic polar bears than the Canadian government and the people who actually live there:
"The latest government survey of polar bears roaming the vast Arctic expanses of northern Quebec, Labrador and southern Baffin Island show the population of polar bears has jumped to 2,100 animals from around 800 in the mid-1980s.
As recently as three years ago, a less official count placed the number at 1,400.
The Inuit have always insisted the bears' demise was greatly exaggerated by scientists doing projections based on fly-over counts, but their input was usually dismissed as the ramblings of self-interested hunters.
As Nunavut government biologist Mitch Taylor observed in a front-page story in the Nunatsiaq News last month, "the Inuit were right. There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears."
Even so, "attention must be paid" and each of us must ask ourselves the heart-searching question; in a very real, deep and fundamental sense, do we care about the polar bears? Unhesitatingly, I can reply that I, personally, couldn't give a stuff! If pressed, I would maintain my support for the seal population which appears to be the 3-course, lunch-of-preferment for polar bears. Unfortunately, I have just remembered that in a previous post I took the seals to task for scoffing all the pretty little fishies; but there again, the pretty little fishies eat up all the little bugaboos in the water which is probably why the poor old Lake Pedder earthworm wriggles no more.
It's all very confusing but one thing I know for sure, the Lake Pedder earthworm could have done with a very much slicker PR company!
I've never really understood why the young girlies in my office who get weepy over the seal cull in Canada didn't offer the same option of 'right to life' when they found a mouse in the staffroom.
They were on the phone to office services to get poison bait put down faster than you could say 'Canadian Club'!
Similarly, this guy who went to great lengths to protect a family of blue tits (common garden visitor) from the depredations of a woodpecker (rare garden visitor).
I thought he liked birds...?!? *confused*
Posted by: JuliaM | Tuesday, 20 May 2008 at 17:47
But on grounds of sheer beauty, we must preserve the tiger. Lions I'm not bothered about - scruffy objects.
Posted by: dearieme | Tuesday, 20 May 2008 at 18:05
"Canadian Club" - Julia, you're priceless!
No problem about the tigers, 'DM', we'll give them an Arts Council grant, and perhaps get some of their bureaucrats to deliver it to them in person!
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 20 May 2008 at 19:36
Well it's really all about sentimentality. I get very upset at any harm befalling anything cute -even mice and pigeons but when it comes to insects I'm like Camilla Parker-Bowles on a fox hunt.
Posted by: Clairwil | Tuesday, 20 May 2008 at 23:27
Oh dear, Claiwil, you have seen through me and my careful pose of callous indifference. The other day, in a desperate effort to open a sticking window with three difficult catches in order to avoid actually squidging a blasted fly that was trying to escape, I knocked over a pile of books and a potted plant filling my slippers, which were under the window sill, with soil. The little 'Memsahib' watched with grim amusement as I was forced to fetch dust-pan, brush and hoover to clean up the mess. And all for a fly!
Posted by: David Duff | Wednesday, 21 May 2008 at 09:34
A magpie has just broken into our nesting box and murdered our blue tits. And what does my wife say? "Nature".
Posted by: dearieme | Wednesday, 21 May 2008 at 13:33
Well there is an unsentimental reason to care about the polar bears - though of course I don't expect this to go down very well in such, erm, enlightened company.
Basically the decline of the polar bear is just symptom of environmental degredation in the region. The point of focussing on the bear is that it is particularly visible, and so a useful peg to hook an environmental campaign on. The real point of trying to "save the polar bear" is not that the bear itself is especially important, but that the only way to save it is to protect its habitat from destruction, and that really is important.
Posted by: Larry Teabag | Wednesday, 21 May 2008 at 17:01
Well, yes, Larry, I've lived long enough to recognise a bandwagon rolling with a suitably emotional icon hoist on high but the whole point of my post was that the polar bear is *not* in danger, far from it, there appear to be more and more of the big, hairy brutes wandering around killing all the lovely, cuddly seals to say nothing of the occasional Eskimo!
As for its environment, it appears to be getting even icier according to information from the national Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration:
"On a global basis, world sea ice in April 2008 reached levels that were “unprecedented” for the month of April in over 25 years. Levels are the third highest (for April) since the commencement of records in 1979, exceeded only by levels in 1979 and 1982. This continues a pattern established earlier in 2008, as global sea ice in March 2008 was also the third highest March on record, while January 2008 sea ice was the second highest January on record. It was also the second highest single month in the past 20 years (second only to Sept 1996)." (Via Climate Audit)
If people just confined themselves to worrying about their own particular village green, or whatever, then all those pesky Greens could stop telling lies on behalf of politicians who are happy to nod in agreement whilst raising our taxes.
Posted by: David Duff | Wednesday, 21 May 2008 at 18:40
*tsk* Fancy expecting science to sway the likes of the Greens...
Posted by: JuliaM | Wednesday, 21 May 2008 at 19:37
David
That earth worm is NOT extinct. It had the good sense to go into hiding before the Green people tried to "protect" it.
Despite the the cartoons, the PB is one of the most agressve and bad natured members or the bear family. If we have to have a bear candidate for extiction it is a good nominee.
The biggest threat to the PB is that it is becoming overpopulated for it's ecology, and some will starve.
Posted by: Hank | Thursday, 22 May 2008 at 03:23
If I wasn't so sleepy and lazy (more likely), I'd post a photo I made this morning, of a bird chick (of a crow? raven? somebody with quite a voice on her) that was harassing me all night long. See, my A/C unit is installed in a bedroom window, as is customary in NY, and from the exterior side there is a gap between its bottom and the windowsill. Said bird-slash-karaoke queen-slash-used car auctioneer somehow landed there in the middle of the night and demanded the world's attention ever since, roughly every 0.3 sec.
Since I can't lift the A/C, and I can only see the darned siren hanging out from another window, there is no way I could reach to it and make it shut up. I tried to reason with it, plead with it, scare it with loud clapping - like Iranian mullahs, she's carried on mockingly!
At 5 am I came to conclusion that only small, high-precision nuclear device will suffice. People - first. And women - even firstER.
Posted by: Tatyana | Thursday, 22 May 2008 at 05:11
I suppose, Hank, that if I lived in the freezing arctic I'd be bit grumpy! The notion of the poor little Lake Pedder earthworms desperately wriggling even deeper into the mud at the heavy-footed approach of a deputation from 'Enemies of the Earth' is one to savour.
"People - first. And women - even firstER."
Tatyana, you'll get no argument from me, I was broken in years ago!
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 22 May 2008 at 12:32