Biology and politics
Published Fri, Nov 2 2007 8:18 AM
Suppose you have two animals. They can breed with one another and produce viable offspring which, if they survive, will be able to breed and also produce viable offspring. These animals are both externally indistinguishable from one another except for their sex and a minor injury to one of them. In fact, both animals are descended at some point in their past from common ancestors. Further, if they are not forcibly separated by man, they will interbreed willingly and their offspring will be indistinguishable from other offspring of similar kind.
Are they different species?
Suppose you have two different animals. One was born and raised in captivity and put on display behind bars for young primates to view. The other was born in the wild. These two animals can breed and produce viable offspring. Their young, assuming they survive long enough, can breed with other animals that are similar in appearance and structure and produce viable offspring.
Are they different species?
Suppose you have a bird. That bird and a few others (all males) are the last recognized members of its species, however there is another bird species that is closely related, closely related enough that a member of its species can be chosen and bred with these "last surviving members" of the other species. The descendants of that union can be bred with the other "last surviving members". Eventually there are many individuals descended from those "final members" of the one species.
Were the "last recognized members" of that species actually a different species from the ones they were bred with? Or were they merely a rare variant? Did biologists actually rescue the species from oblivion, or are they merely patting themselves on the back?
These are not hypothetical questions.
The story of the birds is real. I don't recall the species in question. I think it was condors or some such animal, but it may have been a rare songbird too. It happened a few years back, but I recall the tale. There are no "pure" members of that rare species left, yet there are many, many descendants.
The tale of the animal in the zoo is generic. This is often how "endangered" animals are "brought back from the brink" of extinction. Some advocates for these animals recommend capturing as many wild individuals as possible to encourage breeding in captivity so that the species numbers can be replenished and the species re-introduced into the wild.
Our other case seems a bit clearer now, or does it?
I'm talking here about salmon. Wild salmon and hatchery salmon. According to some recent court decisions, hatchery salmon are to be excluded when considering whether a species, or rather sub-species of salmon is "endangered".
How can you identify the difference between a hatchery salmon and a wild salmon? Why it's simple. One of the hatchery salmon's fins is removed before it is released into the wild. That's the ONLY way to distinguish them.
Hatchery salmon can and do interbreed with wild salmon. It's a fair bet that anglers and commercial fishermen don't catch them all. If their offspring survive to return to the rivers after maturity, they will be indistinguishable from other salmon, and considered "wild" salmon. In fact, if two hatchery salmon escape the anglers and the commercial fishermen, survive the dangers at sea and the hardships of traveling upstream to spawn, and those two hatchery salmon breed, their offspring will be considered "wild" salmon.
How are they any different from animals raised in zoos and bred with animals from the wild? If that's a legitimate way to "save" an endangered species, why is it that a Judge thinks it's not legitimate when we're talking about salmon?
How arrogant it is to assume that two animals are of different species simply because one was bred in captivity and one was not.
Tell me that the Endangered Species Act isn't being interpreted according to the political whims of our judges. Go ahead. Those fish know their own species. They can breed and produce viable offspring, and those offspring aren't sterile.
They're smarter than people that way. Some humans can't even recognize their own species. After all, we're finding that we have to enact laws to prevent them from attempting to mate with horses, sheep, dogs and other non-human creatures.
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