“The Angler’s Life List” is a one-stop website for all things dealing with native fish. There is a place for learning about native fish  (“The Fish”) that is an excellent resource, forums for discussing all things dealing with natives, feeds from several blogs that deal with fishing for natives (full disclosure, I’m one of them), links to other native resources, and a place for registered users to write about their fishing experiences (“My Journal”) which actually revolves around the original impetus of Anders vision for the site, to start/maintain a native fish life list, much like birders do.

More about the site in Anders’ own words:

This site was established as a hub for the growing community of anglers who are focused on catching native fish. The central tenet: that this movement benefits both those with the rod in their hand and those with the hook in their mouth.

For people, filling out a fish life list provides new inspiration and even an excuse (if one is needed) to visit beautiful and remote places. And for the fish, it creates a constituency that can have a profound impact on fishery management priorities.

I’m really intrigued by the concept that the more a person enjoys fishing for natives, the more he/she will become an advocate for natives. It’s kind of a back door approach, but I like it. In private conversations with Anders, he mentioned something along the lines that the more people were clamoring to a local chamber of commerce that they were looking for  X native species in the local river, possibly that locale would start looking at stopping the stocking of nonnatives and help the natives reestablish and flourish in the local waters instead.

Head on over to The Angler’s Life List, browse around, set up an account and get involved in the wonderful world of natives.

Another take on the utilitarian/anthropocentric view is that all life depends upon each other in a great “web of life,” and the extinction of any one species affects every other species in one way or another, including humans. Since breaking the web could impact humans, it is necessary to protect all points of the web from damage and including repairing points that are already damaged, but still intact.

But it cannot be proven that removing Bonneville cutthroat would damage the web. In places where Bonneville cutthroat have disappeared, the habitats seem intact and otherwise healthy. Granted, most of those places the cutthroat has merely been replaced with another trout.

Paul and Anne Ehrlich likened an airplane put together with rivets to “spaceship earth.” The rivets represented species. An airline was earning money by strategically removing rivets from its airplanes to sell for scrap metal. As rivets were lost, it affected the overall integrity of the plane. At some point in time, if the removal of rivets continued, the airplane would not be able to handle the loss and would crash.

“Rivet-popping on Spaceship Earth consists of aiding and abetting the extermination of species and populations of nonhuman organisms. Some…[species]…could supply important direct benefits to humanity, and all of them are involved in providing free public services without which society could not persist.”

As interesting as the rivets and web analogies are, they are flawed because “spaceship earth” will not fall apart because its biotic components disappear. The earth is a geological entity, not biotic (unless you believe in James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis which treats all earth processes, components and biological aspects as one giant organism). So, in a non-Gaia world, the “rivets” from the analogy should be substituted with “mechanical parts” of the airplane’s oxygen, food and waste disposal systems to make it a more accurate analogy.

However, if those things fail, the airplane will not fall out of the sky. In the same manner, a failure in the biotic “web of life” will not cause “spaceship earth” to crash, but rather the earth’s life-support systems will fail. Planet earth would still roll on with or without any plant or animal life.

But, even if the analogy was revised to reflect the loss of the mechanics in the life-support systems, a problem still exists. The assumption is that without non-human biological processes naturally occurring on earth, human life could not exist (we save other species to save ourselves). But this is not true. Food and shelter can be manufactured—it does not need to occur “naturally.” And existing water can be cleansed. All “wild” biota can be done away with and domesticated or fabricated needs.

There is no need to halt the extinction of Bonneville cutthroats because the “web of life” itself is not needed—humans can replace missing life-support systems from “naturally” occurring ones to human engineered ones.

Any new ideas you have that haven’t already been mentioned in the previous posts, feel free to toss them on the table.

(The next post in the series will move away from utilitarian/anthropocentic points of view.)

Part 1 is found here. It’s not mandatory to read, but it might give a little background.

This is going to be “Talk Me Down” time. I plan on presenting different reasons why we should allow the extinction of cutthroat. I want you to talk me down (or agree, if you must).

Please also point out any errors in logic, examples, positions or definitions (I’m by no means a professional).

This will be a very brief discussion (there is much more to consider, yet I will only scratch the surface).

“…nothing counts but the states of mind…[or] the states of feeling, of persons. [They] are at the very center of the universe, with their states of feeling [determining] all value in the world. Destruction of [Bonneville cutthroats] is evil only in so far as it is, or will be, felt as a loss by [humans]; …and the preservation of species, is to be [pursued] only in so far as human beings are, or will be, [benefited by their preservation].” (Such a view is called anthropocentrism.)

One could therefore argue that Bonneville cutthroats should be preserved because people emotionally benefit from them. We think they are beautiful fish and we derive pleasure from viewing and catching them.

“The greatest good for the greatest number.” (Known as utilitarianism.)

However, if more people enjoy fishing for rainbow trout instead of Bonneville cutthroat, then the cutthroats should be allowed to go extinct if they are replaced with rainbow. If, and only if, more people insist they receive greater benefit from cutthroat than those who benefit from non-cutthroat, then cutthroat should not be allowed to go extinct.

“Only pleasure or pain motivates us.” The only “right” actions are those bringing a greater balance of pleasure than pain. (This is called hedonism.)

If farmers need the water that Bonneville cutthroats live in (there is no alternative source, and people will starve if these farms are not operative), and they must have such an amount of water that the cutthroat will no longer survive, it is right to de-water the river for irrigating purposes, thereby allowing the Bonneville cutthroat to go extinct, if it serves more people than the number of people interested in catching the cutthroat.

Preserving cutthroats because we “like them,” for whatever reason—cool, odd, unique, inspiring, beautiful, etc.—is anthropocentric, and extremely subjective: one man’s species of pleasure is another man’s pain. The only way to choose is for a majority of people to claim their pleasure/needs are greater than other people’s pleasure/needs, and greater than the cutthroat’s.

No species (I’m just using cutthroat because they are my favorite) need protection unless the protection of that species serves a greater good to humans than the benefits derived by not protecting them. Why shouldn’t I believe this?

Talk me down!

Who needs them? Cutthroat, that is. Specifically, Bonneville cutthroat—Oncorhynchus clarki utah. Who needs another subspecies of a fairly healthy species of trout? Really, I truly mean that. Are they needed on planet earth?

How about the “web of life” that binds all life on the planet, and the concept that the loss of one (sub)species damages the entire web—is that a valid argument, or just so much hokum thrown around by environmentalists?

Is there anything wrong if any given subspecies (or species, for that matter) becomes extinct? How has the planet suffered from the demise of dinosaurs? Saber-tooth tigers? Mastodons? How about the dodo bird? Did an entire ecosystem collapse with the demise of the carrier pigeon? So what if the polar bears go? Or cutthroat trout?

In a non-religious way, what makes humans different within the environment that they should be held accountable? Does the differentness (dare I say, “uniqueness”) of humans require them to have a moral obligation toward other species?

And what about organized religions, like Christians—do they  have the same obligation as given to Adam in the Garden to “dress” and “keep” it (Genesis 2:15)? Or instead, does the directive to “subdue” and have “dominion” over the earth (Genesis 1:28) drive them in their relationship to other species? What is their obligation to God’s planet?

Oh yeah, and let’s not forget mosquitoes—who in their right mind would want to protect them? (Not that they’re endangered, but they are an animal.)

If we don’t need carrier pigeons, we don’t need Bonneville cutthroat.

Right?

That is a page, not a post, so you can’t leave comments there. But feel free to leave comments here, if you’re so inclined.