“Animal rights” versus biodiversity

March 30th, 2008

What’s the problem with the Humane Society? First, they (jokingly) promote pets “for everyone” — a simply terrible idea that desensitizes people from the fact that most people should not own an animal. Next, they support the totally ineffective trap-neuter-release program for feral cats. And now they favor abundant California sea lions in Oregon’s Columbia (where they never previously lived) over endangered wild salmon:

The Humane Society of the United States wants a federal judge to prevent the capturing or killing of sea lions feasting on salmon at a Columbia River dam.

The group said in a motion filed in U.S. District Court on Friday that agents could begin taking the sea lions as soon as next weekend, and asked for a permanent injunction. If the request is denied, the group said it would likely would seek a temporary restraining order to be effective before Friday.

[...]

Sea lion populations have soared since they and other marine mammals were covered under the 1972 act. They numbered about 1,000 in the 1930s, when they were hunted and used, among other purposes, for dog food. They are thought to number about 240,000 today.

Folks, we need to decide if we want to favor a handful of apparently “cute” apex predators, many of them feral animals such as domesticated cats or range-expanding sea lions; or if we would prefer to live in a world that favors overall biodiversity and species’ survival, even if that means reducing populations of animals that man has inadvertently increased.

The Humane Society has made its choice — it prefers a world with fewer species.

Incidentally, here’s another example of the media doing a piss-poor job. The title for this piece was “Could sea lions on death row get pardon?” Now then, it could have been framed a bit differently: “Could endangered salmon continue to be slaughtered?” Now, neither of those titles is fair. But in an attempt to attract readers, the journalist, or their editor, selected a sensationalist headline, perhaps not realizing that it promotes a particular viewpoint.