Friday, October 07, 2005

The Focus on Conserving "Charismatic" Species

Many scientists have criticized as unbalanced the strategy used by conservation groups of focusing on saving "charismatic megafauna" - generally big fuzzy predators. A new study reports the strategy is not necessarily a bad one, though. Areas in which the top predators have been conserved tend to have greater biodiversity overall. (Click on the title above for article).

This makes sense. Sure, conservationists often focus on bears and tigers because people are more likely to send money and set aside habitat for these animals than they are for endangered centipedes or frogs. Keeping the top predators healthy, though, avoids the confused and possibly collapsed ecosystems likely to emerge where such animals are allowed to vanish. Another point, sometimes criticized but still valid in my view, is that it's the top predators who need the most land area, and keeping bears, wolves, or lions healthy necessarily requires preserving large areas of habitat. This directly assists countless other species.

Habitat preservation is the key to all conservation efforts. Taking land from a developed to a wild state is usually politically impossible as well as unaffordable. If pictures of cute pandas and magnificent tigers motivate us to preserve more of the world's remaining wilderness, that can only be a good thing.

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