Saving the red squirrel - a matter of ethics or aesthetics?

[Alchemyst]

Some background information:

Although not thought to be under any threat worldwide, the red squirrel has drastically reduced in number in the United Kingdom. Fewer than 140,000 individuals are thought to be left, approximately 85% of which are in Scotland, with the Isle of Wight being the largest haven in England. A local charity, the Wight Squirrel Project, supports red squirrel conservation on the Island. The population decrease in Britain is often ascribed to the introduction of the eastern grey squirrel from North America, but the loss and fragmentation of its native woodland habitat has also played a role.

Eradication of the grey squirrel from the North Wales Island of Anglesey began in January 1998. This facilitated the natural recovery of the small remnant red squirrel population and was followed by the successful reintroduction of the red squirrel into the pine stands of Newborough Forest. Subsequent reintroductions into broadleaved woodland followed and today the island has the single largest red squirrel population in Wales.

Is the project to preserve the red squirrel an ethical one or an aesthetic one?

[Impenitent]

if you really want to save them, start eating them...

-Imp

[Skip]

Neither. It's just another lame attempt at putting things back to a previous, healthier, condition. We see that the reduction of biodiversity is eventually going to end in tears - followed by starvation and asphyxia. So we keep trying to reverse the inevitable consequences of our profligacy: bringing one species back from the edge of extinction, even while continuing to destroy its habitat; even while a thousand others are irretrievably lost. Right now in Canada, nature conservancy groups are trying valiantly to rescue a dozen foxes here, owls there, bears over yonder.... and the oil industry, abetted by the federal government, is all the while conducting genocide on moose.

It's a nice but hopeless cause.
We've screwed around with nature too much, ever to put it back. In the case of the red squirrel, a massive shift to forest farming might work. But if you don't let the trees grow, the squirrels won't have anywhere to live - so why bother?

[Blaggard]

99.9% of species on Earth have been wiped out, the one's who remain are more fit or to be more precise more able to adapt. Let nature take it's course, we'll be gone soon too, and frankly that is no bad thing.

[Skip]

Well, it's not exactly nature's course. When a species is displaced naturally, its ecological niche is generally filled by one or more new species, which carry out the same functions, so that the eco-system remains in balance. When humans do away with a thousand species, they are replaced by toxic waste, in which nothing can live.... or at least, nothing you'd like to meet in the dark.

No way can we be gone soon enough!

[uwot]

No way can we be gone soon enough!

We have a way to go to match nature in terms of the devastation we can wreak. It is almost certain that homo sapiens had nothing to do with the, at least, 5 mass extinctions. Don't worry, Skip, nature will be laying waste to this planet long after we're gone. In the meantime, cheer up, the worst that can happen probably will, but we are privileged to be here, now. Don't blow it by moaning the whole time.

[jackles]

speakin of sqiurrels.i saw a completly white one the other day in the park.are they rare.

[prof]

Is the project to preserve the red squirrel an ethical one or an aesthetic one?

It's a little bit of both.

I already identify with all of humanity. I have extended my ethical compass to include mammalia as those I can feel at one with. So I care about the red squirrel. To that extent, the issue, to me, is an ethical one. [I should confess that honestly I never heard about that squirrel's plight until now.] My degree of caring is small compared to how I feel about giving priority to humans over the other animals - and it is even smaller compared to what happens when I encounter an actual live individual person. Then I feel a relationship that I do not feel with, let's say, the 'starving child in Africa' that some charity is soliciting for. I tend to leave the latter concern to Melissa Gates, Warren Buffet, and Bill Clinton to take care of.

Yes, beholding the sight of a bushy-tailed squirrel - red or otherwise - has aesthetic value for me. So I cannot deny that the issue of squirrel extinction would fall into that (aesthetic) category also.

I am very concerned with the issue of the virtual extinction of the human race. I see it coming due to climate change - which I am convinced is largely man-made. The way we're going, in the USA is downhill. Instead of setting a shining example of ethical living, that the whole world might want to copy, we are making our lives more-complicated, setting up more blockages to progress. We need to simplify: our tax code, our cities, our methods of voting, etc., etc. We are not doing it. We deserve what we are getting in a way. I don't want the species of humans on Planet Earth to become extinct, though - not until we manage to colonize somewhere in outer space first.

We could - if we made it a goal, and worked to make it happen - comply with the complex system of (Axiological) Ethics which R. S. Hartman originally discovered, and which the Universe offers us. There is still time !

[Alchemyst]

Do environmental issues attract much attention in the U.S.A? Is there a Green Party or something similar?

[prof]

You ask: "Do environmental issues attract much attention in the U.S.A? Is there a Green Party or something similar?"

Yes, there are several very-active environmental groups.

Yes, we have a Green Party but it is very tiny. It is extremely difficult for a third party to gain a foothold in the USA; the two-party system is very entrenched. Minority parties are not permitted on the debate platform when either of the other major parties stage a debate among contenders for national office. Most Democratic Party voters who reflect on the matter consider the Green party candidates to be spoilers who will dilute the vote, thereby enabling someone who is "owned by an oligarch" - a Republican - to slip into office. Among Democrats there are those who care deeply about the environment. This, though, is very rare among Republicans.