A Stitch in Haste

I recently started training to be a volunteer docent at the Bronx Zoo. Heretofore the training had been out and about, watching the trained docents do their thing, but yesterday was the first formal classroom session of the training.

Here are some of the things I learned, with some fictional animal commentary:

1. The Bronx Zoo is one of the least handicapped-accessible tourist attractions in NYC. Why? Because most of the original buildings have been declared historic landmarks by the city, with the result that no significant alterations to the exterior facades are allowed. (The Zoo tries to circumvent this bureaucratic hurdle by building "temporary" wooden ramps, which of course detract from rather than enhance the aesthetic quality of the structures. Go figure.)

"Look, I can make a handicapped ramp...why can't you?"

2. Human beings are the most violent and destructive creatures on the planet. (Which of course we all learned from edutainment like the "unbiased" Captain Planet show when we were young, right?)

"I dunno, humans have always been pretty good to me..."

3. Americans are "selfishly" trying to impose their vision of conservation on poor countries without providing for an alternative method of lifting themselves out of poverty (i.e., it's okay for natives to cut down the rain forest, just as long as no industrialized nations participate).

"You move! No, you move!"

4. And course the U.S. has 6% of the world's population but blah blah blah percent of the world's yada yada yada (sorry, my brain just shuts down when I start to hear babble like that).

"You got a problem wit dat?"

5. To criticize spending $5 million dollars to save two trapped whales is wrong, because it reflects "value judgments."

"Dumb-ass whales always getting themselves in trouble!"

6. A reminder of how vitally important the trailblazing work "Silent Spring" was to the conservation movement, of course with no mention of the fact that the work's claim that DDT wreaked havoc on bird populations has been totally discredited.

"Say WHAT?!?"

Don't get me wrong -- the Bronx Zoo is my favorite civic institution. (I grew up in the Bronx and many of my fondest childhood memories are of trips to the Zoo with my father.) Any RNC types here in NYC could do worse than spend a few hours there.

But as someone who avoids eco-wingnuts as much as possible, the totality of the nonsense they casually spew out just stunned me.

(Cross-linked at Outside the Beltway.)

Not a good time to be a prairie dog in South Dakota:

Wildlife workers have begun a program to poison thousands of prairie dogs in the grasslands of South Dakota to stop them from moving onto private ranch land parched by drought, a federal official said on Tuesday.
...
"We need to be good neighbors and we do not want a landowner to go out of business," [a supervisor at Buffalo Gap National Grassland] said, referring to ranchers who said prairie dogs were eating the little grass left in the fifth year of drought.
...
[Conservation] groups had sued in federal court in Denver, saying the prairie dogs should not be shot on federal land especially because their habitat is home to the endangered black-footed ferret whose diet consists mainly of prairie dogs.
...
"We hate that wildlife will be killed and ferret habitat destroyed on our public land, but the settlement will save more wildlife and habitat in the long run," he said.

Famous last words. Whenever someone says a benefit accrues "in the long run," take a very long run away.



"Predator-Prey" or "Environmentalist Coalition"?

Leaving aside the whole question of wiping out prairie dogs per se (i.e., from an animal lover perspective) or the politics of endangered species, or whether we should have public parks at all, or why a multi-year drought doesn't qualify South Dakota as a disaster area so it can get FEMA money, or whether we should even have FEMA...

Whoa, getting dizzy...

Anyway, why exactly should the federal government be subsidizing the protection of private ranchers? Why can't the ranchers pay for their own prairie dog extermination? Folks here in Manhattan have to buy their own Raid and mousetraps, so why don't South Dakotans have to buy their own "Dog-be-Gone" or whatever?

Show me an externality and I'll show you a government intervention I can probably live with. But I'm coming up blank here.

(Cross-linked at Outside the Beltway.)

I so love stuff like this:

The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is auctioning off the honor "to name an entire species of monkey" to raise money for its cause. WCS researchers discovered the wee, orange and brown primate -- thought to be a member of the "titi" tribe of monkeys -- in Bolivia's Madidi National Park last year.
...
The highest bidder will have the monkey moniker of his choice permanently entered into all future references -- including scientific publications, academic tomes, field guides and other publications that dwell upon monkeys for one reason or another.
...
"This is conservation at its most pragmatic," WCS President Steven Sanderson said yesterday. "The auction will give the public a chance to help Bolivia safeguard one of the world's crown jewels for wildlife, reminding us that the future of conservation is on everyone's shoulders."

I'm a staunch believer in the doctrine that, if you want to "save the rainforest," then buy it (or help the indigenous population buy it). If you want to save the Beekman Theater, then buy it. If you want to save the last lime green 1959 Ford Edsel, then buy it.

Several "green" groups have taken this approach in places like the African plains. Conservation International is a leader in the pro-environment-yet-pro-capitalist approach.

Americans privately fund (well, mostly privately fund) most of our great civic institutions with endowments that, to an overwhelming extent, are made possible by capitalism. Environmental (and historic) preservation can often be done -- and to the greatest extent possible should be done -- privately.

Just because capitalism can't solve everything doesn't mean that capitalism can't solve anything. Conversely, just because government sometimes does good things doesn't mean that government always does good things.

The market should always get the first chance. It succeeds far more often than it fails.

FULL DISCLOSURE: For a brief time I was training as a volunteer docent at the Wildlife Conservation Society (a/k/a the Bronx Zoo). I dropped out because the educational aspect, which I was assured would be "challenging," was not. I was also getting a bit tired of the ueber-PC garbage being spewed out by some of the instructors ("this species is just like humans -- when a new male takes over the first thing he does is kill the babies and rape the females"). I can only tolerate so much liberal sociopathy. Still, I love the Bronx Zoo tremendously and if you ever want a top-notch private tour, then I'm your baby-killing, female-raping gay-penguin-watching man for the job.

OPEN THREAD: What would you name the species? It is "orange and brown" and likes to be high up above the ground -- is "Roark's Monkey" too obvious?

Related Posts:
My Day at the Zoo
New York's Embrace of "Reverse-Poletown" -- Part One
A Crime Against Nature...NOT!
Creationists Throw Themselves Into the Grand Canyon

If, like me, you have been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting to learn who bought the naming rights to the critter I would have designated “Roark’s Monkey” had I an extra $700,000 or so at my disposal, then your wait is over.

And, as is so often the case, reality is a huge disappointment:

GoldenPalace.com won a March 3 online auction that raised money to help manage Madidi National Park in Bolivia, where the species of titi monkey was discovered by a Wildlife Conservation Society scientist last year.

A statement from GoldenPalace.com CEO Richard Rowe suggested the company was looking for a publicity-generating investment more enduring than an item it paid $28,000 for in another online auction last year: a 10-year-old, partly eaten cheese sandwich thought to contain the image of the Virgin Mary.

"This species will bear our name for as long as it exists," Rowe said. "Hundreds, even thousands of years from now, the GoldenPalace.com Monkey will live to carry our name through the ages."

Speaking as an investment banker, I would hazard a guess that if GoldenPalace.com keeps shelling out insane amounts of money for advertising stunts like these, then yes, they can expect Roark’s Monkey the GoldenPalace.com Monkey to be around long after GoldenPalace.com has itself become extinct.

"Yo eleven yo!"

In any case, my basic theses remain unchanged: The best thing ever to happen to the environment is capitalism, and the best way to save the environment is often to buy it.

UPDATE: They're at it again.

Oh, sorry, that's geckos --

Protecting the California tiger salamander as a threatened species will cost the state $367 million in lost development opportunities over the next two decades, federal wildlife officials said Friday.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service analysis estimated the economic impact of designating about 382,000 acres in 20 California counties as the salamander's "critical habitat" where development would be restricted.
...
Scientists say the tiger salamander, a terrestrial amphibian that lives mostly underground in grasslands and woodlands, has lost 75 percent of its native habitat to urban sprawl and the invasion of nonnative species.

I like fragile ecosystems as much as the next nature-lover. But $367 million? In strictly economic terms, environmental and other regulatory takings like this make the Kelo eminent domain decision look like a bully kicking over a kid's sand castle at the beach. And don't get me started on historic preservation abuse.

I have an alternative habitat protection program for the California tiger salamander -- zoos.


Cute, but worth $367 million?

I thought "disturbing fragile ecosystems" was a bad thing?

Scientists are proposing reintroducing large mammals such as elephants, lions, cheetahs and wild horses to North America to replace populations lost 13,000 years ago.

The scientists say that not only could large tracts of North America act as breeding sanctuaries for species of large wild animals under threat in Africa and Asia, but that such ecological history parks could be major tourist attractions.

"Africa and parts of Asia are now the only places where megafauna are relatively intact, and the loss of many of these species within this century seems likely," the team, led by Josh Donlan from New York's Cornell University, said.
...
Reintroducing the modern relatives of the Late Pleistocene losers to North America could spark fresh interest in conservation, contribute to biodiversity and begin to put right some of the wrongs caused by human activities.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great idea — assuming of course that it is done entirely privately and voluntarily. If the Bronx Zoo wants to buy a huge chunk of South Dakota (where, incidentally, they're already slaughtering prairie dogs) and turn it into an elephant range, or if cattle ranchers determine that there's more money in cheetah-watching tours than in hamburgers, then more power to them.

What I don't understand is why, when scientists from Nature want to go around completely rearranging ecosystems to satisfy their idea of "human needs and wants," it's a neat-o idea, but when a timber company wants to cut down some (renewable) trees in the Pacific Northwest, also in the name of satisfying human needs and wants, they can't because it might, might, affect some spotted owl nests (and remember, some spotted owls are more equal than others).

Again, I absolutely love this idea. I just hate the hypocrisy of its sponsors. Ecosystems are either fragile or they're not. Private use of private land is either a good idea or it isn't.

Make up your minds.

More thoughts at Tom Rants, Jimbo.Info, Panda's Thumb. See also this Tech Central Station piece.

UPDATE: Speaking of mixing continents, where are all those "Guns, Germs and Steel" folks when a proposal like this is floated? One example: we still have germs (see also this tragic story).

Species of animal brought back alive. Interesting similarity in physical characteristics to human beings in head, trunk, arms, legs, hands, feet. Very tiny undeveloped brain; comes from primitive planet named Earth.
--The Twilight Zone, "People Are Alike All Over"

The London Zoo has a new exhibit:

Caged and barely clothed, eight men and women monkeyed around for the crowds Friday in an exhibit labeled "Humans" at the London Zoo.

"Warning: Humans in their Natural Environment" read the sign at the entrance to the exhibit, where the captives could be seen on a rock ledge in a bear enclosure, clad in bathing suits and pinned-on fig leaves. Some played with hula hoops, some waved.
...
"Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals ... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate," [a zoo spokeswoman] said.
...
"A lot of people think humans are above other animals," [one participant] told The Associated Press. "When they see humans as animals, here, it kind of reminds us that we're not that special."
...
They are being treated as animals, complete with keepers, but are allowed to go home each night at closing time.

Oh yes, very impartial and apolitical; totally scientific and realistic.



Gimme a break.

This is merely a (semi-)naked publicity stunt with no educational value. It's nothing more than reality television without the television.



You want to learn about how "humans are no different from other animals"? Try an art museum, or an air & space museum.

---

Meanwhile, a zoo in China has its own primate issues:

The handlers of a smoking chimpanzee in a zoo in northwest China are trying to get her to kick the habit.

The 26-year-old female chimpanzee has been smoking for 15 years. Her mate died recently, which caused her to smoke even more.

Now, the chimp's keepers are worried about her health as a result of her intense smoking. So, they're trying to give her milk instead of cigarettes.

She started smoking years ago by picking up butts from tourists.

Could you imagine if this were an American zoo? There would daily protests, lawsuits and congressional investigations. But if the zoo is in China, it's "cute."

When I flirted with the idea of becoming a Bronx Zoo docent, one thing they told us was that, even though we were mere volunteers, we should never hesitate to demand that people put out their cigarettes (smoking is forbidden everywhere in the zoo). One cigarette butt can, if swallowed, fatally poison even relatively large animals.

But this is China, so we have to "respect their cultural differences." If they want to let visitors smoke in zoos, then who are we to be ethnocentrically judgmental?

I repeat: Gimme a break.

A while back I and many other bloggers lampooned an utterly silly "human exhibit" at the London Zoo.

Now Croatia accelerates the race to the bottom:

The cages -- which visitors will be able to enter and leave at will -- are labeled "Homo Sapiens" and are even partially furnished.
...
One cage is for "good man," and is furnished with things made of natural materials -- bamboo chairs, and water and fruit displayed on a wooden table. The other, for "evil man," has materials that harm nature -- plastic chairs, and garbage in the corner, with a note above the mirror reading: "The most dangerous beast on the planet."

The "good" cage contains brochures on how to protect the environment; the "bad" one shows how it is being ruined.

Of course, the bamboo chairs might very well have been made with Chinese slave labor, wooden tables imply deforestation, and fruits and vegetables, if left in a corner, constitute "garbage" just as much as a bag of refuse from a fast food restaurant.

And a plastic chair is likely cheaper than a bamboo chair, which means more people, including more poor people, can actually have them. The easiest way to expand environmentalism is to make it affordable to everyone.

On the other hand, I accept the premise that Croatians know something about dangerous beasts.

There is little fundamental difference between self-loathing at the level of the individual and at the level of the human race itself. Zoos are of course a place for learning about habitats, ecosystems and the interaction of species, including humanity. But that is not the same as saying that zoos are a place for propaganda and political indoctrination.

You would think that a nation and a people just recently liberated from the yoke of Communist anti-intellectualism would understand that.

Life imitates Michael Crichton:

Arachnaphobes beware -- scientists have found a prehistoric spider perfectly preserved in amber.

Even more worryingly, its blood was preserved, leading to the possibility that its DNA could be extracted.

The creature, 1.5in (4cm) long by 0.78in (2cm) wide, was trapped in the resin 20 million years ago.

No comment yet from either the young-earth creationists or the "intelligent design" disciples.

Suggested Reading:


Carnivalized at Modulator's Friday Ark.

Was I really seeking good
Or just seeking attention?
Is that all good deeds are
when looked at with an ice-cold eye?
--"No Good Deed Goes Unpunished," Wicked

All tastes and preferences are subjective. That includes people's tastes and preferences for saving the planet:

[R]esearch shows our fondness for particular animals could have detrimental effects on preservation efforts. These so-called "glamour animals" dominate fundraising campaigns and news headlines, siphoning money away from more needy -- if less photogenic -- creatures, according to some experts.
...
In a 1998 issue of Conservation Biology, Czech et al. found that "advantaged subjects," including birds, mammals and fish, were under the protection of significantly more nongovernmental organizations. The allocation of benefits from the U.S. Endangered Species Act were similarly skewed.

The Politics of Pull becomes the Politics of Plush. Go figure.

There is of course nothing wrong with private persons prioritizing their charitable giving toward some environmental causes over others, just as there is nothing wrong with giving money to scholarship funds rather than to disease research. All tastes and preferences are subjective.

But perhaps a tad bit of humility, and "an ice-cold eye," are warranted among the Greens and the animal-welfare activists. There is a difference between "saving the Earth" and "saving just the parts of the Earth that you happen to think are cute."

Politicians and bureaucrats, meanwhile, have a more explicit obligation: to administer environmental laws (however wise or foolish they may be) as logically and objectively as possible. A species is either endangered or it isn't; an ecosystem is either threatened or it isn't. If you want to be a central planner, then you have to take the bitter with the sweet, and the ugly with the cute.

Meanwhile, my long-standing thesis remains: the best way to preserve the environment is to buy it.