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January-March 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 1)

A Southern Baptist Replies
Dear Dr. Wilson:

Thank you for your beautiful and heartfelt letter regarding the Creation and why we all must consider how to work together to save it. We have many common interests and grounds to respect one another. Like you, I was raised in the Southern Baptist but also Pentecostal and Presbyterian religious traditions. I have worked as a scientist for nearly 40 years. Whether we have actually met or not, we can be, and have been, friends.

Even for those of us who accept the Bible as the word of God, there are a number of reasons to consider intermediate points of view regarding whether creation and natural selection/evolution are incompatible. Many Bible-believing Christians have a hard time accepting six 24-hour days as the amount of time it took to create the universe and all the diversity of life on earth. We must acknowledge that the Bible uses allegories, poetry, parables, dreams, and many other traditional ways of teaching.

If God created "all things," then He created not only the animals, plants, forests, oceans, mountains, and sky, but also the processes by which they interact and function, including the fact that natural forces can result in anatomic and behavioral variation within a species (natural selection). The results of natural selection can be observed in relatively short time frames. We can't and shouldn't deny what we can see.

The problem between Christians and evolutionary scientists arises in what we can't see: in interpretation of the fossil record and when natural selection is invoked to explain huge changes in morphology, for which there are few if any real "missing links," and the rise of new species. In a word, evolution. From its first consideration evolution has been shouted down as blasphemy, a challenge and insult to God.

Now we have spent the better part of two centuries fighting over this. How sad. I say sad because, if natural selection does lead to evolution and the origin of species, then it too is a process created by God, at least from a Christian viewpoint. In the end, perhaps God will let us know whether natural selection leads to evolution or not.

In the meantime, as you have noted, Dr. Wilson, we seem to be facing an unparalleled crisis of our own making. Although there may be some room to disagree whether the looming extinction crisis will seriously impact half the species of plants and animals on earth, anything even close to that is a violation of our responsibility to God. In Revelations 7:3 God tells us quite clearly, "Hurt not the earth, neither the seas, nor the trees." The Bible teaches Christians to love, care for, husband and steward the earth and all the life that God has given us. Although there is plenty of blame to go around, this extinction crisis is happening primarily as a result of greed, selfishness, and self-deception. So, I would hope all Christians would agree that this is one life-and-death issue where we must find a common purpose with all our neighbors and colleagues.

The defense of living Nature is a universal value. Most of the world's other great religions contain similar teachings regarding the stewardship of the Creation. Perhaps it is time to reach out to all of them, to try to unite behind saving the diversity of the Creation and life on earth.

Your brother, colleague, and friend,
DAVID A. JESSUP

Don't Forget Empathy
Lyanda Lynn Haupt's essay about rehabilitating birds as "fragments of wildness" in the Oct-Dec 2006 issue eloquently personifies the struggle between abstract notions of what we should do for the long run versus tangible compulsions in the here-and-now. This struggle is one many conservation biologists share—myself included. Imbalance in this struggle has earned us the labels of eco-fascists, people-haters, and worse.

Conservation biologists strive to balance the shortage of people who are protecting biodiversity from being squashed by the juggernaut of human society, but this striving can imbalance ourselves toward long-term thinking at the expense of empathy. We push an agenda of habitat protection (plus) that often leaves us too little room for one-on-one encounters with the subjects of our efforts. When our single-minded attention to the health of a species or system as a whole results in too little empathy for individuals—say feral pigs or goats—we are vulnerable to the charge of eco-fascism.

And critically, eco-fascism extends not only to poor treatment of nonhuman animals, but also of human beings. People benefit from conservation but also bear its costs. Unless we look directly into the eyes of those who lose most from conservation—almost always the locals, frequently the poor and disadvantaged—we are prone to seeing these losses in only abstract terms without all the personal details that bring these harms to life. Failures here result in charges of people-hating.

Sometimes the ends of conservation will justify the means, but never will they justify a cavalier attitude about those means. Only by communicating directly with those affected by conservation can we ensure that the pursuit of our agenda is not blind to the needs of those in the here-and-now. As Haupt's essay reminds us, our humanity stems not only from our ability to reason about what must be done for long-term good, but also from our empathy.

KAI M. A. CHAN
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Missing the Message
Mark Jerome Walters's piece on the Hawaiian raven (Oct-Dec 2006 issue) was a fascinating case study, and I applaud Conservation for publishing it. But what is the useful message? That "the science was insufficient to endorse either" releasing captive reared birds or keeping them in captivity—or it seems, to make just about any other choice in the history of efforts to save the species? That can be true even when there is much more information available than appears to have been in the case for the Hawaiian raven. And is it really true that this "is a story of doing harm by going to all lengths to do good?" I was left wondering whether the outcome would have been any different if other choices had been made.

In the 1980s, I was peripherally involved with two contentious recovery efforts—for the California condor and the southern sea otter—first while at PRBO Conservation Science, and subsequently as a consultant to the Marine Mammal Commission. For the condor, the question was whether to bring the last animals into captivity and begin a breeding program. Opponents feared that captive breeding would fail, and the last of these majestic birds would end their lives in cages rather than being allowed death with dignity in the wild. As it happens, the captive breeding program has probably succeeded beyond the expectations of even its proponents. The plan to establish a second population of southern sea otters—at San Nicolas Island in southern California—was vigorously opposed by many fishermen because they believed, with the otter biologists, that the translocation would succeed. It hasn't.

The California condor and the southern sea otter were the subjects of two of the best-funded research programs lavished on any endangered species. Yet in regard to the biological questions, managers made their decisions with great uncertainty in the case of the condor, and with misplaced certainty in the case of the sea otter. Moreover, in both instances, nonbiological issues were—quite appropriately—an important element in the decisions. In 1981 I wrote: "The condor issue is reminiscent of the debate in the medical world, familiar to all of us, on the use of heroic life-prolonging measures with the terminally ill. In both cases, the questions go beyond science and involve our emotions and philosophies...It would be useful to have a large body of unarguable data to point to, but there is very little. That there are very few condors left, and fewer every year, constitutes the realm of general agreement. Everything else known about the condor has been subject to at least two interpretations, which means that our individual conclusions will, of necessity, be highly subjective."

Especially now that the United States' Endangered Species Act is itself less endangered following the recent election, the intersection of science, policy, and practical management in regard to endangered species recovery programs would benefit from being aired out. Conservation magazine and the Society for Conservation Biology could both be initiators of such a conversation.

BURR HENEMAN
Director, Commonweal Ocean Policy Program, Bolinas, California

Read Mark Jerome Walters' response

Paralyzed by Precaution
It is with humble hesitation that I draw further attention to Mark Walters' recent essay (Oct-Dec 2006 issue). In the emergency room of conserving highly endangered species, adherence to the Hippocratic Oath should not paralyze action. When the ESA delivers us a critically injured patient, to avoid all risk is to doom the patient and stall recovery innovation.

I agree in principle with Professor Walters' message that the recovery of endangered species should, first and foremost, do no harm. However, in his view doing no harm is equivalent to doing nothing. Had my colleagues and I followed Walters' advice the Hawaiian crow (Corvus hawaiiensis) or 'alala would be accelerating toward complete extinction. The 12 wild and 11 captive crows that we set out to recover in 1992 would have lived noble but unproductive lives, simply continuing to die with little or no replacement. Today we might find six crows alive in the wild and five in disheveled facilities on Maui (assuming a generous 95 percent annual survival and lack of reproduction). More likely the extinction of wild 'alala in 2002 would have represented the extinction of the species. When species are reduced to unsustainably small populations, doing nothing means saying goodbye.

The 'Alala Recovery Team, which is comprised of private landowners as well as biologists and agency representatives, has labored since 1992 to find common ground on diverse, complex, and contentious issues. The Walters article portrays recovery as being driven by science when, in fact, legal, socio-political, and economic considerations frequently dictated or influenced actions on the ground. 'Alala recovery has been impeded not because some action finally was taken but because too little was done and at such a late date. Nevertheless, the world population of 'alala increased from 23 (12 in the wild and 11 in captivity) in 1992 to 56 (all in captivity, but in modernized facilities) in 2006. More than 2,100 ha of important 'alala habitat is now included in the Big Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex, a possible reintroduction site. Increased numbers of crows, secure habitat, and important lessons learned will allow the 'alala to once again grace the forests above Kona's coast. This option would not be available had nothing been done.

During the past 30 years, when 'Alala were in the final stage of their population decline, at least 11 species of Hawaiian forest birds vanished or became too rare to find, much less manage. In contrast, species like Puaiohi (Myadestes palmeri), Palila (Loxiodes bailleui), California condors (Gymnogyps californianus), black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes), Mauritius kestrels (Falco punctatus), and 'alala have benefited by dedicated application of risky and potentially harmful strategies. Their existence in a human-dominated world owes to cautious application of innovative and potentially harmful practices to dying patients. Isn't this exactly what Hippocrates would have wanted?

JOHN M. MARZLUFF
University of Washington, Seattle

Read Mark Jerome Walters' response