Rec and Sports

Should Mankind become Extinct?

I read an article the other day outlining the eleven species that have been photographed alive before they went extinct. It is sad to know that in the last one hundred and fifty years eleven species of animals have went extinct as a direct result of man. Each one of these animals was hunted to extinction for food, fur, or considered a nuisance. How many more animals will be extinct in another one hundred and fifty years?

If you take a walk through your local zoo these days, slowing down to read the signs on each exhibit for the animals you will find that just about each sign has a word in red: Threatened, Endangered, and Critically Endangered. In the last one hundred and fifty years while we caused the extinction of eleven species we have put thousands more at risk of extinction. Didnt we learn a lesson with the first eleven? While we have now started trying to bring many species back from the brink, we are still driving them to extinction right along with many others.

I posted an article the other day on World Zoo Today (www.worldzootoday.com) about the poachers of Black Rhinos in this one area being so bad that instead of arresting the poachers they are relocating the rhinos. This is the effect mankind is currently having on this world. Have we become so narrow minded as a species that we destroy?

Species are being hunted to extinction for ancient beliefs in medicine, culinary delights, and money. Where do we stop? When there are no more animals to hunt? If you kill all the animals what do you hunt next? When all the animals are gone society will be forced to change. For the good or bad, no one will know but change will happen. Using animals to make money will be gone, so another form will be found. A good possibility will be trading in humans. Slave trade has been going on for thousands of years and still goes on today.

Maybe it is time for humans to become extinct. In the short span of a thousand years, the seas would be teaming with life once more. All trace of man would be gone from the land and a new world order of animal ecosystem would be in force. Animals would once again roam in vast herds across the land and in the skies.

Sara is the editor of World Zoo Today. World Zoo Today is a global news site dedicated to zoos, aquariums, wildlife, and conservation. Sara’s motto is “One World One Zoo”, this world on which we live is one giant zoo, we are the current zookeepers. As zookeepers, we are doing a very very bad job.