Out here in the wide-open West, it seems like there
ought to be plenty of room for everyone, including all the wild
creatures that were here first. But we know better: The conversion
of wild lands into human habitat — not to mention space for
our domesticated plants and animals — has pushed dozens of
species to the edge of extinction and beyond.
The
conservation movement’s response to this crisis has ranged
from lawsuits against land-management agencies to buying up land
before growth can gobble it first. Some groups such as the
Peregrine Fund — the subject of this week’s cover story
– have focused on the captive breeding of endangered species
and their eventual release into the wild. The Fund has achieved
some dramatic results: The return of the peregrine falcon is one of
the most spectacular conservation success stories of the 20th
century.
Yet, as Stephanie Paige Ogburn writes, there is
peril in this approach. Successful captive-breeding programs can be
an easy out for a society loath to confront difficult habitat
problems. That’s the case with the California condor, where
captive-bred birds released to the wild continue to die because
society is unwilling to address a huge threat to their survival
— the lead bullets in the carcasses they eat. And the
Fund’s captive-bred aplomado falcons may face a similar
predicament in New Mexico: They are being released back into
grassland habitat still degraded from a century of overgrazing and
now threatened by intensive energy development.
As
Stephanie writes, “The birds could be released in perpetuity,
re-seeded like an annual crop of flowers.” But is this how we want
to practice conservation in the West?
If Westerners allow
ourselves to believe that we can overcome something as fundamental
as a lack of habitat through technical prowess alone, we will never
succeed in restoring healthy ecosystems. Why tear down dams in the
Pacific Northwest to provide habitat for wild salmon when we can
continue to breed and release gazillions of hatchery fish? Why
force New Mexican farmers to be more efficient with water and
return some of it to the Rio Grande, when we can just throw
captive-raised silvery minnows into the river every year?
When Congress passed the Endangered Species Act, it did not
envision tanks, zoos and other breeding facilities as the primary
habitat for American wildlife. The writers of the law believed that
the United States, unlike Europe, still had enough room for all its
species to thrive in the natural world.
One can argue
that they were overly optimistic; perhaps they didn’t foresee
the day when more than 300 million people would live cheek by jowl
with their increasingly stressed wild brethren. But I believe they
knew what they were doing. By setting the bar high, they tried to
force society to plan intelligently, to reconsider unnecessarily
destructive practices, and on occasion to sacrifice human
convenience for the sake of our wild heritage.
Biologist
E.O. Wilson warns that “the sixth wave” of extinction is sweeping
the planet. Captive-breeding programs are essential if we want to
save what is left of our wildlife. They are not, however, nearly
enough.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The West is not a zoo.
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