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 Enlarged image is 16 bit. |
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Giraffe Composite Population Graph
Giraffes are one example of the many species which are popular with humans. It seems the more their numbers decrease, the more popular they become. They make excellent subjects for children's animal cartoon animation. Giraffes are large and easily visible in their last remaining fragmented habitat areas. The habitat area for giraffes today is roughly identical to what it was last week. But a comparison of present habitat area to that which existed at the beginning of the last millenium tells a different story. Giraffes are not extinct. Several closely related genera and species of organisms have been driven into extinction. Giraffes are an example of the many well known, visible and popular species whose numbers were once in ranges of tens of millions, millions or hundreds of thousands. Humans have altered, destroyed, or expropriated ever increasing areas of their habitat. And continue to do so at increasing rates. Giraffe numbers have consequently dropped precipitously. Consider the semantic ramifications of the term destroyed habitat. The term is intended to indicate areas which can no longer be inhabited by giraffes. A sugar cane plantation, for example, is an area with biotic activity. Such an area has biotic potential albiet reduced from its former natural state, yet it is not suitable for habitation by giraffes..
Generalized comparison of a generic popular organism, the human organism, and the Hubbert Peak, using geologic and evolutionary time scales. Most Americans are quite adept as HOP denialists. They've had lots of practice. They've heard all the arguments many times. Most HOP denialists are somewhat uncomfortable with a big picture consideration of habitat destruction which includes a large time frame of evolutionary significance. How one views the ecological biodiversity crisis depends upon one's a priori starting point. If you are an HOP denialist for whom reality is a pesky inconvenience, we recommend that you reduce angst by following the common practise of adjusting your start point. This is the single most important thing which you must do in order to achieve a more blissfull state. The Buddha has said that ignorance is bliss. So why aren't more people happy? There are a couple of other things which must be pooh-poohed, creatively rationalized away, or simply ignored. Areas which have become the last refuge for large visible popular species, national parks and temporarily protected areas, give a sense of accomplishment, pride and hope for HOP denialists. How long was the last protected area in Alaska protected? It is best not to bother these people with the sort of stuff which denies them their warm fuzzy feelings or induces the slightest hint of guilt or doubt. Example. If the government of Brunei sets aside 27,000 acres as a protected area, for gosh sakes don't mention that government's abysmal record on forest destruction. Or the fact that during the same year 2.7 million acres of forest were burned just next door to Brunei. With ecological successes like this, who needs failure? NASA has the entire process recorded on film and in digital images. If you could find those images, don't show them around. The sum of these events represents an ecological horror, but only if one considers the matter objectively, without creative rationalization. Well respected wildlife conservation organizations certainly don't bother to consider the big picture, so why should you? panda.org for example, touted this egregious tragedy as a major accomplishment for the year 2000 in an article gushing with satisfaction and brimming with creative rationalizations and omissions. Giraffes survive in small island areas. People want very much to believe that the small areas to which humans have relegated animals like giraffes are ostensibly safe and effective in halting reductions in numbers. Unfortunately it is not true. It is an ecomythological fantasy. A flimsy excuse for complacency.
Jonathan Weiner described the problem well over a decade ago in The Next One Hundred Years. The book is, sui generis, and is also out of print.
Ever wondered what grilled giraffe sirloin might taste like? Some bobos (bougeois bohemians) pay tens of thousands of US dollars to visit Africa to see the giraffes and other animals up close and personal. These bobos rest peacefully at night with their illusions and fantasies. They got on a plane. They went straight to the parks. They paid lots of money. They saw quite a few animals. What could be wrong with this picture?
Japanese have a concept of mujou, mutability and uncertainty is a universally constant characteristic. Picture this. You are in front of a steam roller. Your shoe laces and pant legs are pinned underneath. The steam roller is advancing slowly towards you. The driver can't hear your shouting. This situation isn't going to stay the same. Odds are it will get ugly and painful. Well armed soldiers are required to defend giraffes and other animals against poachers who are in reality bands of desperately poor hungry humans. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be so poor, so hungry, or so desperate that you would hunt these animals with an AK-47? For some it's part of daily life. They know the animals are rare. They know it's illegal. They know there are soldiers with guns ready to kill them as soon as they set foot in the parks. After killing a giraffe or a gorilla, they gorge on the meat as much as possible and then pack up the rest and carry it out, hopefully without being shot in the process. Once in town others fight for the right to give a little money for the bush meat before it rots. Such is life for the bush meat traders. We have never been caught in that particular set of dire human circumstances. Neither have the BoBos for whom these animals mean so much in an abstract sense as a means of proving that humans are not overpopulated. Some say Africa is the next holocaust waiting to happen; that it's just a matter of time. Some point to the AIDS virus as providing at least temporary relief from the ravages of overpopulation. In fact, outrageous as it is, we have read that idea so often in the general news media that we are sure it's been widely disseminated and is a well known concept. Others see Nigeria, a country about the size of California, heading for the 300 million mark and wonder what would happen then. For some consideration of a state of human overpopulation is a trivial intellectual exercise based on economics. It usually goes like this: Have humans exceeded carrying capacity if they only have one television in the house, or if they don't have a refrigerator? For ecologists human overpopulation is a reality. It is not a hypothetical abstraction. It is a part of the physical world measured in terms of habitat and biodiversity. Habitat destruction is observed and photographed at high resolution from space around the world. Around the clock. Yesterday. Today. Every day. It is the number one cause of enormously accelerated rates of species extinctions. Africa is vastly overpopulated. It is becoming more overpopulated and more unstable daily. Human overpopulation has painted large visible popular animals into a corner. Human overpopulation pressure has made their fate much more precarious. Small fragmented populations are much less able to withstand and survive adverse events from mild to catastrophic. There are several things which would not be positive events for the remaining giraffe populations hanging on in pockets of fragmented habitat. When island arks are small, Thomas Lovejoy's island effect of is at its most extreme. An entire generation can turn out to be all male or female. The only breeding male may die at the hands of poachers. Ecosystem decay as predictable as radioactive decay begins as soon as the park islands are formed. Progressive losses occur for all the animal inhabitants. Changes in park administration affect policy. Changes in government affect financial support of the parks. The spread of a viral or bacterial communicable disease is more damaging to small populations in man-made islands than would be the case for populations of tens of thousands spread over thousands of square kilometers. Extended periods of drought... Desertification... Wildfires... Famine... Human warfare... A severe energy crisis... Africa is a place where such adverse events are common. But were they to happen simultaneously with synergistic amplification of effect, even the national parks could not guarantee survival for giraffes and other animals. As the effects of global warming intensify, Africa will suffer the consequences to a disproportionately severe degree relative to the other continents and it is highly likely that these events will strike simultaneously and often. Not particularly good news for giraffes. But then again giraffes are members of a select group of animals for which humans will expend disproportionately huge amounts of effort and money to preserve no matter how unnatural the conditions. Why? To prove that humans are not overpopulated.
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This little graph shows the increase in human numbers in the last few thousand years. In this case, the distance from 1,000 million to 7,600 million is 7.6 times the distance from zero to 1,000 million. 7.6 billion is demographers' mid projection. Graph curve is from Learning Tools, KQED TV, San Francisco, a PBS educational tv station. Overpopulation denialists right and left have asked about the source, so now you know. The leader of the Task Force on Amphibian Decline living in Britain objected calling the graph extreme and, "off the scale." But it isn't. It is simply demographer's mid projection. Usually when such a graph is drawn, a short time scale is used. But an evolutionarily significant time scale can more easily show relevant amounts of increase per unit of time. The distance from 1,000 million to 7,600 million is 7.6 times the distance from zero to 1,000 million. The graph is an accurate representation. |
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naturalsciences.sdsu.edu/classes/lab2.7/lab2.7.html |
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