Swan song to wake up

The Alaotra grebe has gone the way of the Dodo. The Madagascan bird was declared officially extinct this week by International Union for Conservation of Nature after 25 years of futile hope that it could be kept alive. The water bird joins the list of 190 species that have gone extinct since modern records began. While there has been a recent surge of interest in protecting ecosystems from pollution and deforestation, there is very little or no awareness about threats to earth's biodiversity. Of the millions of species, plants and animals that have thrived and walked the earth, many have died out. Even as we spend millions to unearth fossils of dinosaurs and mammoths, to view their remains in museums, there are many lesser known living species that could soon join their extinct ranks. The growth of cities too has blinded us to many other life forms that exist around us. An average man might see just a fraction of the vast biodiversity and never hear of the grebe or the Liverpool pigeon which became extinct in 2008. The irony is we always wake up when it is too late to save anything. The grebe died out being easy prey to carnivorous fish and poachers. There were two decades since 1985 when it was last sighted and several years before, for us to have done something to save it when it was understood that the bird was critically endangered. We could have, for instance, provided a better habitat and protected it from breeding with birds of a similar species. But honestly, how many of us do care if a species of bird is alive or extinct? Whatever the scientific claims of creating artificial life may be, we can't however much we try, resurrect a species that has been wiped out. All we have left of the grebe is a sole photograph and an artist's impression of how it might have looked. I think it is a shame on us to leave nothing but photographs of co-existing life forms for our children. While ambitious plans to preserve our cultural heritage and the DNA of endangered species in a 'Noah's Ark' are being undertaken in various places, I think it is high time we saved the living while they are still alive. Besides the fact that extinction creates a vacuum in the ecosystem, what bothers me most is the gross injustice of it all. What gives humans the right to think that because we are advanced in some ways, we have been given divine right to stamp out other creatures? We can't afford to be blasé about it and think animals can breed and look after themselves. Highly important as it is to look after the starving populations on earth, we also have to contribute towards preserving wildlife. We may have achieved a lot in terms of civilisation, but we haven't and never can repopulate the earth the way it was when it began. If we continue to encroach upon the habitats of other species and distort the natural order of things, we may find ourselves the only species left alive. And going by the way things are, there is no guarantee that we will not stamp each other out. The death of the Alaotra grebe should be a wake-up call that every life form down to the smallest cricket has its rightful place on earth and deserves to be conserved. ¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still lives here. Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group 'Swan song to wake up' , Gulf Daily News, May 28, 2010, Jennifer Gnana