They're Extinct and that Makes Us Stink

I felt it relevant to touch on the fascinating subject of the different species the earth has been home to over the past 4 billions years. One reason being because of the sad death of the very large tortoise named George, who was the last left of his entire species and the other being that I finally finished A Short History of Nearly Everything last night and the final chapter was primarily about this topic exactly.


The chapter put a great emphasis on how irresponsible and dangerous us humanoids are to all other species on this planet. Apparently we have wiped out thousands upon thousands of species of animal, plant and bird. We are real shit heads to be quite frank. There used to be plenty of large and robust mammals scooting around this earth with us, now there is just four - elephants, rhinos, hippos and Healthy Harolds.


George the large turtle was about 100 years old and was from La Pinta, one of the smallest islands in Galapogos, Spain. Apparently his species are known to live up to 200 years old though, which I think is absolutely incredible. Imagine that, mid-life crisis at 100 anyone?


They don't know what George died of, but they know that all his family and friends had died at the mercy humans, who hunted the tortoises for meat to the point of extinction while we let our pesky introduced goats eat away at their habitat.


A lot of extinctions were a result of introduced species. We've introduced cats that have eaten birds, pigs that have spread the flu, even humans have even killed masses of humans by introducing foreign germs and diseases. Of course, luckily, our species as a whole hasn't suffered just yet.


So how many species have actually existed on earth so far? There really is no way of telling. It's said that it could be anywhere between 5 million to 100 million or even more. Species naturally come and then they naturally go. Whatever species we were before we evolved into modern humans, that species has now perished too. Apparently a species or two before we turned into the homo sapiens that we are now, was a species who looked just like us, however held the intelligence of a baby. If you were to stumble across one and make eye contact thinking you had made some type of connection, to them you would be seen as no more than a threat or perhaps prey. Scary to imagine huh? Vicious. Perhaps this is where our disregard for other species started - long before we even had the brain capacity to sympathise or empathise properly.


Some extra careless people may argue that an average species will only last about four million years anyway, so they will eventually die out anyway. It's not really the point though is it? Every single living creature has an equal right to live on this earth and it's not fair that we are interfering. We all only have one earth, one chance and we seem to be making a terrible mess of it. Because we can. We are intelligent and stupid enough to make a mess of it.


We have the brains and hands to make the tools we need to churn through forests, seize billions of fish from the ocean, create enough carbon dioxide to break holes in our ozone layer. We are absolute walking disasters in all sense of the term.


With a world that is falling away at our finger tips all we can do as individuals is try. Even though at times you may feel like recycling, composting, riding a bike or doing anything else environmentally friendly won't make a difference, I believe it's worth doing anyway. Surely it won't make a significant difference but it will make some.


Try to appreciate every living thing you cross paths with, appreciate what you have and try to be respectful of everyone and everything. Life is just so so so short isn't it!