“…dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

And so it came to pass.  And speaking of creeping things that doth creepeth, it seems the creeps have inherited the Earth, creeps that seem intent to stomp every creeping thing over which they have dominion into extinction (and don’t forget the permanent snuffing the fowl of the air).

You’re probably wondering why I’ve decided to bum you out tonight.  I’m blue because of these new bummer tidbits, the massive die-off and looming extinction of nine species of shark due to the charming practice of ‘finning’ the poor critters for shark-fin soup while tossing the still alive but mutilated shark back into the ocean to effectively die slowly from blood loss and asphyxiation.

I can’t tell you how depressed I get knowing that over the course of my lifetime I’ve watched the biggest species die-off since the disappearance of the dinosaurs.  Except for a few modest successes (think a few species of whales, wolves, American bison), people world-wide seem driven to destroy as many habitats and species as rapidly as possible, whether through global warming, deforestation, desertification, strip mining, urban sprawl, polluting and increasing the acidity of fresh and salt water, overfishing, poaching and just polluting the air and land in general.  Is the game to see how many of them we can take with us before our fossil fuel runs out and civilization collapses?

In the case of creatures like pelagic sharks or other deepsea fish, we’re looking at the classic tragedy of the commons writ large.  Unless some modern day, environmentally-motivated Captain Nemo decides to take matters into his own hands, it’s pretty much all she wrote for these poor creatures.  Wouldn’t hurt to have some more (and less gentle) Bruno Mansers on land as well.

There might be a bit more hope for the poor vaquita which recently lost funds for protection due to the economic downturn.  Rather than watch it follow the Yangtse River Dolphin, perhaps a campaign funded by private donations run by a group such as the WWF could make up the shortfall?

The only thing that depresses me more than the actual mass extinction event underway is how people seem to care so little about it.

“Fish caught near wastewater treatment plants serving five major U.S. cities had residues of pharmaceuticals in them, including medicines used to treat high cholesterol, allergies, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder and depression, researchers reported Wednesday.”

Shame that doesn’t make a saner, healthier population of fish.

• 700 North American fish species risk extinction (Approximately 39% of described fish species of the continent are imperiled. )
• Will Central Africa’s Forest Wildlife Be Eaten into Extinction? (oh come on, do they really have to ask? We know they’ll all be just pictures in a book for our grandkids)
• Study: bird species will die off faster (More than 1,000 in danger of becoming extinct by 2100)
• Amphibian extinction may be worse than thought (one-third of the world’s 5,918 known amphibian species are classified as threatened with extinction and more than 170 species have likely gone extinct since 1980.)

“Many scientists, including Harvard University entomologist E.O. Wilson, believe Earth is in the middle of a mass extinction comparable to the one 65 million years ago that wiped out two-thirds of land species, including the dinosaurs. “