Thursday, July 23, 2015
What will naturalists do?
If the "sixth extinction" is well underway, as we are told, what will naturalists do when there's no more wilderness or places that can be called natural? That is, assuming humans are still able to survive for a while. Watching (even while trying not to) the tune-ups for the Republican primaries has given me some ideas. For example, types like that jackass named Donald are clearly over-specialized and are probably on their way to extinction like the Irish Elk and the Dodo. They may be having "their day in the sun," but the evidence seems to indicate they're getting too much sun. In a possibly viable substitute for studying mimicry, which has always been one of my favorite subjects within ecology, we have the spectacle of Senator Graham mimicking the behavior of the Donald by making videos of himself destroying his cell phone. Is there something wrong with me for being totally uninterested in watching such a spectacle? Is there something wrong with me for worrying that millions of people actually are interested in watching such things? I guess when there are no more Rattlesnakes to watch, nor Gopher Snakes to mimic Rattlesnake behavior, and no more Monarch Butterflies or Viceroys to mimic them, I'll have to decide whether to keep blogging based on my photo archives or start watching and writing about the new unNatural History and call myself an unNaturalist.
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