Endangered - so what?

I heard recently that not long after 9/11, Lee from boyband Blue said somethign along the lines of "So what if all those people died - elephants are getting slaughtered every day". Harsh, but fair or misguided sentimentalism?

Well firstly, let's look at the whole issue of spending millions of pounds saving endangered species - many of which we have never heard of. Would we even miss the ones we have heard of? I mean, I can't see that the world is a worse place for the lack of Dodos, Sabre-toothed tigers, or the Peruvian blue-tipped humming bird, in the same way we don't miss T-Rex or Diplodocus. What is the obsession here? Will the Cassowary go the same way as the Moa? Quite probably. Have you heard of either? Possibly not.

Apart from some animals having a very valid position in the food chain, it seems that the only other reason is that 'it would be a shame' if they became extinct. Well, I'm sorry, but that's not good enough for me.

Secondly, we have this guilt about being the dominating species on the planet, and not giving a damn about any other species. Do we really think that if bears could talk, fire guns and drive cars they'd have the survival of the human species at the top of their agenda? Somehow I think not.

Lastly, scientists admit that we don't even know how many different creatures there are on the planet, and we are discovering thousands of new ones every year. So what woud happen if they became extinct before we discovered them? Nothing much really. We'd never have missed them.

So, let's stop saving animals for sentimental reasons and start saving the ones that really matter. While we're at it, let's actively destroy the ones that have no reason at all to exist, but cause misery to millions of people. Wasps, mosquitos and snakes to name but a few.