Fiddling with the food chain

Is is ok to kill a shark to save a seal? Not an easy decision to make. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration thinks it’s ok, and is currently seeking permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to kill 10 sharks in the coming year. The seal in question is the Hawaiian Monk Seal, and the shark is the Galapagos Shark.

The justification for the plan is that the monk seal is classified as endangered (IUCN - Hawaiian Monk Seals) and the sharks are not. They’ve asked for and got permission to do this before, so they clearly think it’s a good way to protect the few seals that are left.

The sharks don’t give an arse for the IUCN red list, or the fact that we meddlesome humans think that Monk Seals are cute and worthy of protection. We see an endangered species, they see lunch. Protecting endangered species is never a straightforward task, because the animals are never killed ‘just because’. If a poacher has killed an elephant, he’s not done it just to be mean. He’s done it because the ivory is obscenely valuable and he can make a large amount of money from it. If we stop him, his livelihood is gone. And in stepping in to protect a disappearing species, you sometimes have to take extreme steps, like sacrificing one group of animals for another.

However, the shark is classified as near-threatened (IUCN - Galapagos Shark) meaning it is not vulnerable now but is likely to be in the near future. I would therefore hope that anyone making decisions like this has the mantra Beware The Cane Toad echoing their heads the whole time as an example of when we can get it wrong. We as a species do not have a particularly good track record in meddling with the natural world. But with that in mind, it is possible to get it right, and hopefully the NOAA will manage to do just that for the seals.

(PHOTO: PKEMP)