by Ann Dennis

Created on: June 29, 2008

The key word here is endangered and animals of any species that are kept in an artificial environment are not endangered and are slightly different from their wild counterparts.

To count these species to clue us in as to their endangered status we need to know what is happening in the wild. Some may ask why. The reason is simple. We are already saddled with a number of species that are listed as endangered and only live in zoos and will never see the wild again. And the sad fact is that they are more likely to be lost due to catastrophic accident when they are caged or tanked in some single place. And if numbers of these species were ever big enough that all the zoos in the world are stocked what would we do with the extras? They can't go back to the wild because we have already destroyed that and if they could they would die because they no longer know how to take care of themselves. The alternative would be to simply destroy the extra individuals.

Of course we may not run out of fresh water or seawater but even the huge oceans are getting polluted and rivers and streams are being dammed and diverted for the use of man. We've even managed to dry up a few. If we combine the numbers of wild and captive fish species then man will have a false sense of how urgent the need is to do something to protect the fish and let's face it those endangered species are our buffer. Those in authority that make policy decisions only do so when the situation is urgent and there is a public outcry.
Another problem arises when counters face the question of whether a fish should be counted if science has mutated it. Is a wild salmon, a captive salmon and a tetraploid salmon the same species? There is already concern about the mutant fish that have escaped captivity. As a matter of fact mutated salmon have already shown themselves to be the aggressor in the wild and are now another factor in the endangering of their wild cousins. This may fly in the face of the concern for farm raised animals but is an anomaly rather than the rule.
At the very least the different environments should be kept separate on a tally sheet. Count the species not matter where they are but identify them separately. We are a technically advanced species we can make three columns on a sheet of paper. But for the purposes of identifying an endangered species only the free, in the wild, species should be counted.

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