Australia's threatened species

Activity 1

Which endangered species should be studied?

This quotation from Species at Risk: Research in Australia (Groves, R.H. and Ride, W.D.L., 1982) shows that research on endangered species is focused on a few kinds of living things.

    World Wildlife Fund (Australia) actively seeks proposals for research on endangered species, and so far, of about 150 proposals, one has concerned an amphibian, one a fish, and one a family of insects. A few have been about endangered ecosystems. The rest have been about mammals, birds, reptiles and flowering plants.

  1. List the criteria you feel would be important in determining the value of an endangered species.

  2. If your criteria were used to determine which species were to have research funds allocated to their study, do you think that the kinds of living things being studied might change?

  3. Write a short essay on the statement 'All species are equal.'

Teachers notes

  1. Students could include the following ideas in their essay. Encourage them to use examples to illustrate their points.

    • In natural ecosystems, the extinction of certain species may have more effect than that of others. Thus all species may be equal in theory but not necessarily in practice.

    • Many decisions are made with an anthropocentric attitude. This is a view of nature where humans and their interests and aspirations are the most important consideration. Most humans instinctively feel love for other species according to how close such species are to our own. Thus concerns over extinction mirror the strength of the emotion that most people feel about species that they happen to like.

    • From the human viewpoint of their utility to us, all species are definitely not equal.
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Posted April 1997.