Endangered Species News reports on federal protection for endangered species, rare plants and rare animals that face a potential population crash or extinction. While the Endangered Species Act does  help these critters recover, it always angers someone.

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_ This makes NBN suspect there is a reason so few marine species have gone extinct while so many land animals have. There’s an abundance of studies saying the overwhelming ecological pressures marine environments face are eroding and even eliminating entire ecosystems. No one doubts the coincidence of pollution, scorched earth fishing tactics and, most of all, global warming will inevitably mean that once robust marine ecosystems will be badly eroded or cease to exist entirely in 30 or so years. But just like the lobsters and moon snails that have disappeared from Long island but are thriving 150 miles to the north, the species of coral that disappear from the Caribbean will still be found alive elsewhere in the oceans. Is it unreasonable to think all are ready to repopulate their old haunts should environmental conditions allow sometime down the road? The most recent study/forecast we found on the toll these ecological pressures are taking on marine ecosystems makes dire forecasts with only vaguely ominous reference to possible mass extinction. Could that be because it’s hard to actually drive a marine species into extinction?

_So, it’s with a sense of sad pragmatism that NBN forecasts a less ominous future for the earth's once cherished marine ecosystems like Long Island East End and the Caribbean's coral reefs. The study cited above is correct in saying that the next generation is going to see wholesale elimination of entire ecosystems and we suspect that means even greater erosion of the former menagerie of marine wildlife that once lived in such places. But will those species lost go completely extinct? Probably not. Yes, there will be marine extinctions in our future—unless somehow global warming, nutrient loading and reckless fishing techniques all cease in the next 20 years or so. Highly specialized species like manatees, sea turtles, ocean sunfish, and whales come first to mind. Complex, highly diverse ecosystems like coral reefs and eelgrass beds are going to continue to disappear. But water covers three-quarters of the earth’s surface. There will always be refuges from which so many less specialized marine species will be able to stage a comeback, should future environmental conditions permit, and they will. It just won’t be in this generation, or even next. But as humans increasingly threaten themselves with their own extinction, decisions will have to be made that may one day mean folks can once again go noodling for Long Island Sound lobster, should human intelligence not keep pace with our survival instincts.

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