While species extinction is a natural process, the role humans play in it is undeniable
Post Date – 12:45 AM, Wednesday – July 5th
Author: Pramod K Nayyar
david irwin in Thylacine: The tragic story of the Tasmanian tiger Speaking of the last thylacine, she wrote: “There was real pain in Alison’s voice as she recalled to me her last weeks at the zoo in 1936… powerless and without a key , was soon kicked out of her home by the zoo, and at night she listened for distress calls from the zoo’s last remaining predators: the last thylacine, a Bengal tiger and a pair of lions, often locked outdoors to face Cold, rainy and snowy winters in Hobart.”
Thylacine died on the night of September 7, 1936.
Irving’s work, mournful in tone, captures the inhumanity of humanity, imbued not only with a sense of loss—for a species that will never be seen again—but with a sense of finality.
late and last
The British Romantic writers between 1798 and 1832 were obsessed with being late and last. Mary Shelley, of this group of writers, wrote the first novel about the end: last person (1826). In addition to Shelley’s classic, “The Last Man” was the subject of a play by Thomas Lovell Beddoes, a poem by Thomas Campbell and a famous painting by John Martin.Across the Atlantic, James Fenimore Cooper last of the mohicans Also appeared in the same year as Shelley’s novel.
In Coleridge’s masterpiece song of ancient sailorsIn the story, the sailor is haunted by his own death: he is the only surviving member of the ship. Coleridge’s sailor mourns:
“So many men, so beautiful!
They were all dead, and they all lied:
And 10 million slimy things
move on with life; me too”
In Byron’s apocalyptic “darkness,” each dog “attacks their master,” Byron said. Even here, there is a sense of finality, as Byron adds: “Save one”. This last loyal dog, considered man’s most loyal friend, died of starvation after refusing to leave his master’s corpse:
“He was loyal to Coase and always adhered to the
Birds and beasts and hungry people are in trouble,
Till hunger stalks them, or they fall dead
lured their jaws to tilt; he himself did not look for food,
But with one pitiful and persistent moan,
A quick, mournful cry, licking hands
The response was not a caress – he died.
Ben Hutchinson, studying this focus on being the last of his kind, writes: “The last is the last link in the teleological chain… The last man may be the conclusion, but he is also the last one person.” climax a particular tradition or ethnicity. “
In these texts, the feeling of being the last man is haunting, as clarified in Shelley’s Last Man: “I can tell no one the story of my adversity; I have no hope.
endless narrative
But poignant records remain for the last animal species, or at least those animals that humans have witnessed dying. Jeff Corwin wrote:
“George was the last living member of a subspecies of giant tortoise called the Abingdon Island tortoise…this gentle giant…soon to become a symbol of wildlife conservation in the world…he remains the last of his kind A poignant image of a lone sentinel of extinction.”
One of the most famous records of terminal deaths is that of Martha, the last passenger pigeon. Martha’s final years have been documented.
Joel Greenberg wrote:
“Martha reigned alone around her for another four years or so. Her fame grew and people used her aviary as a destination. The New York Zoo is said to have gone to great lengths to get Stephens to drop his unique exhibit. Due to Protected from the violence in nature that would have claimed her life, Martha’s vitality slowly declined. Keepers lowered her perch to just a few inches off the ground. She rarely moved anymore, which Saul’s son, Joseph Stephans, said, “On Sunday we’ll put a rope around the cage to keep the public from throwing sand at her and let her move around.
Most accounts state that she died on September 1, 1914. It was almost certainly sometime after noon, probably closer to noon, though it could have been four hours later. Guardian William Brentz may have discovered her crumpled body, or the Stephens family had been with her when the life force ended unwillingly, ending that whirlwind of feathers that defies human understanding, if not man’s capacity for destruction if.
Greenberg’s book highlights the role played by top predators — humans — in creating species persistence.
Martha and George are “The End”. The term “endling” was coined in 1996 by Robert M Webster and Bruce Erickson in a letter to natureis now used to describe non-human organisms, mainly animals and some plants, which have been identified as “the last vestiges of their species”.
sense of ending
Endless narratives are important for several reasons.
The last specimen represents not only the final individual but the pinnacle of the entire species, a way of life which, as the philosopher Dominique Lester puts it, cannot be retrieved, remembered or reproduced.
Persistence adds a singularity: not only because it outlives other species, but it’s the pinnacle of teleology that began thousands of years ago. The endless narrative has been described by literary critic Ursula Hayes as a “species elegy”, mourning and remembering a species we will never see again.
The endless narrative also touches on the loss of biodiversity that the planet witnesses every day.Diane Ackerman puts this beautifully The Rare of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Eternal Worlds:
“As more and more species become rare, the angle of color will be removed from this living kaleidoscope, reducing the possible combinations. Diversity is not only the spice of life, but an indispensable ingredient”
Third, they remind us that the planet would be poorer for us without animals.And so Charlotte McConaughey began her novel migrate And declare: “Animals are dying. Soon we will be here alone”. The protagonist of the novel says:
“The Arctic tern has the longest migration of any animal. It flies all the way from the North Pole to the South Pole and back again within a year. … And because terns only live to be about thirty years old, the distance they cover in their lifetime That’s the equivalent of flying to the moon and back three times… I think about the courage and I cry over it.”
Later, McConaughey reflects on the moment when the last tern, the last tern, died: “What happens when the last tern dies? Nothing is ever as brave as before.”
But the narrative of many endings makes an even bigger point: While species disappearance is a natural process, the role humans played in their disappearance is undeniable.
Endless narratives convey a sense of ending, of ending the lives of others as well as our own.
