This is the best news I have read in months. It made my day. Take a rest, naysayers.
4
It's a terrible pity that people aren't quick to see a species like the lowly Delta Smelt in fire ravaged California as the ecological kindred spirit of these magnificent gorillas. There are many animals less noble than the gorilla worthy of our immediate concern and protection from the pressures of over-population, rapacious development and resource extraction, and unsustainable agricultural and industrial practices.
6
Somewhat good news here, but I think it is way too soon to give in to hope. Humanity is nowhere near ready to act as caretakers for this planet and its species, and many more species will still go extinct (countless thousands already have, due directly and solely to humanity). This is not the end of the mass extinction of large mammals, caused by us, this is more like the middle.
I do hope that some large apes make it through what's to come. I also hope elephants, rhinos, giraffes, and so on, make it through. I know that it's unlikely all large mammals will survive.
At this point, the ideal way for species to survive is if humanity has a reduction in population, caused by anything other than nuclear war (which would eliminate thousands more species). A cataclysmic plague might yet save the earth from us.
4
@Dan Stackhouse
A human specific virus wiping out 90+% of mankind would be a good solution. And not unlikely to happen. But we must hope that the achievements of culture and technology are not lost in too rapid a cataclysm. If we keep starting over at the stone age, we will keep needing a new cataclysm every 10,000 years or so.
4
Any animal without hope is doomed to starvation. What say you plants? The bacteria and viruses are ready to play their role.
1
Too many humans may be a problem but it's more what humans do to the earth. And other than Dr. Sapolsky who says only humans have the ability to hold on to two contradictory ideas at once and find a way forward? Yet another presumption of human superiority. Animals face contradictions all the time and somehow they manage to find a way forward. Just watch them for awhile--not a minute or two, but an hour or two or three, or a whole day or even longer. They're a heck of a lot smarter than we give them credit for.
5
Population density and microbes do not bode well for us or our fellow primates I fear.
2
James Gorman is a national treasure.
5
The moral of this story is that tourism is a great boon to most economies. Tourism allows locals to preserve natural resources as an investment in the future rather than squandering them for a single meal. Occasionally tourism destroys the natural beauty it seeks to enjoy, but if done right, people around the world visiting other places around the world can be a beautiful thing for everyone. Just be sure to tread lightly and resist the urge to take home certain souvenirs.
6
People can relax about overpopulation. Starting in 2050 with the hottest days of today being the coolest, population will decline precipitously. I don't think that we or many of the animals will survive to the end of the century.
4
7 billion humans, 1000 gorillas. It's just a matter of time. Sadly, the only hope for the gorillas, chimps, bonobos orangutans, etc is that we go extinct first, and that's not out of the question.
8
If we choose for the Apes to survive, they will. That is the privilege of power, and we have the power. This can happen, even if, and even as, the world burns around us.
What separates humans from animals is power, not empathy. Animals are capable of empathy. Animals are capable of irrationality. Animals are capable of forgiveness. What they don't have is power.
10
@Edward Allen, true, but to come true, people of the earth must see ourselves as the “we”to which you refer. Those of us with the most power are apparently allergic to such viewpoints.
4
I doubt most animals are actually capable of forgiveness, maybe great apes, dolphins, a couple of others. Most species definitely don't have empathy, like all the reptiles, fish, invertebrates, insects, and so on.
Regardless, I don't think any animals should forgive humans.
1
Religion is going to have to come around to the fact that there are too many humans on this planet. So far they seem to think God will take care of it. Since that hasn't happened yet, and we are by any measure already suffering severe consequences from overpopulation, I haven't seen God doing much to save us from ourselves. Perhaps "he" gave us the intelligence to do that, if we so choose.
7
@Jeri exactly. 'if we so choose' we can develop a solution. if we do not, there still is a solution - it just may not be pleasant for us.
7
@Jeffrey,
A solution might be 'Planned Parenthood'. It may not work but we might give it a try.
3
Sure, hope is good. Action is better.
9
@rational person - Hope seems to promote action.
6
You know in the play UNCLE VANYA, by Anton Chekov written in about 1880,the character Astrov, a country doctor has several speeches about how mankind is recklessly destroying the flora and fauna where ever he lives. How man uses up precious trees for firewood, when there is peat to be burned and he shows another character Elena, who could care less,a series of maps of the local country side. He shows the area before man got there and it is all green with many species of birds and animals thriving, and then a map from 20 years before and so many animals and trees gone and water tables destroyed and the third map is almost barren of trees and any wild species.
He toils from morning till night saving lives, riding a horse over miles of bad and muddy roads and spends his one day off replanting the forests, because he believes people with forests are kinder and more gentle.
I am not saying this very well, but most of Chekhov's characters had such great hope for future generations benefiting from what they themselves suffered and that life on earth would become a paradise because future generations would learn from their mistakes and waste and selfishness.
Of course Chekhov himself was a country doctor and spent many years in terrible weather serving the poor and built schools and libraries and also wrote some of the world's most highly regarded plays and short stories. I so wish we had not let his characters down so very badly.
29
Hope alters predictions. Good scientific predictions that exclude human effects, such the phases of the moon, are accepted as fact, as long as all the major variables are accounted for in the prediction. However, in a complex systems where humans have an effect and not all the major variables are known, even the best scientific predictions can be, and are often, wrong. Because we play a major role in the survival of the majority of populations of species on this planet, hope is one of the best and most beautiful parts of our mind. If hope is embraced, it can and will improve many species chances of survival.
6
Pretty much every environmental and ecological problem can trace its roots to one cause: too many humans. But seldom is this discussed. Whether it's climate change, pollution, habitat destruction, urban sprawl, species endangerment or extinction, overcrowding of protected lands (like national parks), or any number of other problems, it would not be a problem, or would be less of a problem, if the world were home to far fewer people.
Fortunately, as countries develop and prosper, birth rates generally decline and in many cases birth rates drop low enough so that population declines. This is a good thing. So one hopes that countries in Africa will modernize and develop, and that population stabilization and eventual decline will result. China seems to be doing a lot of investment in Africa that is moving modernization along.
And, even though most developed countries have populations that are in-check, the Earth's collective ecosystem is indifferent to country boundaries. So, residents of such countries really ought to examine their own reproductive choices and question whether having multiple children is a necessity to having a complete life, and whether their choices in this matter are ecologically responsible.
6
One wonders how consumption, pollution and wealth will all
be affected by population growth. If Africa is destined to explode
and with it the fate of the apes what will we see in Japan as it
shrinks by 20 percent or more over the next couple of decades.
I think we all know how this ends. Rich countries block population growth or even shrink it to save their local lands and environment and poor countries explode until wars, famine and a rising ocean cause them to topple.
7
Human hopes for the gorillas' survival certainly plays a role, primarily in fundraising, but it's also scientific curiousity and political self-interest that have been essential elements of their rescue.
I visited a colleague leading the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project in the Virunga mountains in 2005, accompanied by a Rwandan survivor of of the genocide. Not a huge fan of the gorillas, he was much more interested in visiting his extended Tutsi family members who were still in jails in the region. Never an animal lover, he regarded the gorillas popularity as a peculiar footnote to Rwanda's unfolding post-genocide story. The gorilla family trees decorating placemats in Kigali elicited his scorn.
Paul Kgame, however, saw conservation of the gorillas as a way to clean up Rwanda's international image and attract money, visitors and positive PR. The scientist saw the gorillas as a way to pioneer veterinary medicine, test new technologies, and impact local community health issues in ways that would yield publishable data. Many Rwandans trained as guides and became veterinarians as a result. Poaching infant gorillas/related gorilla injuries declined. Through these efforts, the surrounding community came to see the gorillas as resource rather than food source.
Hope of preventing the gorillas' extinction was the hook, but shorter-term outcomes directly benefiting a variety of selfish human objectives were the keys to making this a hopeful story, so far. May we learn from it!
15
Lovely thoughts. Rationality must have it's place or we'd all be dead; but alone I agree, it is deadening.
3
UPenn psychologist Martin Seligman's recent book, "THE HOPE CIRCUIT: A Psychologist's Journey from Helplessness to Optimism," documents the growth of the field of positive psychology and the neurological components of the brain that have primed human beings to be forward-looking, exploratory, hopeful creatures, over the grand scope of evolutionary history. The mountain gorillas will survive so long as humans keep hoping they will and keep working to protect them.
This work will entail not only guarding them from harm and infections but also working to gradually reduce the rate of growth of the human population. Only through effective population/birth control can the more-harmful effects of human existence be mitigated. Together we can hope that progress, in girls' education, job training, and redressing the two extremes of the abject poverty of millions of people and the extravagant, wasteful plutocracy and its earth-depleting economic engines, will save not only the mountain gorillas and other endangered species, but also human beings.
7
While it is true that giving up, or giving up on hope, is a recipe for disaster, it is equally true that it is naive to think individual actions, or acts of kindness and caring, can produce the fundamental change we need.
Only through collective, political, mass action that targets our social and economic arrangements can we secure justice. We must overcome the political, corporate elites who dominate our policymaking and are destroying our planet.
Frederick Douglass was right:
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will...
If there is no struggle there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning.
They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.”
http://www.blackpast.org/1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress
To do that effectively requires understanding the large-scale, historical forces that shape what Michael Harrington called the “limits of the possible”. We need to work on transforming capitalism into a different system, not work individually on its margins or merely do helpful volunteer work. To succeed will require identifying the contradictions within capitalism, finding the leverage points, confronting those with power, and fighting their naked self interest and greed and the system that induces it.
10
Happy Thanksgiving, James Gorman, as your written words will last, maybe, until tomorrow:
"Last Thursday there was a bit of good news relating to the impending extinction and destruction of everything.
3
Thank you, Mr. Gorman, for this thoughtful pep talk! I am a career conservation biologist, and my day-to-day life is filled with bad news and often is very short on hope. Irrespective of the things we can't as individuals control, like climate change and ever-growing human population, we keep on trying to protect the non-humans and restore their habitat, because what else can we do in this line of work? Giving up isn't an option, but it's all increasingly depressing and nightmare-inducing.
It is essential, though, to pause now and then and consciously appreciate what *isn't* lost right now, today; savor good news like this about mountain gorillas; and refocus on what we *can* do. So I am grateful for the reminder that in addition to necessity there's also inspiration to keep on keepin' on.
8
There may be hope, but it will be short lived. The 800 lb gorilla in the room isn't being addressed, and that is the ever growing world population of human beings.
At some point, leaders of nations and prominent scientists need to have a joint session to discuss about the necessity of slowing the population boom of human beings. Just because we perceive success with the present growth rate doesn't mean it's sustainable. The real major problem here is that we CANNOT be reactive to this problem. If we do, it'll be too late... and then we'll have an overpopulated planet that has to enforce what China did not so long ago--a 1 child limit. Or... the environmental collapse will force this, along with the culling of people due to mass starvation and disease. This is no way to perpetuate life on Earth.
22
We visited mountain gorillas in both Rwanda & Uganda this past January in a unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience. Both countries provide extraordinarily well-organized, efficient, careful & caring treks for small groups (max. 8) of eco-tourists from all over the world. These gorilla cousins that we encountered--who have been scrupulously & gradually habituated to human contact over the past 30 years by compassionate field scientists & local guides & trackers--are remarkably benign, accepting & unthreatening while remaining absolutely free & wild. Overall, it's a stunningly successful balancing act of nature & commerce.
But as my wife just so sagely reminded me, "We can't save a species if we don't save the planet."
36
@Marc Wallace
Sage advice indeed, thank you!
6
@Marc Wallace
The habituation to human contact you describe I don't believe is scrupulously cultivated nor desired by those most concerned with the gorillas' survival. It is an unfortunate side effect of the ecotourism, prevented wherever possible, and if not prevented it contributes to gorillas wandering off the reservation into human territory, or into the hands of poachers - either of which effect would likely prove fatal to them.
Also, so being like us genetically, and lacking resistance to human diseases, they are much more susceptible to severe harm from human diseases which they can contract from too-close encounters with people. They may find humans interesting, but the more distance they can put between themselves and humans, the likelier they are to survive.
11
@Quite Contrary Normally, I would agree with you & your concerns, but ever since Dian Fossey--yes, only reluctantly--agreed with other/younger scientists to habituation some 30 yrs when she realized that truly seemed to be the only practical recourse to save the gorillas from poaching & eventual extinction, the process has worked again surprisingly well, especially in regard to preventing disease contraction. For the long term, however, especially in regard to the pressure from Rwanda's dense population, the situation may well pit human against great ape needs. But yet again, none of the is relevant unless we somehow arrest the approaching climate-change apocalypse (!)
3
I hope they're around for the generations to come. There's enough room on our green orb for them and us.
4
When you give in to hope, nothing else matters. However, hope shapes aspiration, intention, values, resource allocation. That is a good thing, and it doesn't mean that you are giving in to hope. In a way, hope awakens us to getting along. That is the way nature intends it.
5