Folks - One of the interesting of many points made by Steve Irwin defenders is that he purchased land for wildlife conservation, and that makes him a conservation hero of world importance. I hear the same thing about the Nature Conservancy. But I beg to differ. My friend, ecologist George Wuerthner has done a lot of analysis of the threat of development of wildlife habitat versus the threats caused by habitat degradation, and though habitat loss is a concern, it does not rival habitat degradation as a cause of species endangerment overall. In the U.S. we have many millions of acres of land owned by the public and managed by the government agencies, supposedly for the public good, including preservation of biodiversity, and yet in 2006 the list of endangered species and candidate species and those species that deserve to be listed but are not due to political considerations get longer and longer and longer. We have plenty of land we can manage and are authorized to manage for the highest good, but we cannot bring ourselves to manage it appropriately in order to save sharptailed grouse, spotted owls, or most other endangered wildlife. We have a good set of management guidelines for greater sage grouse and yet have never applied them appropriately, even though most sage grouse live on publicly owned and managed lands. And though I have specifically asked the Nature Conservancy, I have yet to ever receive any data or proof that their privately owned lands offer any management benefits that have resulted in increased densities or well-being of endangered species on their lands that are managed conventionally without atypical funding or atypical management efforts.
The point of this is that the acquisition of land under the guise of "conservation" does not necessarily mean much in our culture, and no one who has mentioned Steve Irwin's spending some of his millions of dollars in earnings in the entertainment business has actually resulted in management that conserves wildlife in a meaningful way. I am not saying that his program has not benefited wildlife, but I am saying that our culture is so steeped in admiration for the mere spending of money that it does not necessarily feel compelled to justify the results, only the methods. And of course, we must come back to the antics and methods of Steve Irwin himself. Our culture seems to admire those methods, which in stark terms related to Steve Irwin, I would describe as harassing wildlife with a big smile on your face and concurrently telling your audience what you know about the animals you are harassing and how much you love them. That sort of entertaining, smiley face approach obviously has great appeal in our society, just as I notice when I go into any retail business in my area I get bombarded with smiling employees asking how I am and thus exhibiting what I call "commercial friendliness". And many customers in our culture just soak up the commercial friendliness as though they actually believe those retail salespeople and store employees actually care about them. No, I don't believe that the harassment done by Steve Irwin to the animals he filmed caused them lasting harm and certainly caused no population impacts or anything like that. But I also doubt that his celebratory style of smiley face harassment for entertainment purposes will make a positive difference for wildlife and may very well cause the majority of citizens to actually shirk personal responsibility for conservation because they think that Steve Irwin and his fans got it all covered. Millions of American citizens, myself included, grew up watching Marlin Perkins and Jack Hannah and Marty Stouffer and Jacques Cousteau, and Flipper and Gentle Ben and all sorts of entertaining and even educational shows, and it probably led to wildlife biology careers and conservation careers for others. But the culture overall accepted the entertainment of those shows as nothing but entertainment and all those people grew up and went about their lives in a culture also highly focused on consumption and requiring the very liquidation of the habitats and species they were entertained by in their youth. In other words, entertainment in our culture is usually taken as such, and not as any driver for personal or societal responsibility. When the entertainer is a clown or a buffoon who playes the role of teacher, the message that comes through is that of an entertaining clown who tells the little kids to love the lizards and they may do so, but it could have a negative effect as well. If it is okay for Uncle Steve to harass the animals for the sheer exhilaration of it, why not have everyone doing it? So, yes, some of Steve Irwin's message may have been good, but does that make him a conservationist? I have seen no real evidence that he was, only some culturally biased claims that he purchased habitat and told his young audience that he loved the animals he harassed with such a big grin and such exhuberance. In my opinion, and I am acutely aware that I am essentially alone in this, if people like Steve Irwin are heroes of conservation, the conservation of the world's wildlife is in deep trouble. But come to think of it, I knew that already. Our whole culture, like Aldo Leopold said in 1948 is so obsessed by consumption (and entertainment I will add to Aldo's list) that it has lost the capacity to remain or regain its health. Stan Moore San Geronimo, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
