What’s the fuss: Why protect a species?

Every kind of living thing is connected to every other kind in some way or another, an interconnectedness known as the “web of life”. Some kinds or species in the web are like "lighthouse species," when they “wink out” they have an affect on other species in the web affecting every other species in the web, including us. Since scientists have only been studying these “webs” for less than two hundred years, there are still many unanswered questions and the loss of any species is a loss of knowledge. Scientists don't always know the role a species might play in the web or the value it might have in the future so the present generation owes their children the opportunity of discovering that role. Some argue that we should attempt to save any species endanger of extinction simply because there is no long-term imperative for not saving them. This idea can be summed up in the following quote:

"In the end, we conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught."

Baba Dioum, Senegalese poet

Saving the Mohave tui chub means saving its water supply and preserving a watersheds biological integrity. The underground aquifers that feed the Mojave River also serves all the living communities along its river valley the entire, which, beside us, supports many other organisms that are only found along its shores (snails, plants, mammals etc.).

The Mojave tui chub is an object of aesthetic beauty and a part of our natural heritage.

“Humans are a "saving" species. We like to save things that aren't always of immediate practical worth. Treasured works of art. Historic buildings. Ancient artifacts. Rare manuscripts. Family heirlooms. Why should a species and their ecosystems be any different? Isn't the Mojave tui chub a greater, far more complex creation than, say, the Mona Lisa? Humans like to build museums and protect for generations the works of other humans. Why shouldn't we do it for the works of nature, too? Ultimately, which will be more important?

“If we human beings learn to see the intricacies that bind one part of a natural system to another and then to us, we will no longer argue about the importance of wilderness protection, or over the question of saving endangered species, or how human communities must base their economic futures – not on short-term exploitation – but on long-term, sustainable development."

Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day

(Adapted for the Mojave tui chub from a quote taken from Chris Scharpf, Baltimore, about the plight of another endangered desert fish, the Devils Hole Pupfish.)