Lonesome George (1912-2012) was the Pinta Island tortoise, the last of his subspecies, who was found dead on June 24, 2012 by Fausto Llerana, his caretaker of 40 years. Tributes, memorials, obituaries were posted from all over the world for this "gentle giant," as he was fondly known.
At the time of his death, Harvard University Press invited Craig Stanford, USC Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology and author of The Last Tortoise: A Tale of Extinction in Our Lifetime, to post his thoughts. Professor Craig speculated, "If Lonesome George had been human, his obituary would have read:
George passed away peacefully on June 24, 2012, at the age of approximately 100. He was born on Pinta Island around 1912 and lived there until 1971, when he moved to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island, Ecuador. He served his country for decades as the greatest tourist attraction in the Galapagos Islands, and was visited by tens of thousands of tourists each year. He dies leaving no surviving descendants."
Rick Schwartz, San Diego Zoo ambassador commented that "George's passing is an opportunity to [show] humans our actions can have an impact on the future."
Beginning with whaling ships in the 18th century, the estimated tortoise populations of the Galapagos Islands were decimated for food and trade, their habitats wiped out by the pigs and goats brought by fishermen, sailors and pirates. Fifteen giant tortoise subspecies were reduced from 250,000 to 300,000 individuals to about 15,000 today in ten subspecies, most very rare.
I doubt the 18th, 19th and 20th century men who had reason to stop by the Galapagos Islands and carry off thousands of tortoises while dropping off domestic livestock had any idea what the impact of their actions would be. But we know better now.
Lonesome George became known as "the rarest creature on the planet" with no others of like kind and no offspring. He was a beloved conservation icon. His passing left us at a loss for someone to point to, so we could say, look at Lonesome George: he's the last and only one of his kind. Let's be kinder to the creatures we share this Earth with. Let's consider the impact of our actions.
We are now in the midst of what is being called The Sixth Mass Extinction, caused by human actions in the form of habitat destruction and as a result of global warming. Scientists estimate at least 10,000 species go extinct every year, dozens every day, and by mid-century 30-50% of species currently alive will be extinct.
In that context, the passing of a lone tortoise seems insignificant, trivial; but I suggest Lonesome George would not agree, not for selfish reasons, but for the greater good. I can imagine him asking us humans two simple questions, "Do you really want to do this? Do you really want to destroy most of the life around you?" Our actions say that we do.
Thirty-five years ago I was living in Brooklyn and teaching at LaGuardia Community College in Queens. Having a beer one day after work, I got taking to an old Jewish man, sitting on the stool next to me. He worked as a physicist at an electronics company nearby in the heavily industrial neighborhood of Long Island City. Harry Haines and I became friends and met for a drink after work from time to time. Our common ground was intellectual conversation, so we talked Marxism, Existentialism, Atheism, lots of isms.
One late afternoon, as we were parting at the subway, we got into a bit of an argument over vultures--the real ones, not a metaphor for capitalists. Maybe Harry had had too many martinis, but he almost frothed declaring, "They are disgusting. They should all be killed."
"They have a place in the eco-system," I countered.
"Idiotic," Harry said, "They're ugly. We can do without them...disgusting creatures, simply disgusting, repulsive. Kill them all."
Harry's attitude is a common one, even today. How prejudiced we are by appearances and ignorance. Unfortunately, our sour attitudes translate into environmental policy.
The noble (and very endangered) California Condor is, in my eyes, one of the most dignified creatures on Earth, playing a key role in the southwestern North American eco-system, but despised by many for what are to me incomprehensible reasons: they scavenge dead animals, and they have no feathers on their heads (so they can eat cleanly). Simple fact: they are part of the natural system, living vacuum cleaners, taking rotting flesh and recycling it. At some point bacteria and fungi finish the breakdown/cleanup job if other animals haven't moved in to do it first.
Is civilization as we know it going to end if the endangered California Condor goes extinct? If vultures everywhere go extinct? No. So, what difference does it make if we don't ban the lead bullets and shot, which are currently killing the fragile avian scavenger populations? It makes a lot of difference because standing by and watching something cease to exist because we think it's ugly and don't understand its value is just anthropogenically wrong.
I have a fantasy for roadways here on the East Coast: state and local governments set up what could be called Vulture Watching Stations. These stations would be built above power line heights at measured intervals, and trained vultures would harbor in them, watching for fresh roadkill. When you hit that skunk or woodchuck or deer or squirrel or whatever, the vultures can swoop in to feed, lifting the carcass to the edge of the road, if possible, but otherwise working quickly. Vulture Clean Up Squads: don't have to put them on a payroll. Ah, but this is just my fantasy.
In Tibet, condors are sacred animals, relied on for the millenia-old tradition of "Sky Burial": A human dies. His/her body is prayed over, then the limbs are chopped off, the torso chopped up, and all those body parts are tossed to the sky or otherwise piled for the condors to consume. The ritual is right; it is natural; it works with the greater system of which humans are a part.
But of course our modern, especially our industrialized world, will not turn to a practice like this. For one thing, there aren't enough vultures to eat all the dead human carcasses. And for another, that's not quite my point. Environmental policy needs to be generated from a big picture point-of-view. It needs to consider what is best for all life, not only human life. It needs to consider the greater eco-system.
