Some Deeper Thoughts on What Makes an Endangered Species
By Fred Paillet, OS Education Chair Recent news items about preservation of endangered species regularly raise questions about exactly what a species is and how it differs from other similar less-threatened relatives. For example, the eastern red wolf is only maintained under controlled breeding with a very limited wild colony or two – maintained by testing all pups and destroying those with traces of coyote genes. Now, the New York Times had a piece on the large-scale destruction of a barred owl population in the northwest to save another species. We all remember the great hullabaloo about saving the spotted owl by preserving the last fragments of that owl’s habitat in old-growth redwood forests. Now, human habitat manipulation has created a corridor of woodland across the great plains to allow the eastern barred owl to expand its range into Washington and Oregon. We remember from biology 101 that two similar species are distinct when they are unable to produce fertile offspring after mating. That can happen through genetic incompatibility, or just because they live on separate continents. Spotted and barred owls look a bit different (spots versus bars), but only range [...]