Last chance to see

Wet wintry days are perfect for curling up in front of the fire with a good book and yesterday was no exception; my good book was 'Last Chance to See' by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine. I've long been a Douglas Adams' fan and sadly miss his skills of combining serious information with humour to make us question our long-held beliefs.

The book recounts the authors' travels to visit endangered species such as the Komodo dragon lizard, Garamba National Park's white rhino, Yangtze river dolphin and New Zealand's kakapo. Each chapter tells the same dismal story of disappearing habitat, introduced predators and mankind's insatiable appetite for destruction; pretty depressing stuff so just as well Douglas Adams manages to balance the negative aspects with heroic stories of hard work and determination to prevent the extinction of these species.

A quote from the book that I'd like to share is when Douglas Adams is observing a silverback gorilla:
"I watched the gorilla's eyes again, wise and knowing eyes, and wondered about this business of trying to teach apes language. Our language. Why? There are many members of our own species who live in and with the forest and know it and understand it. We don't listen to them. What is there to suggest we would listen to anything an ape could tell us? Or that it would be able to tell us of its life in a language that hasn't been born of that life? I thought, maybe it is not that they have yet to gain a language, it is that we have lost one."

Mark Carwardine highlights the extent of the problem at the end of the book:
"For millions of years, on average, one species became extinct every century.
But most of the extinctions since prehistoric times have occurred in the last 300 years.
And most of the extinctions that have occurred in the last 300 years have occurred in the last 50.
And most of the extinctions that have occurred in the last 50 years have occurred in the last 10.
We are now heaving more than 1000 different species of animals and plants off the planet every year."

Please make some small contribution to slowing this rate, whether it be your time, a donation, vocal support or just becoming more aware of the species that we share this planet with.