Conserving wildlife for its uselessness

[DavidBrown]

Here is a thought provoking essay by writer Richard Conniff about his opinion that wildlife should be conserved for its "uselessness" rather than it's utilitarian value.

Wildlife is and should be useless in the same way art, music, poetry and even sports are useless. They are useless in the sense that they do nothing more than raise our spirits, make us laugh or cry, frighten, disturb and delight us. They connect us not just to what’s weird, different, other, but to a world where we humans do not matter nearly as much as we like to think.
And that should be enough.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.co...on=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region

 

[LaughingDove]

The attitude of the average person to the world they live in is completely selfish.*When I take people round to see my animals, one of the first questions they ask (unless the animal is cute and appealing) is, "what use is it?" by which they mean, "what use is it to them?" To this one can reply "What use is the Acropolis?" Does a creature have to be of direct material use to mankind in order to exist?*/QUOTE]

-Gerald Durrell 1966