Thanks, Ross, for this message - you´re talking about the biggest wave of
extinctions since about 500mya when something happened in the Permian -
and, mostly, we´re the cause(s) of it.

I live on a small island in the Pacific (Siargao NE Mindanao) - there´s
nothing between me and Los Angeles except Fiji, so there´s an awful lot of
open ocean out there. So there should be an inexhaustible resource - but
there isn´t, any more.

Examples:

I buy sharks´ teeth to make tourist souvenirs - the price has doubled each
year for the past 4 years. Most people think of sharks as very nasty
beasts, and maybe a very few are, but they´re being massacred at (I don´t
have the right figure to hand) - something like 1/2 million a year.

They´re top predators - if you don´t have them controlling the numbers of
lower-chain coral nibblers (triggerfish, parrotfish, etc) then the coral
dies off, nibbled to death.

Besides that, the coral feeders are not too tasty, so the local fishermen
(those who aren´t catching sharks to chop off their fins for 2 billion
Chinese - who think that little tiny bit of a shark can do just as much as
a $5 Viagra) catch the algae feeders, who are more tasty. Result - algae
smother the reef (that is, the bits which haven´t already been blown apart
by Coke bottle bombs filled with fertiliser and whatever).

Then - we pour extra nitrates into the ocean by trying to grow ever more
junk food with fertilisers (wheat - mostly for cattle for hamburgers).
That helps algae to grow - to smother reefs.

Then, we´ve stripped most coastal forest areas, so the essential minerals
that used to be retained on land (particularly iron, but molybdenum, zinc,
selenium, etc) are being washed down into the sea - to feed the smothering
algae, and the cause dinoflagellates that make red tides, and kill the
poor old coral.

Very soon, shell collectors will have to restrict themselves to buying (no
collecting any more) those deep sea shells that will be all that is left -
they´re relatively undisturbed (below our influence).

When I first came here, I used to collect a shell (Volema myristica) that
was so common I picked them up for their colours alone - shading along the
beach from cream to deep peach pink by the time you reached the creek. I
was going to make a 100x100 picture/construction of them, (10,000 shells)
showing that wonderful shading from ivory to blushing maiden, but I lost
interest in it after I´d got only about 2000 of them. That was 5 years ago.

I suddenly revived the idea this month, and went to collect some more to
make the grand construction (also despatching half the town´s kids).

We found none. They´ve gone. Done. Finished. Dead.

Sad, isn´t it?

But, at least, I can tell my grandchildren that I used to see them, once
upon a time.


regards

Richard

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