Zoos and Endangered Animals

[ningo]

The statement to discuss is...
"Is there a point to zoos trying to save endangered species? Why not let nature take its course?"

[Darren337]

i believe saving endangered species is critical at a time when most of the world is pushing more and more species into endangerment. as for humans, let us fall to natural selection... remove the warning labels and let the problem solve itself.

[DarkShinigami]

I say that nature must take its course. To some extent it is a Darwinistic system, the weak dying off and the strong living. It's like forest fires, if we keep preventing them, more foliage will grow true, but it will house more tree destroying insects which will not only destroy the weaker trees, but also the trees which would have survived the fire also. It will still burn down sections of the forest, but new life shall be born from the ashes of the old. What I'm trying to say is that you should leave nature to do it's handywork. If we try to save a species that's not meant to continue, we could be destroying the environment even more.

[gilgamesh]

dude were stopping for fires from hurting animals and ourselves. if fires went freely without being stopped by humans the rain would stop them but what happens if a rain forest catches on fire that lasts 2 days? fire can move very quickly, and endangered animal could be killed off. if a fire goes around in a forest in america or Canada and its heading towards people do you think we should just let it come to us and destroy things ppl have worked hard to build a life on?

[DarkShinigami]

Fire is as much a part of nature as creeks and wildlife. Most forests have a natural cycle, where a purging burn comes throug ever 50, 60, 70, 100, etc... years. The cycle can be supressed, but the cost of it is that the fires will be more powerful when the re-emerge. They would be harder to stop and if they got out of control, they would create more damage than the previous fire might have.

[gilgamesh]

excatly why fires are stopped before they CAN'T be stopped.
what happens if we let a forest fire damage like say 1000 acres then it dies, 20 years later another one starts and it loses 2000 acres so on and so forth

[DarkShinigami]

It's not always possible for a fire to be stopped. Sometimes, they are hard to reach, and other times, when it seems that the fire is just about "dead" it can still jump. I do believe that in the future, it will be possible to supress all fires, but now, with out current level of technolgy, it's still possible that a fire can grow out of control.

[gilgamesh]

if a counrty grows out of control and thinks it can comsume other countries, america stops it
if i fire thinks it can comsume what we worked for then we stop it
if it cannot be stopped and we lose our possesions
we get up and walk forward

[DarkShinigami]

Nature was here long before the human species. To nature, we might be the country growing out of control. Who are we to take over what nature created? We have taken its soil and destroyed its land. The start of forest fires, might not only be meant for the cleansing of only the forests, but also the cleansing of the human race. The fire could be considered America stopping the agressiveness of a nation, and human civilization can be considered the agressive nation.