Richard Conniff is a contributing NY Times opinion writer and the author of “The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth..............He writes extensively about wildlife and in todays NY Times he offers the following oh-so-simple, spot-on and poignant clarion call for optimum biodiversity on earth----------"We act as though animals matter only when they benefit humans"....................."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"

, copy and paste this URL into your browser : http://nyti.ms/1qSr9Ue Useless Creatures By RICHARD CONNIFF  SEPTEMBER 13, 2014 3:42 PMSeptember 13, 2014 9:46 pm I mostly write about wildlife. So  here is how it typically happens  for me: A study comes out  indicating that species x, y and  z are in imminent danger of  extinction, or that some major  bioregion of the planet is being  sucked down into the abyss. And  it’s my job to convince people  that they should care, even as  they are racing to catch the 7:10  train, or wondering if they’ll be  able to pay this month’s (or last  month’s) rent.This article contains no useful information . Zero. Nada. Nothing. If  usefulness is your criterion for  reading, thank you very much for your time and goodbye, we have nothing more to say. The  truth is that I am bored to tears by usefulness. I am bored, more  precisely, of pretending usefulness is the thing that  really matters. My usual strategy is to trot out  a list of ways even the mos t obscure species can prove unexpectedly, yes, useful. The first effective treatment that  turned H.I.V. from a death sentence into a manageable condition? Inspired by the  biochemistry of a nondescript  Caribbean sponge. The ACE inhibitors that are currently among our most effective  treatments for cardiovascular  disease (and which have lately been proposed as a treatment  for Ebola)? Developed by  studying the venom of the  fer-de-lance, a deadly snake  found from Mexico to  northern South America. The new medical bandage that’s gentle enough for the delicate skin of newborns and the elderly? Modeled on the silk of spider webs. Every time I begin this line of argument, though, I get the queasy feeling that I am perpetuating a fallacy. It’s  not that I’m telling lies;  these examples are entirely  real. But given, for instance,  that three-quarters of our farm crops depend on insect pollinators, or that more than 2.6 billion people rely directly on seafood for protein, it seems a little obvious to be  reminding people that wildlife  can be useful, or, more to the  point, that human survival depends on wildlife. Without saying so out loud, the argument also implies that animals matter only because they benefit humans, or because just possibly, at some  unknowable point in the future,  they might benefit humans. You don’t have to look too far  to see how silly this can get. In truth, I don’t have to look at all, because university  press offices fill my inbox with examples every day: The Harvard scientists who hope their study of cuttlefish skin will “inspire improved protective  camouflage for soldiers on the  battlefield.” The Berkeley team  that thinks studying the  genetics of blubber-eating  polar bears could help us learn  to live with our bacon-wrapped,  wide-load lifestyle. And the wonderful folks at Nanyang Technological University, in  Singapore, who believe “Squid sucker ring teeth  material could aid  reconstructive surgery, serve  as eco-packaging.” (And you thought they were good only for calamari.) I don’t entirely blame the scientists. Their research often depends on taxpayer funding,  and their dreams are haunted  by the ghost of United States Senator William Proxmire’s  Golden Fleece Award. That award garnered headlines by ridiculing outlandish-seeming items in the federal budget, and  animal behavior studies were a  juicy target. So now people  doing that kind of research all feel obliged to imply that they are two steps away from a cure  for the common cold. No basic  research here, Senator, sir, no idle curiosity. Useful “R” Us. (They also delight in pointing  out that one of Mr. Proxmire’s  targets — a $250,000  investigation into the sex life of the screwworm fly — has yielded $20 billion in benefits to American cattle farmers by  enabling control of a major  insect pest.) Photo CImprobably, wildlife Conservationists now also  often hear the call of the  useful. Along with a large contingent of eco-finance bureaucrats, they try to save threatened habitats by  reminding nearby communities of all the benefits they derive from keeping these habitats intact . Forests, meadows and marshes prevent floods,  supply clean water, provide habitat for species that pollinate crops, put oxygen  into the atmosphere and  take carbon out, and  otherwise make themselves  useful. In some cases,  conservation groups or  other interested parties actually put down cash for  these ecosystem services — paying countries, for  instance, to maintain forests as a form of carbon  sequestration. The argument,  in essence, is that we can  persuade people to save nature by making it possible  for them to sell it. They can take nature to the bank, or at  least to the local grocery. They  can monetize it. (The new  revised version of Genesis now says, “God made the wild animals  according to their kinds, and he  said, ‘Let them be fungible.’ ”) I understand the logic, or at least the desperation, that drives conservationists to this horrible  idea. It may seem like the only way to keep what’s left of the natural world from being plowed  under by unstoppable human expansion and by our insatiable appetite for what appears to be useful. But usefulness is precisely  the argument other people put  forward to justify destroying or displacing wildlife, and they generally bring a larger and  more persuasive kind of green  to the argument. Nothing you can say about 100 acres in the New Jersey Meadowlands will ever add up for a politician who thinks a new shopping mall will mean more jobs for local voters  (and contributions to his  campaign war chest). Nothing  you can say about the value of rhinos for ecotourism in South Africa will ever matter to a wildlife  trafficker who can sell their horns  for $30,000 a pound in Vietnam. Finally, there is the unavoidable  problem that most wildlife species  — honey badgers, blobfish, blue- footed boobies, red-tailed hawks, monarch butterflies, hellbenders — are always going to be “useless,”  or occasionally annoying, from a  human perspective. And even when they do turn out, by some  quirk, to be useful, that’s typically  incidental to what makes them interesting. Cuttlefish do not  fascinate because their skin may  suggest new forms of military  camouflage, but because of the fantastic light shows tha t sometimes play across their  flanks. Spider web silk doesn’t intrigue because somebody can  turn it into bandages, but because  of the astonishing things spiders  can do with it — stringing a line  across a stream and running trotlines down the surface to catch  water striders, for instance, or  (in the case of the species named mastophora dizzydeani) flinging a  ball of silk on a thread like a spitball  to snag moths out of the air. 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. Richard Conniff is a contributing  opinion writer and the author of  “The Species Seekers: Heroes,  Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of  Life on Earth.”