Conserving the Common

By Hannah Khanshali

In southern Asia all the way from the Indus Valley of Pakistan in the west to Thai-Malay Peninsula in the east, lived one of the most common, populous large vultures, the white-rumped vulture, scientifically known as the Gyps bengalensis. These large, scarily majestic vultures were extremely common in South Asian countries, to the point where their large presence in high skies posed issues regarding air traffic. (Arun & Azeez, 2004)

After finding a carcass to feed on, the vultures would descend in packs, tearing and feeding, even on bone, until there was nearly nothing left. The vultures thrived off of cattle remains in India, provided many services to Indian communities, and fulfilled a vital waste cleaning role, according to BirdLife International (2017), “that reduces the spread of disease (such as rabies), clears rural and urban areas of odorous organic waste, and thereby also reduces the likelihood of this waste contaminating water sources.” (par. 1) The white rumped vultures served a fundamental societal role, creating a safer environment and fulling a very important niche.

According to the article, “Tragedy of the Common” by J. B Mackinnon, in 1997 a biologist by the name of Vibhu Prakash headed to Keoladeo near Delhi in India to update a count of these common birds, that he had previously done a decade earlier. However, to his disappointment he noticed a very disheartening trend: there had been a 58% percent decline in the Keoladeo vulture population. (MacKinnon, 2017) Prakash began to investigate this matter, and according to MacKinnon, launched “a 7,000-mile road survey that uncovered a 90% decrease in vultures nationwide” (par. 5) The vultures were disappearing, and at an extraordinarily rapid pace. A survey from 2011 by Prakash also indicates that the population of white-rumped vultures is an unsatisfactory 0.15% of what it was in 1992 (BirdLife International, 2017).

It was later discovered by DVM PhD, Dr. Lindsay J. Oaks and his team at the Peregrine Foundation, that the culprit for this steep decline in the vultures was due to a popular NSAID painkiller drug, Diclofenac, which is used in veterinary medicine and was persisting in the tissues of livestock carcasses and other mammals that the vultures were eating and being poisoned by, causing visceral gout and kidney failure. (Arun & Azeez, 2004; MacKinnon 2017) Until this occurrence, complications with Diclofenac were close to nonexistent. This one drug created a dim existence for the vulture, sentencing it as an addition to the IUCN red list as a critically endangered species. The most recent assessment from the IUCN in 2017 reveals the vulture as critically endangered, population declining, with a world population of 2,500 to 9,999 mature individuals. (IUCN, 2017)

And here we see the near disappearance and steep decline of a species that was once, common. A strange concept to wrap one’s head around. In nature, there are hundreds of thousands of different species, some that we could never even fathom to exist. However, we can all agree that just a few make up many of the species on the planet. The squirrels in the tree on your block, sparrows and robins in the sky, and the turtles sunbathing on logs in the pond, are all very common, just like the white-rumped vulture once was. In the United States, rodents such as squirrels, mice, rats, chipmunks, gophers, etc. make up nearly 40% of the entire mammal population (Gorbunova & Bozzella & Seluanov, (2008). This number is very significant, and several ecosystems and food chains rely on small mammals such as rodents as a keystone species, meaning many other organisms depend on them, and drastic change would occur if removed from the ecosystem.

The populations of species of great abundance, ranging from rodents, to birds, to large mammals, to reptiles and amphibians and many others, can decline just as rapidly as that of the white-rumped vulture. This phenomenon leads to a plausible but less popular idea in conservation; That common species need protection and observation just as much as rarer species do. Why wait to pull them back from the edge, when you can reach out your hand before they fall?

Although this ideology is not a common one, and humans usually jump straight to protecting the rarities, Professor of Biodiversity and Conservation at the University of Exeter in the UK, Kevin Gaston was one of the first to discuss the idea of conserving the common species. Gaston is actually the author of a book titled Rarity, which is quite the juxtaposition, but shows his expertise in the protection of rare species, and what makes them rare. Knowing conservation of rare species, he was able to branch out, opening his mind to this new idea of conservation: conservation of the common. I first heard of Gaston in the article, “Tragedy of the Common” by J.B MacKinnon, and was introduced Gaston’s esteemed quote in the article, “Valuing the Common Species” (2010), “the state of being common is actually very rare” (p. 154).

This article was published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Gaston introduces the reasoning behind why protecting common species have never crossed our minds, “the importance of naturally common species—those that are abundant and widespread—in shaping the world around us is so blatant that it is easily overlooked” (p. 154) We take common species for granted, assuming they will always be around. For example, common species such as robins and sparrows are extremely common, we see them every day, taking them and their services to the environment for granted. Therefore, it may come as a surprise that their populations are actually decreasing, along with many other bird species. A New York Times article, “Birds are Vanishing from North America” (2019) by Carl Zimmer explains this phenomenon, revealing that, “The number of birds in the United States and Canada has fallen by 29% since 1970” (par. 1) Now, it is arguable that birds such as robins and sparrows included in this study are still very common, they still are. However, Zimmer explains in his article that while some bird species are known to be more prone to extinction than others, common species such as robins and sparrows’ numbers are declining, which can be alarming (Zimmer, 2019).

According to Gaston’s article “Valuing Common Species”, common species are “the main victims if habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation” (Gaston, 2010). Similarly, as described in Zimmer’s article in the New York Times, the most likely cause to the 29% decline of birds is habitat loss and use of pesticides. This commonality reveals the connection between habitat destruction/fragmentation and the loss of common species, such as the decline of birds in North America. As these and other common species begin to decline, chain reactions will result, hurting entire ecosystems. Gaston notes in his other article, “Common Ecology” (2011), which is published in BioScience, that, “The great abundance and biomass of common species frequently make them significant ecosystem engineers— modifying, maintaining, and creating habitats.” (p. 359) These essential jobs that common species have and their contributions to the ecosystems are essential. Without them, the entire ecosystem is at risk of collapsing, because they act as keystone species; the entire ecosystem rides on their backs, depending on them for food, shelter, and other small jobs that impact the ecosystem as a whole.

When near extinction and extinction are spoken about, the species that come immediately to mind, the most infamous cases, oddly enough once used to be common. For example, the passenger pigeon. In the 1800s, the passenger pigeon was thought of as the most common bird in the world, with an outstanding population of almost 3 billion pigeons. However, by 1900, none survived in the wild, and in 1914, the last passenger pigeon died at the Cincinnati Zoo (Bielo, 2014). There was a similar trend observed in the plains bison, and many other species as the trends continue today. Consider a species of turtle, the northern diamondback terrapin, that is now a vulnerable species, that I recognized due to it living near my home in Staten Island.

The northern diamondback terrapins’ habitats are exclusively coastal salt marshes with brackish water, or water that is both salt and freshwater. They are actually the only turtle in the world that lives specifically in solely this environment, and are found along the East Coast, ranging from Cape Cod in Massachusetts to North Carolina. The terrapins were once very common species, used as the main source of protein by Native Americans, followed by European settlers. (Conserve Wildlife NJ, 2021) However, things took a saddening turn in the mid-1800s and early 1900s; They were hunted to the point of near extinction. According to an article by Conserve Wildlife NJ (2021), “Terrapin stew was a popular delicacy in the U.S. and terrapins were exported to several European countries. In the late 19th century, 400,000 lbs. were harvested annually” (True 1887, as cited in CWNJ, 2021). This is an immense amount of harvested turtle. However, as the popularity of this turtle soup delicacy dwindled, the populations began to increase slowly. My mother still tells me stories of how she remembers turtle stew, assuring me that this really did happen to these turtles that I saw with my own eyes down by the marsh. Although their populations are growing, the IUCN Red list still states that they are still a vulnerable species. Habitat loss and destruction, illegal hunting, being killed in crab traps, still pose great threats to the survival of the northern diamondback terrapin (Conserve Wildlife NJ, 2021). Hundreds of acres of terrapin habitat have already been destroyed or changed by coastal development, which is still happening today. On April 24, 2021 there will be a march to save the Graniteville wetlands from being turned into a BJ’s.

There are countless other examples, including the rusty patched bumble bee, the American chestnut tree (now critically endangered), and nearly all species of shark. However, despite all of these species that were once common and are now endangered nearing extinction, they still make up only a small amount of the overall number of endangered species. Most of the species that are critically endangered are those that were in small numbers to begin with, because, according to J.B MacKinnon, “it’s much easier to drive a species with low numbers or very limited distribution to the brink.” (par 17). Bornean Orangutans, for example, are declining rapidly due to habitat destruction, but they were never truly common in the first place.

However, by waiting until the last minute to pull back a species from the edge, is not a good idea, especially with common species. The issue of local extinction, the disappearance of a species from one region, is a far more common phenomenon than global extinction and can happen far more often with common species. A major example is the story of the Gray Wolf in the United states. Intense hunting and decline of wolf prey such as bison, elk, moose and deer, caused the beginning of the wolf decline in the western Great Lakes area (US Fish and Wildlife Service ((FWS), 2021). From populations once as large as 2 million, by the 1960s, the wolves were gone from almost every state and according to the FWS, “at that time only a few lone wolves remained in the Upper Peninsula [of Michigan] and an isolated population existed on Isle Royale” (Par. 2) The Gray Wolf is found all over the world, but due to human interaction became nearly locally extinct in the United States. Luckily the populations are slowly rising in the US, but it was just barely pulled back from the edge. Local extinctions can have an impact on an entire habitat, altering the food chain, impacting all the species that rely on the common one that was pushed to extinction.

Gaston notes in his article, “Valuing Common Species” that the third reason most common species go extinct is that they are usually victims of, “the invasion of species, accidental or intentional introduction, that are alien to an area” (P. 155). This is the introduction of an invasive species, that competes or kills off native species, causing extinction or endangerment of common species, which is the direct cause of the American Chestnut Tree being critically endangered. The American Chestnut Tree was the giant of the eastern United States, and there were billions of these giant trees, some being 100 feet tall with trunk diameters over 10 ft (Hodgins, 2020). The nuts of the trees fed billions of wildlife, and people, and was very strong, resistant to rotting. According to the American Chestnut Tree Foundation (ACF), “the American Chestnut tree survived all adversaries for 40 million years, then disappeared within 40” (par 6). The disappearance was caused by Cryphonectria parasitica, or chestnut blight. It is a fungus native to East and South East Asia, and when introduced to the United States at the turn of the 20^th Century, the blight swept through forests, killing the chestnut trees. (Hodgins, 2020). The species is not fully extinct, but critically endangered, and another one to add to the list. It is a prime example of how ferociously and quickly invasive species can knock out a native species, and a strong reason to why the extinction crisis extends to common species as well.

So, how do we solve this ongoing issue? The immediate thought is to protect land. Create national parks and reserve land, so that the declining species can repopulate. That may work for species such as the Karpathos Frog, a frog native and living only in a small island off the coast of Greece, because it is easy to set aside land when the species does not have a far range. However, that cannot work for common species that spread across entire countries and the globe. The way to protect common species is one that we have yet to develop as a society that involves: mindfulness, sustainability, and coexistence. If we build with ecosystems instead of against them, we can learn to live with the species that grow endangered due to habitat loss and fragmentation. Instead of dividing the world into spaces for humans and animals, the idea is to live together, creating a sustainable environment for humans and other species. David Attenborough, a world renown natural historian, provides glimpses into a future using these ideas in his inspiring documentary, “Life on Our Planet”, with examples of sustainability and animal-human coexistence.

We already live and see hundreds of common species each day, to the point where they go unnoticed in our eyes. They become part of our daily lives, our ecosystems. Without them, our world will change. The sounds of the birds in the morning, the buzzing of bees in the summer, the butterflies resting on the blossoming flowers in the summer: we take in these stimuli, and it fuels our emotions, our happiness, our sense of connection with nature. The loss of the American chestnut tree is the loss of beautiful landmarks that we take in and resonate with.

So, why does this all matter? Will the loss of a few species kill us? Most likely not. Did we survive with the loss of common species so far? Yes. Will the loss of common and rare species affect our mental health and our daily lives? Most likely. We rely on the gifts of nature more than we think we do. Hearing that the sea turtle populations are dwindling away feels like a stab in the heart. We don’t necessarily rely on sea turtles for survival, but there is something about them that seems to capture the hearts of many.

So: we will survive as some species begin to dwindle. However, the loss of these species is a good indicator of our behavior. If we continue to push species over the edge due to our actions of deforestation and other activities, what will happen to the species that we do greatly rely on? If the species that they rely on begin to go as well, then we are faced with a huge problem. If we overfish to the point where the Atlantic Herring goes extinct, what happens to our food sources, or the hundreds of marine species that rely on the Atlantic Herring?

Why should we care what happens to common species, why go to the extent to protect them? There is one reason that seems to pop out more than the rest: because we are currently fighting a pandemic to protect the lives of the most common species of all: humans.

References

The American Chestnut Foundation. (2021, February 23). History of the American chestnut. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://acf.org/the-american-chestnut/history-american-chestnut/

Arun, P., & Azeez, P. (2004). Vulture population decline, Diclofenac and avian gout. Current Science, 87(5), 565-568. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24109027

Biello, D. (2014, June 27). 3 billion to ZERO: What happened to the Passenger Pigeon? Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/3-billion-to-zero-what-happened-to-the-passenger-pigeon/

Birdlife International. (2017). Asian Vulture Populations Have Declined Precipitously in Less Than a Decade. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from http://datazone.birdlife.org/sowb/casestudy/asian-vulture-populations-have-declined-precipitously-in-less-than-a-decade

Center for Biological Diversity. (2021, February 01). America’s Gray Wolves. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/gray_wolves/index.html

Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ. (n.d.). New Jersey endangered and threatened SPECIES field guide. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from http://www.conservewildlifenj.org/species/fieldguide/view/Malaclemys%20terrapin%20terrapin/

Gaston, K. (2010). Valuing Common Species. Science,327(5962), new series, 154-155. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40508806

Gaston, K. (2011). Common Ecology. BioScience, 61(5), 354-362. doi:10.1525/bio.2011.61.5.4 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/61/5/354/272191

Gorbunova, V., Bozzella, M., & Seluanov, A. (2008, September). Rodents for comparative aging studies: From mice to beavers. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2527635/

Hodgins, J. (2020, March 09). What it takes to bring back the near Mythical American chestnut trees. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/04/29/what-it-takes-bring-back-near-mythical-american-chestnut-trees

MacKinnon, J. (2017, October 17). Tragedy of the common. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://psmag.com/magazine/tragedy-of-the-common

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (2021, April 21). History of decline, protection and recovery. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://www.fws.gov/midwest/wolf/history/index.html

Zimmer, C. (2019, September 19). Birds are vanishing from North America. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/science/bird-populations-america-canada.html