Is there anyone who thinks animal extinction is natural?

Question

It is part of my case study, of course I'm not expecting that many answers because we know exactly what it's caused by, and it isn't a part of nature =(

Answer 1

In the past most extinctions were not caused by man. They were natural. In fact well over 99.9 percent of all extinctions have occurred naturally. Today however, the burgeoning human population and lifestyle is causing mass extinctions planet wide.

Even so it can be argued that man is part of nature and therefore in a certain sense man caused extinctions are natural even if they are both tragic and avoidable. However the same types of things happen when any animal (especially a large animal like humans) suffer a population explosion. They begin affecting their environment in detrimental ways. This generally continues until the environment gets damaged enough to cause a mass reduction in the population of the species which is over populated.

Answer 2

of course its natural. where else do you think all the dinosaurs have gone, we certainly didn't kill them. My brain is refusing to retrieve the data i want but i remember learning about several mass estinction events in relation to abrupt climate change and other natural phenomenas. In the past 500million years there has been 5 or 6 mass extinction events in which 50% or more of the planets species have been wiped out.

Throughout history animals constantly become extinct, its part of the development of life on our planet. Animals have to adapt to changing conditions and if they don't they die.

However if we are only talking about the extinctions which have occured in the last few hundred years then the majority can be attributed to humans wiping them out, however there is an argument that certain animals have adapted to the changing world that we have created and continue to thrive while those that haven't have become extinct, to a certain extent that could be seen as natural progression and survival of the fittest.

Answer 3

Extinction is natural.

That doesn't mean all extinctions are completely natural though. Humans have caused and greatly sped up extinction in many species.

When you look at the number of human caused extinctions to completely natural extinctions, the ones caused by humans only make up a tiny tiny percentage.

Answer 4

Extinction is more than natural, it is an inevitability--at some point a species will cease to be, or be so changed from an ancient form as to be considered another species.
What isn't natural is the current RATE of extinction, which is matched only by past mass-extinction events.

Answer 5

Environments change (sometimes suddenly, sometimes over millions of years) and animal species which do not adapt well to a changing environment either become extinct...or they are replaced by new species which had evolved from certain individuals within an older species which had benefited from favorable mutations. The term for this process is natural selection. This is the basis of Darwin's and Wallace's theory on the origin of species. So natural...definitely.

Answer 6

Let's not be too quick to blame the human race for everything. We must remember that a great many species of animals became extinct before man ever appeared on earth. At the same time it is probably true that when two husky representatives of Homo sapiens, with clubs, corner the last two birds of a species, no matter how far they have or have not evolved, both the phylogeny and the ontogeny of those birds are, to all intents and purposes, over. -- Will Cuppy, How to Become Extinct, 1941

Answer 7

Extinction IS a natural process...eventually every living species on earth will become extinct. However, humans have sped up the natural process to an UNnatural and alarming rate.

Answer 8

Dinka0,

Yes, I understand what you mean by "we know exactly what it's caused by." But, I think there is a second outlook other than just man and weaponry, hunting, war, etc. Look at theories such as nature vs. nuture (which have had scientists fighting on both sides for thousands of years), anyway, aside from man and man made weaponry involved look at the eco-system: bacteria exisit in the ocean and water that eat plants, small fish eat the bacteria and plants, and larger fish, sharks, whales, dolphins etc all eat smaller ones to survive. This is also seen on land with reptiles, small and large animals, birds, etc. Even without man, hunting still occurs between animals. And for some reason, such as climate, food not being available for a population of a animal to mate regularly, and still being hunted in this process than it is probable, even possible, even actual as we have seen it, for a species to become extinct. So, as unhappy as it makes me to have to say, I would still have to admit that it is probably a natural part of humanity as we know it for animal extinction to occur, even without our "help."

Answer 9

Firstly - why is it not natural if man causes an animal to become extinct? What is mankind if not natural?
If one believes in evolution then animal extinction is just part of the evolutionary progress - we are fittest and we are surviving better.

Actually I don't accept the evolutionary fairy tale. Many extinctions occured without mans help. The global flood seems to have caused the extinction of some sea creatures. The land creatues were preserved on the ark, but many have not survived till now due to pressures from man and other species. For example dinosaurs have clearly existed alongside man since there are many depictions and accounts of such creatures (http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/ancient/ancient.htm). Man obviously contributed to their demise. (E.g St George!)

There are many creatures that have become extinct having previously diversified. For example lions and tigers are descended from a common ancestor - and can still interbreed. Probably many other big cats also share the same ancestors. Yet some big cats have become extinct and others are not far from it.

Answer 10

99% of all of the animal species that ever existed are extinct.

Extinction is definitely a natural process in the evolution and development of species.

And humans, despite what we might think, are every bit as much a part of nature as ants, beavers, snow storms, and meteorites.

Even if humans were determined to be 100% responsible for a species' extinction (i.e. the passenger pigeon), that doesn't mean the extinction was unnatural. Preventable, tragic, and damaging to ecosystems, yes, but not unnatural.