Do Conservationists Help?

Sometimes I think we are fighting a losing battle when it comes to contributing to funds that profess to help because they can only do so much to save animals headed for extinction. But if we don’t do anything they we all face extinction, this people have to know. In the case of the grizzly there has to be smarter development near where they roam but poachers should also be heavily fined and caught so that further poaching will be discouraged. The problem is how to survey large areas to fine the occasional trigger-happy gunman wanting to shoot bears because he has lost a single occasional sheep of a much larger herd. The costs involved in paying law enforcers to survey public lands and areas set aside for conservation is a definite hindrance in the fight against loss of wildlife.

Organizations like WWF do explain how a donor’s money is used to help the further endangerment of species like these. It is a major organization pitted against an ongoing threat of wildlife extinctions based on habitat changes, pollution and the indiscriminate hunting and fishing caused by man. I question whether one or two organizations is sufficient to stem the tide a growing list of extinctions. One clear example of an uphill battle are the problems associated with oil dumping, a hair rising drama that unfolds daily as oil dumps have being causing silent deaths, the loss of hundreds of thousands of seabirds. So organizations like WWF are being challenged because a fine to companies dumping oil is so low and evidence is poor such that dumping continues regularly. Obviously sharper evidence of deaths caused by man must be found. Obviously serious penalties have to be applied but will they be upheld by courts of law? These are probably questions that environmental lawyers are facing when they represent advocacy groups or citizens that individually fight polluters and anti-conservationists.