Knut cuteness and global fish stocks

Knut Cuteness
Well here I am back at "Active Alert World". I have started several blogs and this one was designed for world events, news and rants. So why am I writing about Knut?

Isn't he so cute!!!! Kawaii!!! (As they say in Japan).
 Knut is the adorable fluffy little CUTE polar bear born into a zoo in Berlin. Have you ever seen anything so adorable?

Out here on the west coast of Canada though, this story raises a lot of unsettling thoughts. What about all the polar bears -- and other creatures of this planet -- that just are not quite so cuddly? Adult polar bears are lean mean predatory killing machines. Apparently they are the only Arctic creature that will actively hunt humans. That is nothing strange or artificial. It is just the way that they were born and it is simply the niche that they fill in Arctic ecology.

They are also social creatures used to covering rather large territories. According to the news reports, Knut the Cute was rejected by his mother and hand-raised by human zoo keepers. Seems like a rather sad existence to me. He certainly can't be reintroduced into the wild again and his best future prospect is to live in a concrete zoo enclosure padding back and forth begging for peanuts. (The bear in my picture once lived in the Vancouver Zoo).

Yes the world population of polar bears is shrinking; and yes we should be controlling hunting and repairing the climate; but I hardly see where all this effort in hand rearing such a wild polar bear will actually help the wild population.

Seal Cuteness
As a Canadian that of course brings me back to the perpetual question baby seals. Of course they are cute and of course it is nasty and a dirty business to harvest them on the St. Lawrence ice flows. But please don't condemn the hunt simply because baby seals are cute! If I read that someone wants to stop all animal hunting for food; or if another wants to stop all use of animal fur; then I see these like sincere rally cries. But please don't pick or choose your targets according to their state of cuteness.

Is a cod cute?
Help save the Harp Seal! But also while you are at it:
Let us save Salamanders, Komodo Dragons and the Atlantic Cod.
In any case, humans have already intruded into all parts of the world's ecology.
We have entered an era of unintended consequences I am afraid. Once we decimated the commercial cod fishery the force of commerce caused the trawlers and draggers of the oceans to seek out the toothfish, dogfish, rockfish and sablefish of the seas to sell as Chilean Sea Bass, Red Snapper and Black Cod.
Of course -- this is the unintended consequences bit -- decimating those mid-sized fish stocks will likely lead to a collapse of all those larger prey animals such as seals, walrus, sharks and killer whales that depend on those fish species for food.

And what do polar bears eat?
Well, when they are not seeking out a tasty Inuit snack, their favourite food is the lowly harbour seal or perhaps a baby walrus or two.

So I am not pleading for anyone to ignore Knut -- he really is CUTE! -- but I do plead for people to realize that ecology is about a total environment and interplay of species. It is simply not enough to save cute creatures without saving all the wallflowers species -- such as squid, sharks and eels -- that both feed and prey upon the cute ones.

The entire world is now a zoological park
We live in a small place now. There are only a limited number of top level carnivorous species, there are only a limited number of abundant food species and the amount of rotifers, shrimp and krill for them all to eat is also limited. We can't just worry about the ecology of a few species selected for cuteness and expect all the others to somehow get survive on their own. Ecology means the science of relationships and all those tiny relationships need preservation.