What's the best way to strike a balance?
Some wildlife officials believe that to save a species from extinction we need to put a price on its head—that is, if we want to protect a species then we need to auction off the right to kill a certain number every year and give the money to the local people as an incentive not to poach. It's a pragmatic but controversial approach.
I think the idea of sustainable harvests [of these predators] needs to be discussed because the overall status of these predators is so desperate.
On the other hand, to some people these species are just too rare, majestic and sacred—beyond the limits of commercial exploitation. This view is more instinctual, and not as rational. I'm conflicted.
What's the biological and ecological cost of losing these animals?
These [predators] are keystone species—of inordinate importance to the whole community. Remove them and you have a cascade of secondary effects like a population explosion among the predators' prey.
If the prey is herbivorous the problem is overgrazing. Or the number of middle-size predators could swell to partially fill the void.
For example, in Southern California, habitat fragmentation has caused coyote numbers to decline, leading to more raccoons and house cats. This in turn has led to a decline in the numbers of scrub-nesting birds. Without these big predators the ecosystem unravels, with extinctions right down the food chain.
What's the damage to the human psyche if these "alpha predators" are lost?
We seem bound to extirpate these animals in the next 150 years—that will be bad because these creatures remind us that we are part of nature, part of the food chain, that we are just another flavor of meat.
I think we would also experience a cosmic loneliness when there are no longer creatures out there that are bigger and fiercer than us.
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