Be Fruitful and Multiply

By Greg Holmes

“More than 93 percent of all the animal species that ever lived are now extinct.” Citing this astounding statistic in a recent speech, the distinguished free market economist and syndicated columnist Walter Williams pointed out that species have come and gone with remarkable regularity throughout the history of life on this planet.

Indeed, scientists within the past two decades have concluded that our own species would not exist today had it not been for a catastrophic mass extinction of most animal life on Earth. Geological evidence discovered under that part of the Yucatan Peninsula that is now Southeastern Mexico indicates that about 65 million years ago, a large asteroid or comet with a diameter of about six miles struck the Earth, dooming to extinction most of the world’s plant and animal life and bringing to an abrupt and extremely violent end the era of the large, powerful, but ultimately inefficient dinosaurs. Such mass extinctions have created significant gaps in Earth’s ecology over the eons, paving the way for the development of many species, most interestingly, Homo sapiens.

With the probable exceptions of such unmitigated threats to human health as the cockroach and the anopheles mosquito, the purpose of this article is emphatically not to advocate the mass extinction of animal species. Rather, the aim is simply to puncture the air of hysteria and emotionalism that typically surrounds discussions of extinct or nearly extinct animals. We must not lose sight of the fact that the decision to prefer one animal species over another, especially when the power of government is used to enforce such preferences, is an arbitrary decision, essentially reflecting a matter of taste, a value judgment that a new species is inherently less desirable than an existing one and that the course of evolution should be brought to a screeching halt in one particular spot.

As Professor Williams noted, the best way to safeguard any species is almost always to apply to the issue, not the force of government, but the salutary power of the free market. Nobody worries about the possible extinction of dogs, cats, horses, cattle, chickens, or turkeys. This is true because these species have economic value to human beings. For various practical and emotional reasons, most owners of these species fiercely protect their property and see to it that these animals are fruitful and multiply.

This lesson is graphically illustrated by the experiences of two sub-Saharan African countries. From 1979 to 1989, Kenya banned elephant hunting, yet the number of elephants in Kenya during that time dropped from 65,000 to 19,000. During the same decade, Zimbabwe permitted the private ownership of elephants (buying and selling), and the number of elephants in Zimbabwe rose from 30,000 to 43,000.