Usually when I get back from trips to the AMNH I unleash all the best photographs I took during the day in one post. This time, however, I think I'm going to parcel them out one by one in the Picture of the Day slot so they each get due consideration. This shot, however, is one of my favorites; the skull of an Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) in the Hall of Primates. It was disturbing to look at the skeletons and stuffed mounts of animals so like us put on display, the lemurs looking unnaturally fierce with cartoonish snarls and the great apes being merely shadows of the living animals they once were. The orang skeleton caught most of my attention though, the mouth agape almost as if in anguish, and it made me recall that it is conceivable that within my lifetime such skeletons under glass may be all the remain of our evolutionary cousins. Even as I wandered the Akeley Hall of African Mammals, I had to wonder how many species will disappear in the next 50 years or so. Will the small herd of African Elephants in the center of the hall be the last homage to groupings that no longer can occur in nature? While many of these animals were shot and collected before conservation was a major concern, we've seemingly come full circle where the dusty old pelts may someday represent the closet thing to animals that no longer exist in the wild. Sobering, indeed.
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All this stuff about endangered species riles me, yet I feel so powerless about it :(
Anon; It is troublesome, especially since it requires a lot of people with a similar idea to help change things (which is somewhat counter to the "One person can make a difference" notion that is true only to a very minor extent). Some primatologists have resigned themselves to the reality that orangs will disappear soon, recommending that if you want to see them at all you must go now, and it is absolutely shameful that we are doing so little to save an animal so close to us. There are lots of animals that need help, but if we cannot save one of our evolutionary cousins from our own harmful activities, we will truly have become monsters. You or I might only be able to contribute little, though, as the survival of orangs is going to require the purchase of vast patches of lands to be held permanently as they are, such purchases being tricky to obtain both in terms of money and politics, but it is habitat destruction that is the #1 danger for so many species. We can protect the animal itself, but if we destroy its home then we are still choking the species to death, only more slowly. To help orangs, check out sites like this one.