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In the past, I never really paid much attention to conservation practices. Of course, somewhere in my high school biology education, I held up a piece of yarn and represented a fly or a frog in my science teacher’s attempt to introduce the food web and convey the importance of every animal. Since I obviously did not want any student to drop their piece of yarn, I adopted the policy that we could continue swatting flies as long as we didn’t completely deplete the frogs’ food source. I believed (and might still believe) that we could keep killing animals up to the point where our lack of conservation would irreversibly impact the ecosystem by causing another animal to die out.

While I still am in favor of establishing this necessary ecosystem balance, I have recently become slightly more concerned about conservation. When abroad last year, I redeveloped a fascination with certain animals as I fell in love with a whole new set of animals unique to New Zealand. I debated about the relevancy of including this in my post since unlike whales, I doubt that most of society is aware of and concerned with the existence of these wonderful animals since they are endemic to NZ. However, I realized that my fascination with NZed’s unique set of flora and fauna speaks to one side of the debate on our motivation for conservation. Most of these incredible animals endemic to NZ are endangered and I would be devastated if due to our lack of conservation practices, we lost the cute kiwi bird or tuatara. Since every other country has been getting along fine without the kiwi bird, it is clear that this bird is not necessary for human existence. People do not advocate for the conservation of the kiwi because of its utility, but rather because of its uniqueness (sidenote: its one of the few birds that has a well developed olfactory system) and its beyond adorable appearance. While NZ does ultimately hope to benefit humankind by preserving interesting and in some cases, aesthetically pleasing animals, it hopes to do so in a less tangible way. Before going to NZ, I only believed in conservation for necessity’s sake however I now recognize that we should not resort to conservation practices only when our way of life is threatened.