Why Society Should Care About the Sticklebacks

As a student of sticklebacks, I was gratified to read 200 column-inches devoted to this splendid animal (Times, Sept. 16). The article was extensively researched and accurate, but seemed to leave one major question unanswered: Why should this society be concerned to save a two-inch fish?

There are two preeminent reasons to preserve sticklebacks as well as the many thousands of equally unglamorous species in danger of extinction.

First, as a species, we do not know and have no way of knowing when we may need sticklebacks. Fifty years ago no one could have predicted that the cure for cancer of the lymph glands (Hodgkin’s disease) would be extracted from the Madagascar Rosy Periwinkle; that toxic chemicals such as DDT in the soil can be degraded by the White Rot Fungus, or that the nine-banded armadillo would be critical in leprosy research.

These are just three from an ark of obscure organisms that now provide mankind with considerable benefits. If the unarmored stickleback goes the way of the Dodo, we will never get it back. We owe it to our children not to trash their inheritance.

Second, as conscious beings we have an ethical responsibility to preserve the complex, beautiful and exceedingly ancient organisms with which we share a small planet. Few people would condone systematically burning paintings by Rembrandt or Picasso. However, to eliminate a species or even a distinct subspecies is to destroy forever something both more ancient and far more complex than anything that man has ever produced.

JAMES R. MALCOLM

Redlands

Malcolm is an assistant professor of biology at the University of Redlands.