Eight Little Piggies by Stephen Jay Gould Read Free Book Online

potentially greater evolutionary interest and practical significance) or for habitats. This situation had led to the practical concept of “umbrella” or “indicator” species—surrogates for a larger ecological entity worthy of preservation. Thus, the giant panda (really quite a boring and ornery creature despite its good looks) raises money to save the remaining bamboo forests of China (and a plethora of other endangered creatures with no political clout); the northern spotted owl has just rescued some magnificent stands of old-growth giant cedars, Douglas fir, and redwoods (and I say Hosanna); and the Mount Graham Red Squirrel may save a rare and precious habitat of extraordinary evolutionary interest.
    The Pinaleno Mountains, reaching 10,720 feet at Mount Graham, are an isolated fault block range separated from others by alluvial and desert valleys that dip to less than 3,000 feet in elevation. The high peaks of the Pinalenos contain an important and unusual fauna for two reasons. First, they harbor a junction of two biogeographic provinces: the Nearctic or northern by way of the Colorado Plateau and the Neotropical or southern via the Mexican Plateau. The Mount Graham Red Squirrel (a northern species) can live this far south because high elevations reproduce the climate and habitat found nearer sea level in the more congenial north. Second, and more important to evolutionists, the old-growth spruce-fir habitats on the high peaks of the Pinalenos are isolated “sky islands”—10,000-year-old remnants of a habitat more widely spread over the region of the Gadsden Purchase during the height of the last ice age. In evolutionary terms, these isolated pieces of habitat are true islands—patches of more northern microclimate surrounded by southern desert. They are functionally equivalent to bits of land in the ocean. Consider the role that islands (like the Galapagos) have played both in developing the concepts of evolutionary theory and in acting as cradles of origin (through isolation) or vestiges of preservation for biological novelties.
    Thus, whether or not the telescopes will drive the Mount Graham Red Squirrel to extinction (an unsettled question well outside my area of expertise), the sky islands of the Pinalenos are precious habitats that should not be compromised. Let the Mount Graham Red Squirrel, so worthy of preservation in its own right, also serve as an indicator species for the unique and fragile habitat that it occupies.
    But why should I, a confirmed eastern urbanite who has already disclaimed all concern for the Gadsden Purchase, choose to involve myself in the case of the Mount Graham Red Squirrel? The answer, unsurprisingly, is that I have been enlisted—involuntarily and on the wrong side to boot. I am fighting mad, and fighting back.
    The June 7, 1990, Wall Street Journal ran a pro-development, anti-squirrel opinion piece by Michael D. Copeland (identified as “executive director of the Political Economy Research Center in Bozeman, Montana”) under the patently absurd title: “No Red Squirrels? Mother Nature May Be Better Off.” (I can at least grasp, while still rejecting, the claim that nature would be no worse off if the squirrels died, but I am utterly befuddled at how anyone could devise an argument that the squirrels inflict a positive harm upon the mother of us all!) In any case, Mr. Copeland misunderstood my writings in formulating a supposedly scientific argument for his position.
    Now scarcely a day goes by when I do not read a misrepresentation of my views (usually by creationists, racists, or football fans in order of frequency). My response to nearly all misquotation is the effective retort of preference: utter silence. (Honorable intellectual disagreement should always be addressed; misquotation should be ignored, when possible and politically practical). I make an exception in this case because Copeland cited me in the service of a classic false argument—the standard, almost