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Deodorant Sought to Save New Zealand's Native Birds
New Zealand researchers have received a NZ$600,000 grant to develop a deodorant for native birds whose strong odors make them easy targets for introduced predators. Since the birds evolved without any mammal predators they emit a very strong odor compared to birds in other parts of the world. Canterbury University researcher Jim Briskie says kiwis smell like mushrooms or ammonia, while kakapo parrots have a hint of "musty violin case."
But after reading about the kakapo, it must be the stupidest, most pointless bird on the planet. Sure I guess it is good to study them to understand whatever needs to be understood, but these birds are pretty retarded. Because of their environment, they evolved into something that has practically no positive traits to help their survival. In fact, practically everything about them invites predators to them, or makes them completely helpless. I suppose it would be bad for them to all die, but I'm not sure why, exactly.
In all likelihood, the deodorization process will break their breeding process and they will disappear completely in a year or two.
However their conclusion is quite the contrary to what you seem to suggest:
"Given the huge humanitarian and economic consequences of mosquito-spread disease, few scientists would suggest that the costs of an increased human population would outweigh the benefits of a healthier one. And the 'collateral damage' felt elsewhere in ecosystems doesn't buy much sympathy either. The romantic notion of every creature having a vital place in nature may not be enough to plead the mosquito's case. It is the limitations of mosquito-killing methods, not the limitations of intent, that make a world without mosquitoes unlikely.
And so, while humans inadvertently drive beneficial species, from tuna to corals, to the edge of extinction, their best efforts can't seriously threaten an insect with few redeeming features. "They don't occupy an unassailable niche in the environment," says entomologist Joe Conlon, of the American Mosquito Control Association in Jacksonville, Florida. "If we eradicated them tomorrow, the ecosystems where they are active will hiccup and then get on with life. Something better or worse would take over." "
Animal adapts to its native environment, and survives just fine.
No they aren't.
The native environment includes predators now. And it's not like we genetically engineered the things. They are natural too. It's not like species have not transferred locations before, it probably would have happened anyway someday even without humans.
Basically, they found a comfortable place for a time but made bad evolutionary choices that ensured some day they would be screwed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You joke, but there was a news segment earlier this year about a guy who wanted to farm kiwis as food. His reasoning being, that cows, sheep and chicken will never become extinct. Start eating them, and farming them, and they will be saved...