Note that the rats were already an introduced species that had devestated the island wildlife.
The mongoose is notable only in that the introduction was deliberate. You want to see real destruction, take a look at what pigs have done to the islands.
"Not every animal died because of evil humans, some died because they weren't fit to survive in this world."
Fitness to survive in the world has nothing to do with it. A meteor falls, and everything with a body mass greater than 100kg dies out. Were the larger animals less fit? A volcano erupts. A species dies. A flood wipes out a nesting ground. Chalk up another one. Human sailors bring in rats, goats and row plants, destroying practically all native flora and fauna of whole island chains.
Were any of these things destroyed because they were less fit? Of course not. If your building catches on fire, are the survivors more "fit" or are they simply lucky enough to be working on the first floor?
Despite the pitifully bad dialog of Jurassic Park, natural history does not represent some featureless plain on which species struggle against each other and the best win out. Catastrophes happen. Climates make sudden, radical shifts. Disease runs rampant. New vegetation suites are established. Chance is everywhere.
And chance is all it takes. Abandon any idea that the creatures you see around you are "better" than what came before. Different? Sure. Better? By what standards? They're here because of chance built on chance, built on chance. Feedback loops tend to enforce the status quo, keeping many species stable over millions of years (a feature generally absent for the last 12,000 years) but the best predator on Earth can't live if all the prey die and forest dwellers die when the forest goes bye.
The Thylacine happened to be a predator on an island where humans decided to raise sheep. It was fully "fit" in the environment before this point. Afterwards, it was "unfit" in the sense that it's hide was not bulletproof and it had an unfortunate predilection for traps.
Should we worry about the return of extinct species? At some point, yes, but not because some anthropomorphic "nature" selected them for extinction. We should worry because these creatures may be all too "fit" and have behaviors, breeding strategies, or feeding habits that are exceptionally successful in a modern setting.
Do you oppose the return of Grey Wolves to the Yellowstone Basin, or the reintroduction of Grizzlies to their historic range? Like the thylacine, these are creatures that have been absent from these territories for multiple generations. And the areas to which they are being "returned" have often experienced radical changes in the intervening years. Watching the ups and downs of these "reintroduction" projects should give us a good preview of the pitfalls to avoid when someone wants to put just a few Mastadons in Missouri.
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Note that the rats were already an introduced species that had devestated the island wildlife. The mongoose is notable only in that the introduction was deliberate. You want to see real destruction, take a look at what pigs have done to the islands.
"Not every animal died because of evil humans, some died because they weren't fit to survive in this world."
Fitness to survive in the world has nothing to do with it. A meteor falls, and everything with a body mass greater than 100kg dies out. Were the larger animals less fit? A volcano erupts. A species dies. A flood wipes out a nesting ground. Chalk up another one. Human sailors bring in rats, goats and row plants, destroying practically all native flora and fauna of whole island chains.
Were any of these things destroyed because they were less fit? Of course not. If your building catches on fire, are the survivors more "fit" or are they simply lucky enough to be working on the first floor?
Despite the pitifully bad dialog of Jurassic Park, natural history does not represent some featureless plain on which species struggle against each other and the best win out. Catastrophes happen. Climates make sudden, radical shifts. Disease runs rampant. New vegetation suites are established. Chance is everywhere.
And chance is all it takes. Abandon any idea that the creatures you see around you are "better" than what came before. Different? Sure. Better? By what standards? They're here because of chance built on chance, built on chance. Feedback loops tend to enforce the status quo, keeping many species stable over millions of years (a feature generally absent for the last 12,000 years) but the best predator on Earth can't live if all the prey die and forest dwellers die when the forest goes bye.
The Thylacine happened to be a predator on an island where humans decided to raise sheep. It was fully "fit" in the environment before this point. Afterwards, it was "unfit" in the sense that it's hide was not bulletproof and it had an unfortunate predilection for traps.
Should we worry about the return of extinct species? At some point, yes, but not because some anthropomorphic "nature" selected them for extinction. We should worry because these creatures may be all too "fit" and have behaviors, breeding strategies, or feeding habits that are exceptionally successful in a modern setting.
Do you oppose the return of Grey Wolves to the Yellowstone Basin, or the reintroduction of Grizzlies to their historic range? Like the thylacine, these are creatures that have been absent from these territories for multiple generations. And the areas to which they are being "returned" have often experienced radical changes in the intervening years. Watching the ups and downs of these "reintroduction" projects should give us a good preview of the pitfalls to avoid when someone wants to put just a few Mastadons in Missouri.