A proposal to offer private ownership of endangered species has gained traction in Australia this week, after prominent electronics businessman, Dick Smith came out in support of the plan. Around the world, extinction rates are 100 to 1,000 times greater than ever before. As a result, many ecologists think Earth is in the midst of a mass extinction event similar to the one that ended the dinosaurs. The current proposal, led by ecologist George Wilson of Australian National University and published in Conservation Letters last month, stated that endangered animals could be owned by private landholders, investors, or community groups, instead of the government. In turn, these owners could breed more animals on their own land, and lease or sell the surplus individuals to other private owners. The role of governments would be to regulate the leasehold arrangements and any animal welfare issues, rather than be sole managers of wildlife,” said Wilson in a press statement. Overall, the goal of the project to increase suitable habitat for threatened species in addition to increasing their populations.
New concepts and approaches are undoubtedly needed to secure the lives of endangered animals. But whether this approach of commodifying wildlife is the right one remains hard to say. However, Wilson points out that this concept is not new and has been employed in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and other African countries all to varying degrees of success. “Although wildlife management in Southern Africa has different aims, success there suggests that the approach is worth trialling in Australia.” If this were the case, our society as whole would truly have the power to make a change for our environment and the animals living in it.
Milliken did a nice job incorporating subtitles and pictures within the article, making it easy to follow and understand. She also started the article with two rhetorical questions, engaging the audience and hooking them in from the start. However, the structure of the paragraphs could have been more thoughtfully laid out. At times, a sentence would start with the word “and” and there were too many quotations and parentheses throughout the article, which made it difficult to follow at times. To improve on this, Milliken should paraphrase more often instead of quoting most of the paragraph. Overall, this was a well written article that brought up the awareness of endangered animals worldwide, where they believe that people can be the first step to fixing the problem at hand.
posted for L. Cruikshank
Ellie Parson
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
Biology D-Odd
13 November 2016
Citation for Article:
Milliken, Grennen. “Some Australians Want To Rent Out Endangered Wildlife.” Popular Science, 21 Oct. 2016, www.popsci.com/private-leasing-wildlife-gains-traction-in-australia.
Citation for Review:
Cruikshank, Lindsey, and Grennen Milliken. “Some Australians Want To Rent Out Endangered Wildlife.” Bronxville HS Core Biology, 25 Oct. 2016, bhscorebio.blogspot.com/2016/10/some-australians-want-to-rent-out.html#comment-form.
Additional Citations:
“Welcome to the Purdue OWL.” Purdue OWL: MLA Formatting and Style Guide, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/.
My classmate Lindsey wrote a remarkable review on the article “Some Australians Want To Rent Out Endangered Wildlife” by Grennen Milliken. An important issue has been brought to the attention of the public eye, as Milliken discusses the power certain landowners possess over endangered species. Their rights could benefit or damage the endangered animals, yet it is argued that the government should have a larger role in the transactions of threatened species. Instead of leaving responsibility in the landowner’s hands to secure the lives of the creatures, a larger, stronger force like the government could offer widescale protection and act in favor of maintaining life. Lindsey was persistent in the writing quality of her review, as it flowed easily and was uncomplicated. She used transition words such as “overall” (Cruikshank, 1) and “in turn” (Cruikshank, 1) to move the essay along. But with an additional aspect well done, she balanced the smooth style of writing she used with great, substantial details from the article. Lindsey used numbers, specific quotes, and locations to paint a picture of the data being introduced. As a result, her piece could be accepted as exceptional written matter, but also as a great scientific review. Another success Lindsey had within her review was written in her critique. She analyzed the author’s writing skills, and found that there was an excessive amount of quotes. She then offered a solution- to take portions of the quotes he was using to prove his point. Realizing that the author was relying heavily on quotations that filled his article required a sense of understanding of the topic.
Even though her review was well written, it lacked in certain areas. An example would be a punctuation mistake with what appears to be the first quote she used. There was no beginning quotation mark in the beginning of the quote, which can confuse readers. I was able to make an assumption of where the quote started based on the format of her review, but there might be consequence if it was harder to find where the quote began. Additionally, she did not correctly quote using MLA formatting. At the end of a quote, short quotations require the use of parenthesis, author’s names, etc, at the end. This is done to clarify where the quote came from. Lindsey did not have this formatting after her quotes. The punctuation error along with the quotation error took away from her review.
From this article, I gained a small understanding on how other countries and their governments handle endangered species. In my opinion, animals are sacred to the areas they are confused to, and should be treated with respect, love, and security to ensure their populations and lives can grow. I can somewhat relate the issue to my experience in Alaska. There, I learned that the hunting limit of specified animals for Native Americans is controlled, and this is to protect the populations of those species. The laws are enforced, meaning private matter or not, these animals live freely and are observed with protection.
My classmate Lindsey did a very good review of the article, “Some Australians Want To Rent Out Endangered Wildlife” by Grennen Milliken. Three things in particular stood out as excellent aspects of this review. Firstly, Lindsey’s incorporation of specific facts from the article allows for the concepts seen in the actual article to be reflected in her analysis clearly so the topic discussed is fully understood. Secondly, she includes quotes from an actual ecologist. This backs up the points made in the article summary, and allows the reader to see the legitimacy of the issue. Finally, Lindsey made some very good points on how the layout of the article could be improved. For example, she specifically said that the paragraph order should be changed.
ReplyDeleteDespite these good aspects of this review, there are two things that could be further improved. One thing that may enhance the review, would be to add some more detail into the second paragraph. The final sentence in the second paragraph really shows how this idea could help endangered species, and if this were discussed more, the review could be even better. There are also a couple of grammatical errors that could be fixed. For example, in the first paragraph, there is a quote without the initial quotation mark.
Overall, I thought this review did a great job summarizing and analyzing the article at hand. I never knew that privately owning and breeding endangered animals could be an option to help save their species. Hopefully this can be further researched, and perhaps even put to action to help save these animals.