Welcome to Gaia! ::

Has anyone heard of Passenger Pigeons? They were a species of pigeon that used to be one of the marvels of nature in North America. Their flocks would number billions and it was said they could be a mile wide and three hundred long, and take hours to pass overhead.

Unfortunately some idiot decided to start shooting them. So American Aristocrats went out with their guns and shot down the flocks. Over a few decades the great flocks were no more. Only several hundred birds to a flock. At the end of the 19th Century the last great flock of 100,000 or so was shot down. Even worse, the shooters did this in the knowledge that this was the last great flock.

On 1st of September 1914 in Cincinatti Zoo, the last bird, Martha, of a species that had once been the most numerous on the planet died.

And the words of a Zoo Keeper were "What have we done?"

That is very sad indeed.
We humans certainly are the nastiest and most destructive animal ever to exist. mad

I don't understand how people derive pleasure from shooting birds out of the sky anyway. Sick, sick, sick people talk2hand

Drew Follows? confused

He's a friend who supports fox hunting and goes shooting.

A murderer is not judged on whether they may of helped an old lady across a road, but is judged on their crimes.

Your comparison is not dissimilar to a mass murderer and commiter of genocide, who every so often puts a bit of change into the cup of a homeless person.

I think "Intelligent Discussion" covers all of the issues of animal extinction etc.

Also, wouldn't you think that a discussion on Extra Terestrials would be rather lacking of data?

Lovely! I am without a doubt that there is other life in the universe. Life is versatile, as the history of our atmosphere proves. But the odds of it reaching us is...tiny. The nearest other star is Sirius, which is 4 light years away. Maybe a long time we will be able to travel just under the speed of light, and get there in six or so, but the odds are that we will never contact them.