Legally Extinct: Why Overpopulation is the Criminal in the Decimation of Wildlife.

Karen Shragg
4 min readDec 13, 2022

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There are some great laws on the books to protect wildlife. They include, The Migratory Bird Act of 1918, the Wilderness Act of 1964, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the North American Wetland’s Act 1989. There are also some iconic species which have been painstakingly saved by tireless wildlife biologists and volunteers who took advantage of the legal requirements to protect wetlands, and endangered species. But overall, these laws are palpably insufficient. Even with great laws in place so many species are becoming what I call, ‘legally extinct’.

The December 9, 2022 New York Times article said so profoundly in its title, “Animals are Running Out of Places to live”. There is a reason they are running out of room, we just can’t keep trying to put up fences, we have to start decreasing the demand.

The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) latest report is a sobering. On page 12 of The World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report 2022 reports that 69% of Wildlife populations have decreased significantly since 1970 after studying 32,000 species. The National Wildlife Report is more of the same bad news about wildlife in the US. The laws we have in place are doing poorly to protect wildlife, not only because of the loopholes developers are always seeking, but because they don’t address our overall human footprint which must include our total number of feet.

At 8 billion and growing by 81 million + per year on a limited thin layer of life supporting biosphere, 332 million of which live in the US, we are forcing wildlife off of the planet. Climate instability does of course account for some of the demise of wildlife. Polar bears do desperately need ever shrinking ice flows from which to hunt for seals. But it is even more difficult for a wolf, mountain lion or ocelot to hunt in a shopping center or housing development. It is even more difficult for salmon to swim upstream to spawn in a river that has been dammed to create a water supply for ever growing cities.

No wildlife biologist worth his/her weight in salt would attempt to save a non-local specie. Midwest-based biologists can work on wolves, fishers, Peregrine falcons or Trumpeter swans. They would not think of personally trying to save lemurs in Madagascar. We can barely promote and challenge laws in the US to conform to our need to protect wildlife, we certainly have no hope of changing them on the other side of the world.

The PEW Research Center states that 88% of future growth in the US is going to be from immigration if everything remains the same. That is on top of a population already seriously overpopulated as evidenced by scarcity of everything from water to open space. Climate change-caused droughts are already causing scarcity issues particularly in the West. Couple that with more people entering the US needing water and only disaster will be on the menu, while also taking a toll on wildlife. Wildlife need water too.

When many including the Ecological Footprint Network have determined that the US is a severe state of overshoot, it’s time to look at our attitudes and laws regarding immigration and recognize that current policies and lack of enforcement are having a devastating impact on wild lands and the wildlife that live there. While there are laws on the books to prevent some avenues of mass immigration, the enforcement is flimsy at best. Many are allowed to stream over our borders illegally fueled by a thundercloud of fervor over unexamined fears of racism as the only motive to stop this flow, our current reality of US growth.

Welcoming masses of people to the US by either neglect or invitation is like having a party at a mansion on a large plot of land with 500 party favors, 500 food items and 500 beverages and allowing the guest list to grow by the thousands because you didn’t want the uncomfortable task of telling guests that you are full. Tending to our current guests with a focus on having adequate supplies is to be commended. Instead, because we are afraid of showing that we don’t care, we open the door to more suffering, when a much-needed act of tough love is required.

Just in case wildlife isn’t your thing, keep in mind that the human journey off the cliff isn’t far behind. The mantra we are all connected is not just a new age saying it is a biological reality. As Albert Einstein reportedly said, “If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live.”

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Karen Shragg
Karen Shragg

Written by Karen Shragg

Naturalist, author, poet, overpopulation activist . Author of Move Upstream A Call to Solve Overpopulation and Change Our Story Change Our World.

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