OPINION: The Obsession With Big Animals Ignores the Real Crisis
Just this month, scientists in the U.S. announced the birth of three white-coated pups resembling the long-extinct dire wolves.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—As the world prepares for the 20th meeting of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) later this year, it’s time to ask an uncomfortable but necessary question: Why are we obsessed with saving only the big animals?
By Emmanuel Koro
Yes, the majestic elephants, iconic lions, and endangered rhinos tug at the heartstrings.
But in our emotional race to preserve megafauna, we’ve left behind an invisible army of smaller species — the insects, worms, spiders and microbes — that quietly power our ecosystems and food supply. This is not just a moral oversight. It’s a catastrophic miscalculation.
For billions of years, species came and went. Evolution thrived on natural selection, and extinction was a part of life. But now, humans are involved in every aspect of nature’s cycle — and increasingly, we’re playing God.
Just this month, scientists in the U.S. announced the birth of three white-coated pups resembling the long-extinct dire wolves.
They were created using ancient DNA, gene splicing, and dog surrogates. It’s a dazzling scientific achievement, but to what end?
Godfrey Harris, managing director of the Ivory Education Institute, poses a timely question: “Why? What is the value of interfering with nature to bring back imperfect clones of extinct species?”
He’s right to wonder. Will cloned mammoths roam spaces already too cramped for elephants? Will genetically engineered butterflies threaten existing endangered species? Are we truly prepared for the ecological and ethical consequences of reintroducing long-gone creatures into a vastly changed world?
Even if we are, are we willing to bear the cost? In the U.S., a $100 million wildlife bridge is being built over a freeway to help male cougars find mates. Admirable? Perhaps. But at what cost to people in need of housing or healthcare? And who helps the beaver whose dam is destroyed by a storm? Or the hippo displaced by a flood?
Let’s not pretend this is about fairness in nature. It’s about money and optics. Big animals make for big donations.
Nobody raises millions to save a biting spider or a wriggling worm — even though scientists estimate that 1% to 2% of the world’s 5.5 million insect species go extinct yearly.
That’s up to 110,000 species annually — the quiet collapse of our planet’s operating system.
Under CITES, we’ve ignored this inconvenient truth. We champion what’s photogenic and ignore what’s critical. Bees, microbes, and even “ugly” bugs are essential to our food systems, but they don’t stand a chance unless they're Instagram-worthy.
As CITES reconvenes in November, we must ask: Are we interfering with nature too much? And if so, shouldn’t we also rethink the tools we use to fund conservation?
Southern Africa sits on stockpiles of ivory and rhino horn — resources that could finance conservation if trade were responsibly legalized. Yet, despite legal loopholes and innovative proposals, many wildlife authorities remain paralyzed by fear and external pressure.
Harris once warned, “Good ideas die from a lack of oxygen if there is no one available to provide the effective leadership that fruition requires.” He was right.
The stakes are too high. Without the ability to sustainably trade in its wildlife resources, how can Africa claim political and economic independence? How can it meet growing population demands or realize its ecotourism potential?
It’s time to stop romanticising extinction and start confronting the hard choices. Conservation must be more than emotional storytelling. It must be rational, inclusive, and rooted in reality.
Let’s widen the lens. Let’s save more than the beautiful and the big. Let’s save the ecosystem itself.
Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based international award-winning journalist who writes independently on environmental and developmental issues.