<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for Nearly 40 percent of North American freshwater fish species in jeopardy]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by REwonk http://www.grist.org/article/fishes/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:47:55 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/fishes/1 Extinction or worse

Ummm ... "extinction or worse"??? What's worse than extinction? Are their souls being damned to hell, as well??? :>)

]]> Extinction or worse

Ummm ... "extinction or worse"??? What's worse than extinction? Are their souls being damned to hell, as well??? :>)

]]> Comment #2 by guade00 http://www.grist.org/article/fishes/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 05:22:24 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/fishes/2 the meaning of "worse"

I agree, not much worse than going extinct. Maybe the author meant that the fish species could be more than just "vulnerable" to extinction, they could be "just about to go" extinct, or "virtually" extinct, or "pretty much" extinct, or "darned near" extinct. Or maybe the author meant there could be more than just a piddling 700 species vulnerable to extinction.

Rhetorically speaking, aren't all species on Earth--save for, maybe, cockroaches and water bears--vulnerable to extinction?

]]> the meaning of "worse"

I agree, not much worse than going extinct. Maybe the author meant that the fish species could be more than just "vulnerable" to extinction, they could be "just about to go" extinct, or "virtually" extinct, or "pretty much" extinct, or "darned near" extinct. Or maybe the author meant there could be more than just a piddling 700 species vulnerable to extinction.

Rhetorically speaking, aren't all species on Earth--save for, maybe, cockroaches and water bears--vulnerable to extinction?

]]> Comment #3 by Pathos http://www.grist.org/article/fishes/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:47:34 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/fishes/3 Hey, baby...

Wanna play with my "dangling modifier"?

(Yeah, I've totally used that joke before. Just you try thinking of never-before-seen "stylistic error" puns...)

Anyway, the sentence really should just read, "Vulnerable or worse". (I opted for capitalizing "vulnerable," but italicizing it or throwing quotes around it would work just as well.) If they just wanted to be excruciatingly clear, they could say "Vulnerable (to extinction) or worse".

"Vulnerable" in this case is a technical term. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)--usually considered the authority on what is and isn't about to be utterly eradicated with no chance of miraculous recovery ever--defines "Vulnerable" as the least-threatened subcategory of the list of species they deem Threatened. Before Vulnerable (so, on the "not Threatened" side of things) comes Near Threatened, which is itself preceded by Least Concern--meaning, not endangered, or at least, no more endangered than every other form of life on this planet. Within the Threatened group, after Vulnerable comes Endangered, then Critically Endangered.

Beyond the three Threatened designations, there is Exinct in the Wild, and finally, simply Extinct.

As to what these designations mean in terms of living or dead critters... You'll have to ask the IUCN. Or read Wikipedia.

So, in a nutshell, without reading the actual articles for specifics: We've got just under 280 endangered species of freshwater fish in North America--which almost certainly includes a few that are actually extinct--and also apparently a bit over 420 that aren't endangered... Yet.

]]> Hey, baby...

Wanna play with my "dangling modifier"?

(Yeah, I've totally used that joke before. Just you try thinking of never-before-seen "stylistic error" puns...)

Anyway, the sentence really should just read, "Vulnerable or worse". (I opted for capitalizing "vulnerable," but italicizing it or throwing quotes around it would work just as well.) If they just wanted to be excruciatingly clear, they could say "Vulnerable (to extinction) or worse".

"Vulnerable" in this case is a technical term. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)--usually considered the authority on what is and isn't about to be utterly eradicated with no chance of miraculous recovery ever--defines "Vulnerable" as the least-threatened subcategory of the list of species they deem Threatened. Before Vulnerable (so, on the "not Threatened" side of things) comes Near Threatened, which is itself preceded by Least Concern--meaning, not endangered, or at least, no more endangered than every other form of life on this planet. Within the Threatened group, after Vulnerable comes Endangered, then Critically Endangered.

Beyond the three Threatened designations, there is Exinct in the Wild, and finally, simply Extinct.

As to what these designations mean in terms of living or dead critters... You'll have to ask the IUCN. Or read Wikipedia.

So, in a nutshell, without reading the actual articles for specifics: We've got just under 280 endangered species of freshwater fish in North America--which almost certainly includes a few that are actually extinct--and also apparently a bit over 420 that aren't endangered... Yet.

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