Cussedness

Aye-Aye Aye-Aye Aye-Aye Like You Very Much

Take a look at this slide-show about ugly animals, which suggests that people are only motivated to help save cute and fluffy endangered species, and are utterly indifferent to the fate of the slightly peculiar looking ones, citing the Aye-Aye as an example. I disagree. Perhaps I’m abnormal, but I think those chaps are extremely cute, in their own weird way; the same goes for the Slender Loris they mention on the last page, a magnificently odd creature indeed, but in no way unpleasant to look at. They are even more endearing in person. When at London Zoo I always visit the Aye-Aye in his special “Madagascan-time” darkroom house, and I am eagerly awaiting the reinstatement of the various Lorises when the ZSL finishes doing whatever it is they’re doing to make the small-mammals section more habitable.

Maybe I’ve succumbed to cute-fatigue after processing, as of today, 52891 submissions for Kittenwar, but I have to confess that the slightly strange kittens are the ones that catch my eye nowadays. And how can anyone deny the essential adorability of Lisimba? These bizarre cats have a special appeal all of their own, providing a much needed contrast to the ranks of regularly cute kittens, and without them Kittenwar would be a diminished and plainer place.

The same holds for the wider world: it would be a tragedy if we lost the Aye-Aye or the Slender Loris, or all those other, even weirder creatures threatened by the Holocene extinction level event. I write “would” and “if” because I’m being optimistic today. I’m being optimistic in spite of the growing evidence that H. sapiens is starting to make the meteorite that did for the dinosaurs look like a damp bottle rocket. I’m being optimistic, so, instead of closing the slide-show popup and telling myself that all the splendidly bonkers animals on the EDGE list are probably doomed no matter what I do, I made a donation to a conservation charity, and I’m glad I did that, it made me feel good.

The management stubbornly refuses to apologise for the title of this post.

1 comment • 2007-03-05 19:30 • Categories: Rage, Science & Maths • Tags: Charity, Cute Animals, Kittenwar, Nature