"The Sixth Extinction" Chapter 10

Kolbert commences this chapter with an anecdote that includes how a group of wildlife biologists in March of 2006 went to cave located in NYC. They were expecting to conduct a census on the population of bats; however, they discovered that there were a plethora of dead bats. When analyzing each deceased bat, they saw that each of them seemingly had a white nose and wanted to find out what caused that “white powdery substance.” (Kolbert, 194) Overtime, scientists identified this substance as being an imported psychrophile, a type of fungus.

Just like with fungus, humans have been the reason that animals are able to be imported quickly over a long distance. However, Charles Darwin questioned how animals were able to travel between continents thousands of years ago, without the presence of humans. Initially, Darwin believed that there were “vast land bridges extending for several thousand miles…” (Kolbert, 197) However, he still had a lingering question: Why did these bridges vanish? As a result, Alfred Wegener would later bring up a theory that would be deemed as a science breakthrough. He brought up the theory of “continental drift” which states that all of the continents were unified into a supercontinent called Pangea.

Proving that Pangea existed, scientists have now called the exchanges of animals by humans today the New Pangea. This is because humans transport animals between continents, causing many invasive species to sprout and take over the new environment they have been exposed to. For instance, Cryphonectria parasitica was imported to the United States from Japan and it resulted in the death of approximately “four billion trees.” (Kolbert, 204) When a new species is introduced to an area, the original organisms of that area are threatened because there is an imbalance of the status quo (the food chain). This parallels the emergence of Mad Cow Disease in 1986 (Rockefeller University) because it started off in New England; however, as beef and physical cows were being transported, the disease inevitably spread to other areas over the world. Human exchange of animals has proven to come with devastating consequences that impact both animals and humans, since Mad Cow Disease may cause coma or even death.