Have you ever gone onto a WWF, Greenpeace, RSPB or Wildlife Watch website, and had a look at the different animals they support? I can guarantee that a dominating number of those are an endangered species! But that makes sense, right? Those animals are in danger of going extinct, so we should focus on protecting them. This is what my campaign is all about; maybe more cod that flounder die every year, but since cod are endangered, they get more care and protection. If we saw fish as individuals, then we might be more inclined to concentrate on the species with a higher ratio of deaths. Instead of seeing different species of fish's lives as an equal, these NGOs claims that a cod's life is superior to a flounder's. I am not saying that this is necessarily wrong, but personally, I don't think it's exactly fair.
I would like to leave this topic open; do you think a cod's life is more important than a flounder's because there are less cod in the oceans? Do you think NGOs like the RSBP and Wildlife Watch should be protecting common animals as well as rare, despite the fact they're not endangered?
The second question I'd like to ask you is this: "Should you actively encourage the consumption of a common fish in order to safeguard endangered ones?" Charities and NGOs like the ones mentioned earlier sometimes do this because they think that asking for an end to fish consumption altogether would be too much to ask, and, in some ways, I believe that's right! But what they are effectively saying is that endangered fish's lives are more important than a common fish's. But a cod being dragged out from the water is going to feel no more pain as a flounder would as is suffocates on the boat's deck. We tend to value a diversity of different species, but wouldn't abundance be just as rewarding as a range of different species? What do you think?