DISQUS

Wasn't mad and I am not some crazed environmentalist or animal rights person. Hey they just shot a cougar about a mile from my house in Chicago and I think it was the right thing to do!

I do get that the overall sentiment of the post was sympathetic, I just think that is was poorly executed and ended up sounding like he was saying that the loss of a single species is only important in a very superficial, touchy-feely way. It diminishes the importance of the ecological impact that this type of potential loss might have on an ecosystem. When you throw out statements like "[b]ut there is no real ‘reason’ for monkeys" and "non-essential part of the world" you have to expect that somebody might take issue with it! I was just taking issue with portions of the post because it just perpetuates the ignorance about these issues and an American-centric worldview.

Why would you assume there wouldn't be a collapse in the monkey's ecosystem? Seems like the typical naive opinion that is present in American today about so many things...it is far away so it must not be that important. It doesn't directly impact your day-to-day life in ways you can comprehend so you think there is "no reason" for monkeys. Maybe you should leave commenting about the importance of things you might not understand to those better trained to do so. While your sentiment towards the end is encouraging, your general argument that "it doesn't matter" if we lose monkeys is very disappointing.