Why Prevent Extinction?
Join us at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum on Friday, May 30, Saturday May 31, and Sunday June 1 to explore this question through a weekend conference. Keynote address on May 30 by the ever popular May Berenbaum. The Conference, May 31, also features the insights of Curt Meine, Joel Brown, Jeffery Lockwood, and Doug Taron.
May Berenbaum will give the keynote address for the “Why Prevent Extinction Conference” on Friday, May 30. Join us at 5:30 p.m. for a wine and cheese, beer and pretzel reception, and at 6:30 p.m. for the talk. Dr. Berenbaum has been called the Joan Rivers of Entomology and the Neil deGrasse Tyson of the microworld. Her address is sure to both enlighten and amuse. Curt Meine is a philosopher and ethicist with the Aldo Leopold Foundation and the Center for Humans and Nature. At the Why Prevent Extinction? conference on May 31, Dr. Meine will address the “Loss of the Unknowns,” extinctions of species that most people never see or even hear about. If something you’ve never heard about is now gone from your life, is your life diminished?
Joel Brown is a perpetual favorite wherever he presents. For the Why Prevent Extinction? conference, we have asked Dr. Brown to be the Black Hat—he'll represent the viewpoint of who cares about extinction? As an evolutionary ecologist and mathematician, Joel can show us how to find wonder in the modern phenomenon of accelerated extinction, but at what cost to us? Did you know that the U.S. once experienced plagues of locust like those described in the Bible? Though plague locusts still exist in many parts of the world, the American species is extinct. Meet the scientist who solved the mystery of where these locust came from and where they went. Dr. Jeffery Lockwood is an entomologist, historian, and award winning author who has braved mountain glaciers to bring you stories of extinction.
Doug Taron is renowned for his laboratory propagation of endangered species of butterflies. But what does it take to return them to the wild? Join us at the Why Prevent Extinction? on May 31 to learn about the challenges imposed by habitat, gene-hijacking bacteria and hibernation on successful butterfly reintroductions.
Do you think it is a good idea to prevent extinction? Why or why not? Feel free to share your thoughts at #PreventExtinction.