The Daily Bulletin Archive

Please join the Biology Department for the seminar "Of Pupfish and People: On the Value of Rare and Endangered Species," presented by Christopher Norment, professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Biology at the College at Brockport, on Tuesday, March 10, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Technology Building 160.

All faculty, staff, and students are welcome.

Seminar Abstract
This presentation will use material from my most recent book of creative nonfiction, Relicts of a Beautiful Sea, to explore ethical and practical issues of conservation: Just what are rare and endangered species worth, why are they rare, and what would the cost of their extinctions be? Although Relicts of a Beautiful Sea focusesd on six rare desert species endemic to the Death Valley region of California and Nevada, my talk has much broader implications—as a celebration of ecology and evolutionary history, as a primer on water use and development in the arid Southwest, and as an argument for biodiversity conservation in this time of increased peril for many species, which has been described as the “Sixth Wave” of extinction.