Wednesday, April 1, 2009

sea cucumbers in danger

The UN reports that sea cucumbers are at risk of overfishing. Somehow, FAO's press release, in the grand tradition of its infamous Army Worms scare in Liberia, manages to be hilarious.

The real trouble with sea cucumbers is that they're not nearly as adorable as, say, orcas or belugas on the list of endangered things. Even walruses are more majestic. If a sea cucumber is in a Hollywood movie, it's much more likely to be the villain (The Cucumber Who Killed would be a good C-movie on Sy-Fy) and much less the hero, a la Free Willy. It's just really hard to rally behind this one.

That said, overfishing is a serious problem and if we've exhausted the oceans to the point that we're overharvesting mobile blobs like the sea cucumber, we're in real trouble.

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