My regular reader (Hi Jeff!) will recall on several previous occasions I’ve mentioned the plight of the Unarmored Three-spined Stickleback. This tiny little fish swims happily in a creek located on the massive Vandenberg Air Force Base, sorry, I mean Vandenberg Space Force Base – boy, is that ever going to take some getting used to.

In any case, the Unarmored Three-spined Stickleback swims in blissful ignorance of a time when some in the Air Force (because it was an Air Force base back then) wanted to build a new bridge over the creek in which the aforementioned little fishes hang out. The problem was the fish were acutely endangered, living only in that one tiny spot. So, as a result of the environmental regulations that govern military construction – then as now – no new bridge was built and the Unarmored Three-spined Stickleback was free to swim around, eat bugs and make little Sticklebacks.

I was reminded of those little guys when I read a recent Colorado Politics article in one of my favorite sections, the Out West Roundup. It seems there is yet another little fish that is playing an outsized role in the western United States. In an area near the California-Nevada border, two different rare fish species are threatened by human activity. In this case, groundwater pumping, an increasingly common and important factor in our ongoing drought, has lowered the water levels where the Chub minnow, to name one, can be found, and groundwater levels in that area have dropped 2.5 feet or so per year recently, to perhaps 75 feet lower than the level was in 1973. A group is suing to have the Chub minnow added to the endangered species list, and you can imagine the squabbling going on over the minnow versus water for crops and cattle.

Now, extinctions are not new, and they are, sadly, not as rare as they should be. Scientists have identified five previous mass-extinction events in world history. The last one came about 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs were largely wiped out. There has been debate for a number of years within the scientific community as to whether we are now in a sixth mass-extinction event, this time caused by human activity. The evidence strongly suggests that, well, yes, we are, which is a shame for many, many reasons. Humanity has largely wiped out roughly 60% of the mammals, birds, fish and reptiles that existed in 1970, a time many of us remember well.

The marvel of modern agriculture has allowed us to feed billions but agriculture accounts for roughly 90% of global deforestation and about 70% of the planet’s freshwater consumption. We have learned to make the deserts bloom and to grow food in unlikely places. A quick drive around Yuma, Arizona, for example, will show the power of irrigation as well as the threat.

So, increasing use of groundwater for agriculture is putting a few little fish at risk. I’m guessing some of you, my dear readers, are thinking though that’s a shame, it is the price of civilization marching on. And I get that. But there are other factors that matter when it comes to possibly wiping out a species.

First and foremost, I argue our world is a lesser place when we destroy a species. As noted in another Out West Roundup story, as far as we know, only a single jaguar, a male named Sombra (or “Shadow” in Spanish), survives in Arizona. There are ongoing efforts to introduce more jaguars there, but for the moment, Shadow walks the desert utterly alone. That is not a good thing.

And there is a second and perhaps more compelling reason to be careful about what we wipe out. Back in the robust early logging days in California, there was a “trash tree” that got in the way of logging the big and useful pines and giant redwood trees. The California Coastal Yew tree wasn’t good for much, and it really slowed things down for serious loggers. The Yew was often just slashed and burned to get it out of the way – a behavior that brought the tree species quite close to extinction.

Until a scientist noticed something…

When you took the bark of the California Coastal Yew tree and extracted from it various chemicals, you got a drug called Taxol. This “trash tree” held in its bark one of the most important anti-cancer medications yet discovered. Taxol is particularly effective against breast and ovarian cancer, as well as some forms of lung cancer.

Simply put, a species you might be OK with eliminating from the Earth, because it is in the way today, could contain a medical compound that could some day save your life or the life of someone you love. About 40% of current medications come from plants, including the top-20 bestselling drugs in the U.S. today.

So even if you don’t count yourself an environmentalist, it could well be in your personal self interest to oppose the extinction of any species, perhaps including a useless tree or a little minnow that swims in a few creeks near the California-Nevada border.

You never know…

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.