Extinction

This is from an article in The New York Times today about animal extinction and the evolutionary cycle. There are many who hold the view that 'if I cant seem them, they don't matter." Well, to those of use who enjoy art and nature (birds specifically) it is a huge loss when an animal or plant species-weather we have ever seen them or not- ceases to exist. Being awake to our world and what Gods doing in it is what makes being alive so great. Here's a quote:

But to me, whether we need to save other species to save ourselves is not really the point. Each time a species vanishes, the planet becomes a poorer place. It doesn’t matter if we’ve never seen them, if they go extinct without our ever knowing they were here. To live is to participate in the carnival of nature, and the carnival is diminished by the losses....

...For there is so much to marvel at. Like the spraying characid — a fish that lays its eggs out of water, jumping to stick them onto leaves that hang down over streams. (The male keeps the eggs wet by splashing them with his tail several times a day.) Or the just-discovered mimic octopus, which can assume the shape, colors and undulating swimming motions of a flat fish like a flounder. When it does so, the octopus even bugs its eyes out, so they look like flounders’ eyes.....