This stuff always makes me wonder if at the end of the day we’re better off just not messing with nature at all, like somehow despite our best intentions we do even more harm by attempting to mitigate a previous harm.
There’s just so many factors, I never was one to think extinction was necessarily a bad thing for example, but some view it as a huge loss or even as some kind of evil.
I’m sure there’s plenty of species that have been phased out and new ones that adapted into being all throughout history, but we look at it through this simplistic human view and say “we must absolutely do this to preserve or do this to destroy because of XYZ reasons” and given our track record over the past thousand years when it comes to science I have to assume there’s a high chance that we are very wrong in our assumptions.
Like climate change, the problem isn't just extinction itself, but more so the rate. As you note, animals have gone extinct all throughout history, and well before our ancestors stopped dragging their knuckles around. The problem is this, which I will quote directly from my source:
"...scientists agree that today’s extinction rate is hundreds, or even thousands, of times higher than the natural baseline rate. Judging from the fossil record, the baseline extinction rate is about one species per every one million species per year." [0]
Also, there is also the fact that many species could be directly beneficial to us. Even if we didn't care about "nature" most would care about cures for various diseases and advancements in technology we could get from their study.
Honestly I think your comment is so broad that it's vacuous.
In this specific case, mitigating the spread of zebra mussels through prevention has a clear and explicit benefit, in preserving natural north american ecosystems. The collapse of Lake Michigan's fisheries is a case in point.
There’s just so many factors, I never was one to think extinction was necessarily a bad thing for example, but some view it as a huge loss or even as some kind of evil.
I’m sure there’s plenty of species that have been phased out and new ones that adapted into being all throughout history, but we look at it through this simplistic human view and say “we must absolutely do this to preserve or do this to destroy because of XYZ reasons” and given our track record over the past thousand years when it comes to science I have to assume there’s a high chance that we are very wrong in our assumptions.