• if one animal goes extinct others will too
• a number of animals depend on the lack of underbrush and therefore on fire
• to preserve the charismatic megafauna (the animals we enjoy0 we also need to preserve insects....
• these large animals are umbrella species; if you do everything you need to preserve them, you will preserve the less impressive species too
  

Gopher Tortoise digs burrows that other animals use

Red Cockaded Woodpecker


excavates nesting cavities in living trees--usually takes several years
a fungus causes red heart disease, rotting the inside wood of the tree, making it easier to dig into--requires trees that are close to 90 years old
woodpeckers live in family groups
they need open pine savannah without small trees between the pines to make it harder for snakes to eat their young

how can you keep this species from going extinct?

• old trees (or people creating artificial nesting cavities for the birds)
• fire to keep down the underbrush
• you need the trees to have a disease that makes the wood not valuable
• you need old forests that are not logged

Should we decide what to preserve based on benefits to human beings?
Or argue that natural environments have a right to survive whether they benefit humans or not
but the bird doesn't require an undisturbed environment but rather one with human management

• if you are managing it it isn't really natural
• we need to manage to compensate for processes we don't allow to happen any more
• the bird is not the only species that requires these conditions, some important to other species, so many species would go extinct
  

Southeastern fox squirrel

a bigger squirrel able to handle longleaf cones

insects also play a key role