Polar bears are perhaps the most loved bears in the world, white, fluffy, and oh so cute. Mostly everyone is aware of global warming's impact on polar bears because they are so appealing and cute to humans. As the earth continues to warm the polar bear's sea ice habitat continues to decrease, which is where they mate, hunt, and rest. This decrease in habitat is resulting in a decline in polar bear populations, making polar bears vulnerable to extinction. Polar bears and other large animals are more susceptible to extinction because they require more energy and resources to survive, and because of that there are naturally few of them anyways.

People often want to help polar bears and other animals deemed cute by donating to organizations like The Conservation Fund, the World Wildlife Fund, and The Nature Conservancy. It was reported in 2012 that almost $1 billion was donated to these very organizations. However, it was revealed by National Geographic that most of this money goes towards protecting the animals most favored by humans, like apes, elephants, pandas, and big cats. This causes one to wonder about those animal species that may be more endangered than these species but are not getting as much protection as they deserve simply because they are not considered cute. Should these species be left to die just because people do not like them?

This animal bias is especially evident in places like zoos and aquariums. I recently traveled to Denver, Colorado, and had the pleasure of visiting the Denver Zoo. This a great zoo, with exhibits helping to conserve many endangered and threatened species. The zoo has an okapi exhibit, which I particularly enjoyed. Okapis are very rare and elusive creatures closely related to giraffes that live in a very narrow range in Africa. The female okapi was very close to the fence and extremely visible to anyone in the zoo. It was incredible to see an okapi that close, and my family and I watched her for a very long time. Okapis and giraffes have these interesting prehensile tongues that they can move like arms, and the okapi kept slinging her tongue all the way up into her eye.

It was so fascinating to be close to such an elusive animal, yet no one was watching her or seemed to care about her at all. All of the children at the zoo were being shown the giraffes and elephants by their parents, not the shy giraffe relative or the large, rare walking bird that looks just like a dinosaur.

Species do not deserve to become extinct simply because humans are wired to love and want to save animals that are cute, like elephants and giraffes. The world is currently in a 6th mass extinction, and although extinctions are natural, humans have certainly been helpful in expediting the process. With humans disrupting the natural and normal species progressions, species are becoming extinct before it was even known they existed. Humans do not have to right to play god and eliminate species. Who knows what might have become of some of these species? They could have evolved into some creature that is incredible. Only saving some species shows a lack of concern for all species. If humans will not save ugly species, we may one day decide not to save any.