Hot news topic today is the sad news that Morris Dancers could become extinct within 20 years.
I know it’s hard to believe that the world’s most ineffectual martial art has reached such desperate times, and the only possible course of action is to take a look at what could possibly have caused this tragedy.
Wikipedia lists six possible causes for extinction:
– Genetics and demographic phenomena
– Genetic pollution
– Habitat degradation
– Predation, competition, and disease
– Coextinction
– Global warming
(source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction)
Could it be that Morris Dancers are dying out because of disease or pollution, or are they yet one more casualty of man-made Global Warming? Have Morris Dancers been hunted beyond the point of no return, and is there anything that the world community can do to turn this around? Perhaps governmental pressure can be brought to bear on
Japanese Trawlermen to prevent them from killing this rarest of creatures beyond the levels their economy needs. Surely local laws can restrict hunting to a reasonable number of kills per season with strict fines if inhumane traps are used.
Surely….. surely….. something should be done!
