Would an Alien “Conservationist” Kill Us, Eat Us, or Something Else?

Last Updated on April 14, 2024 by Candice Landau

If there’s anything that baffles me about people who purport to love the ocean, it’s how those same people demonize many of the species in it: Lionfish in the Atlantic Ocean, Green crab in Oregon, Sea urchins in the Pacific Northwest.

Don’t get me wrong, I get there’s a problem. Our ocean world is changing and in may locations, “invasive” species are overtaking existing environments, thriving where current residents may not be as lucky and proliferating as a result of the species-environment match, new food sources, a lack of natural predators, and so on.

The problem is our solution is binary, unimaginative, and as usual human-centric. Kill them or eat them. We call this “conservation” because “invasive” species are “bad” and native species are “right.” Humans can do as they wish, take as much bounty from the ocean as they wish, but how dare a crab do as much to another “native” crab!

Not only does this kill or eat script completely ignore any questions of sentience (we won’t even get into that here), but it does not take into account the fact that we have already irrevocably changed the face of this planet. We have changed the temperature of the oceans. We have altered migration routes. We have fished the seas to the brink of collapse. What about this new world is “natural” anymore?

Using this same script, an alien species would logically seek to eradicate humans. Kill them or eat them. After all, they are devastating the oceans, destroying life on the planet, and obliterating whole landscapes as they continue to heat and pollute the earth. Furthermore, they can’t even get along with one another.

To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t blame them, and I’d even go so far as to say, it would be a simple solution. Remove people and you remove a great deal of the problems as well as give the environment a much needed break. After all, who was responsible for bringing Sargassum to the west coast of the U.S.? Humans. Who was responsible for the introduction of Lionfish into southern U.S. waters? Humans. At almost every turn you can trace the problems back to us.

Any alien species with conservationists as we define them today, would kill us or eat us.

But, what if they weren’t like us? What if their definition of conservation was not as binary or unimaginative? What if they asked questions like:

• “What will thrive in these new environments today? They’re not a thing of the past after all.”
• “How can we keep a diversity of fishes and plants, while still allowing for change?”
• “What is the trajectory of the world, of the many biomes and environments if things continue to progress without interference? A native species that thrives in temperate waters typical of its pre-human environment may not be okay with very warm waters of the post-human environment.”
• “What can we do that respects all life equally?”

I am not writing to solve the problem. I don’t know what the solution is. I am writing to prompt that there be MORE discussion of alternative solutions.

I protest humans being given free rein of the earth yet holding animals accountable to the small dents they make. I protest a binary approach to our problems. And I protest a lack of thought, when we, as humans, have a great ability to reason, think, and empathize. I object to the double standards. I cannot possibly believe you “love the ocean” as you continue to destroy it—eat it, pollute it, kill it. Not when there are other options on the table.

Together, we need to start these conversations. We need to use those big brains we have. There are other solutions.