Last Chance to See

by Douglas Adams

“For instance,” said Mark, “we don’t eat our own babies if they happen to be within reach when we’re feeling a little peckish.” “What?” said Gaynor, putting down her knife and fork. “A baby dragon is just food as far as an adult is concerned,” Mark continued. “It moves about and has got a bit of meat on it. It’s food. If they ate them all, of course, the species would die out, so that wouldn’t work very well. Most animals survive because the adults have acquired an instinct not to eat their babies. The dragons survive because the baby dragons have acquired an instinct to climb trees. The adults are too big to do it, so the babies just sit up in trees till they’re big enough to look after themselves. Some babies get caught though, which works fine. It sees them through times when food is scarce and helps to keep the population within sustainable levels. Sometimes they just eat them because they’re there.” “How many of these things are there left?” I asked quietly. “About five thousand.” “And how many did there used to be?” “About five thousand. As far as anyone can tell, that’s roughly how many there have always been.” “So they’re not particularly endangered?” “Well, they are, because only three hundred and fifty of them are breeding females. We don’t know if that’s a typical number or not, but it seems pretty low. Furthermore, if an animal has a low population and lives in a very restricted area, like just a few small islands in the case of the dragons, it’s particularly v...