There are millions of bird species. Developers and anti-environmentalists often defend their destructive actions by arguing that decimating one species is OK because there are so many others. Indeed, there are about 10,000 species, many very similar and hard to distinguish. Virginia has lost its breeding populations of Henslow’s sparrows and black rails to human-caused sea level rise during my lifetime, and yet life goes on, we are still here and there are lots of other birds.

Are the developers right? Is it fine to wipe out species by cutting funding to research, parks and government agencies?

The food web that sustains us all is made up of the countless interactions between species. This is what ecologists study, hoping to understand every interaction so we will be able to predict what

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