Imagining Extinction Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species Ursula K. Heise The University of Chicago Press :: Chicago and London Ursula K. Heise is the Marcia H. Howard Chair in Literary Studies in the Department of English and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2016 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2016. Printed in the United States of America Chapters 1 and 2 first appeared in different form in German in Nach der Natur: Das Artensterben und die moderne Kultur (Berlin: Edition Unseld, 2010), © Suhrkamp Verlag AG. Reprinted by permission. 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN - 13: 978- 0- 226- 35802- 4 (cloth) ISBN - 13: 978- 0- 226- 35816- 1 (paper) ISBN - 13: 978- 0- 226- 35833- 8 (e- book) DOI : 10.7208/chicago/9780226358338.001.0001 The University of Chicago Press gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the University of California, Los Angeles, toward the publi cation of this book. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Heise, Ursula K., author. Title: Imagining extinction : the cultural meanings of endangered species / Ursula K. Heise. Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015045699 | ISBN 978-0-226-35802-4 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-0-226-35816-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-0-226-35833-8 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Extinction (Biology) | Endangered species. | Extinct animals. Classification: LCC QH 78 .H 45 2016 | DDC 576.8/4—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015045699 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI /NISO Z 39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper). For Jon, with love Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: From the End of Nature to the Beginning of the Anthropocene 1 1 Lost Dogs, Last Birds, and Listed Species: Elegy and Comedy in Conservation Stories 19 2 From Arks to ARKive.org: Database, Epic, and Biodiversity 55 3 The Legal Lives of Endangered Species: Biodiversity Laws and Culture 87 4 Mass Extinction and Mass Slaughter: Biodiversity, Violence, and the Dangers of Domestication 127 5 Biodiversity, Environmental Justice, and Multispecies Communities 162 6 Multispecies Fictions for the Anthropocene 202 Coda: The Hug of the Polar Bear 238 Works Cited 245 Index 267 Illustrations Plates (following page 122) 1: Isabella Kirkland, Descendant (1999) 2: Isabella Kirkland, Gone (2004) 3: Joel Sartore, Delhi Sands Flower-Loving Fly (2009) Figures 1: Muji Toy Set 3 2: Muji Map 3 3: IUCN Red List categories of species 70 4: Risk classification in the IUCN Red List 71 5: Joel Sartore, Dusky Sea- Side Sparrow 81 6: Joel Sartore, Delhi Sands Flower- Loving Fly 82 7: Bonn rettet den Wald! (Bonn saves the forests) 88 8: Hermann Göring as a champion for animal rights 99 9: Drawings of mountain gorillas from Virunga 179 10: Esther imagines the weaverbird, in Virunga 181 11: View of Malika and the mountain gorilla, in Virunga 182 12: Perspectives in Malika’s encounter with the gorilla, in Virunga 183 13: Virunga’s opening and closing panels 184 Acknowledgments Books have more authors than appear on the front page. Many of them tend to be listed on the last few pages: the sources, models, influences, and conversation part- ners across times, places, and texts that an argument has emerged from. Others deserve gratitude beyond and out- side their written work. I’ve been lucky enough to have had many outstanding “coauthors” of both kinds. I have benefited immensely from my colleagues and stu- dents working in the environmental humanities at Stan- ford University and the University of California, Los An- geles, over the past ten years, some of whom have since moved on to other institutions: Allison Carruth, Jessica Cattelino, Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Justin Eichenlaub, Su- sanna Hecht, Heather Houser, Helga Leitner, Donald S. Maier, Anahid Nersessian, Eric Sheppard, Vasile Stă­ nescu, Rob Watson, and Richard White. Vas Stănescu gave detailed feedback on chapter 4, for which I am particu- larly grateful. Conservation biologists at both Stanford and UCLA inspired my work and helped it along— warm thanks to Gretchen Daily, Paul and Anne Ehrlich, and Bradley Shaffer. Many friends, colleagues, and fellow environmen- talists from around the world have inspired, corrected, and sharpened my argument, provided additional refer- ences, and given me the opportunity to discuss parts of my ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xii research with their communities: Stacy Alaimo, Etienne Benson, Hannes Bergthaller, David Bialock, Brett Buchanan, Guillermina De Ferrari, Greg Garrard, Catrin Gersdorf, George Handley, Steven Hartman, Dolly Jør- gensen, Finn Arne Jørgensen, Bernhard Malkmus, Jorge Marcone, Neill Matheson, Sylvia Mayer, Mario Ortiz Robles, Kate Rigby, Deborah Bird Rose, Scott Slovic, Heather Sullivan, Patrick Swenson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, Sabine Wilke, Cary Wolfe, and Masami Yuki. In the spring of 2012, the members of the Environmental Humanities Workshop at the University of California, Davis, especially Julie Sze and Mike Ziser, of- fered very helpful comments on chapter 2. The workshop on endanger- ment at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in the summer of 2012, organized by Fernando Vidal and Nélia Dias, provided valuable feedback on chapter 4— special thanks to Julia Adeney Thomas for her detailed comments. The work of the Extinction Studies Group has been an inspiration and a model throughout the writing of this book. Four referees for the University of Chicago Press were extraordi- narily generous and helpful in their comments on the manuscript. Two of them I can only thank anonymously. Peter Kareiva and Thom van Dooren have been generous far beyond the call of duty in offering de- tailed comments and corrections. It goes without saying that all remain- ing errors are mine. An earlier version of chapter 1 appeared in the journal Configurations 18.1–2 (2010), 49–72 (copyright 2011 by Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for Literature and Science), and is here reprinted in an expanded and updated version with the permission of Johns Hop- kins University Press. My first book on the contemporary extinction cri- sis, Nach der Natur: Das Artensterben und die moderne Kultur, appeared in 2010 with the German publisher Suhrkamp. Heinrich Geiselberger, the editor, made that book a much better one than it would have been without his comments, and Imagining Extinction, whose first two chap- ters loosely resemble the beginning of Nach der Natur, benefited over the long term from his support. I am grateful to Isabella Kirkland and Joel Sartore for allowing me to use some of their paintings and photographs in this book, and to Adam Johnson and Tom Kealey for granting me permission to use images from the graphic novel Virunga, which a group of Stanford undergraduates created with their guidance. The generosity of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation in 2011– 12 allowed me to complete a good deal of research and launch the writ- ing of Imagining Extinction. Stanford University enabled me to work on biodiversity databases with the Digital Humanities specialist Elijah ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii Meeks, to whom I owe warm thanks for his expertise, dedication, and patience. Dave Shepard helped me to continue this work at UCLA. An invitation to spend two months at the University of Umeå in 2011 and 2012 allowed me to discuss the first chapters of the book with the com- munity of environmental and digital humanists there and to do further research. The sustained intellectual and institutional support of the Chair of the Department of English at UCLA, Ali Behdad, and the Dean of Humanities, David Schaberg, has been crucial for completing this book, and I have benefited greatly from Marcia Howard’s inspiring intellec- tual presence and generosity. A grant from the Mellon Foundation for a Sawyer Seminar on the Environmental Humanities in 2014–15 pro- vided the means for a continuous conversation with a dedicated group of humanists and social scientists from the University of California and many invited guests from universities in the United States and around the world that allowed me to revisit and rethink various parts of the book. A lively multispecies community of birds, tortoises, and fish inside and outside of our home in Venice has helped remind me of the purpose of environmental scholarship, of why we care for other species and how they matter to us and we to them. In the midst of these scaly, leathery, and feathery presences, Jon Christensen has been my constant compan- ion and has helped me manage their sometimes noisy and impetuous demands on our time and attention. His passion for nature, for writing, and for the weird things people do with both, his sharp eye for evidence and argument, his finely tuned editorial skills, his patience in talking me through low moments, and his sense of humor and unfailing optimism have been my lifeline in navigating the research, drafts, presentations, revisions, and technicalities from beginning to end. Without him, this book could not have been written. Introduction: From the End of Nature to the Beginning of the Anthropocene Extinctions in a Bag The Muji store I walked into in a Hong Kong shopping mall in November 2010 had all the usual hallmarks of this Japanese retail chain: housewares, furniture, and cloth- ing designed with clean minimalism, muted colors, and elegant functionality. Mujirushi Ryōhin, whose Japanese name 無印良品 translates as “No Brand Quality Goods,” has made a brand name out of the refusal to brand, a logo of “no logo.” It caters to upper-middle- class longings for the return to a simple life in the midst of urban complexity, with an emphasis on quality, minimalism, recycling, and reduced waste.