Fishes in the Desert: Paradox & Responsibility
—Minkley and Deacon, Battle Against Extinction, Desert Fishes Council 1991

"Fishes in the Desert--Paradox and Responsibility." In W. L. Minckley and James E. Deacon, eds., Battle Against Extinction: Native Fish Management in the American West, an anthology of the Desert Fishes Council. (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1991), pages 93-108.
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37194

An adequate ethic for the conservation of desert fishes requires an unprecedented mixture of biology and ethics. Anthropocentric rationales based on benefits to humans are insufficient. Species of desert fish are dynamic historical lineages, where vertebrate speciation is impressively in progress, and this process and its products calls for appropriate respect. Human have duties not simply to other humans but to species of fish--instance, increment, and symbol of respect for life on Earth.