Star Trek and History (40 page)

In the 1990s
Star Trek
reached out to a new generation with an all-new cast, and they embraced new ideas about extinction and the human role in preventing it. Older environmentalist concepts of preventing animal extinction for the benefit of humans gave way to the notions of preventing extinction for the sake of the animals themselves. Humans were called upon to intervene and to right past wrongs.

The Next Generation
episode “New Ground,” which aired in 1992, included a subplot about extinct and soon-to-be extinct animals. As part of a school outing, a group of students visiting the Biolab onboard the
Enterprise
-D are told about a mission to relocate the endangered Corvan gilvo. The teacher is talking about the white rhinoceros (
Ceratotherium simum
), which became extinct in the twenty-second century, when the show's viewers join the class:

As the value of their horns increased, the number of white rhinos in the wild kept falling, until they finally became extinct about two centuries ago. Now, I'd like to show you a pair of animals we're trying to save from extinction. Would you follow me? They're from Corvan Two, where their homes in the rainforests are being threatened by industrial pollutants. They're called Corvan gilvos. They're a little shy. The eating habits of gilvos are very similar to those of Earth's draco lizards, which died out over three hundred years ago. There are only fourteen gilvos left on Corvan Two. We're transplanting these two to the protected planet Brentalia, where they should thrive (
TNG
, “New Ground”).

In this monologue, the teacher cites two examples of extinct species: the white rhino, from overhunting, and the draco lizard, from the loss of its rain forest habitat. Neither of these animals was extinct in 1992, but both were under mounting pressure of extinction by humans. The white rhino has been on the CITES Appendix I list, which bans all commercial trade in the animal or products made from the animal, since 1977.
22
According to the World Conservation Union (IUCN), an estimated 17,480 white rhinos remained in the wild as of 2008. Poaching in order to acquire the rhino's horn, which is used in Chinese medicine and as ornate Middle Eastern decoration, is the main threat to the species.
23
Draco lizards are a family of lizards with membranes that allow them to glide among the treetops; they are known as flying dragons. They live in rain forests in southeastern Asia, and although the IUCN does not consider them threatened, their habitat loss may be considerable.
24
It was not a big stretch to think that these types of animals might become extinct by the twenty-second century.

In “New Ground,” there are only fourteen of the fictional gilvos left, so the
Enterprise
is transporting a pair of them to a planet with “protected” status, presumably like a national park where industrial development is limited or banned. This kind of movement of threatened or endangered species was a growing practice in the late 1980s and 1990s. Concerns about local extinctions of animals in areas where they previously lived prompted scientists in the 1970s and 1980s to start reintroducing animals from stock that still existed elsewhere. High-profile reintroductions of some attractive and compelling species, including the Arabian oryx in Oman, golden lion tamarinds in Brazil, and peregrine falcons in North America, served as conservation media events, showcasing the handling, transport, and release of the animals to better the environment.
25
In addition to putting species back into areas where they had been extirpated, some animals were relocated to new areas in order to conserve them.

The growing practice of introducing and reintroducing animals prompted some concerns in the scientific community. In 1987, the IUCN issued a position statement to set the standards for the movement of species because “translocations [the practice of relocating species] are powerful tools for the management of the natural and man made environment which, properly used, can bring great benefits to natural biological systems and to man but like other powerful tools they have the potential to cause enormous damage if misused.”
26
The IUCN also created a Re-introduction Specialist Group in 1988 to draft the guidelines for wildlife reintroduction projects and to disseminate information to scientists around the world about reintroduction experiences.
27
These guidelines permit the introduction of species from one location to another for conservation “only as a last resort when no opportunities for re-introduction into the original site or range exist.”
28
The gilvos of Corvan would qualify for such drastic measures since their numbers had dwindled and their habitat had become uninhabitable.

The episode portrays the mission to conserve the gilvo as a serious responsibility. When fire threatens to consume the Biolab housing the creatures, Worf's son, Alexander, who has been injured, pleads with Riker to save them. The potential consequence of losing a whole species weighs heavily on the boy. Just in the nick of time, Riker carries the gilvos to safety while Worf saves Alexander. Humans must intervene to save endangered species; letting them die is unthinkable.

Not all extinction is serious, however. Saving a species from extinction found a lighter treatment in the
Deep Space Nine
episode “Trials and Tribble-ations” in 1996. In this episode, which includes time travel to the twenty-third century and a meeting between the
Deep Space Nine
and
Star Trek
crews, we learn about the plight of the tribbles. In the original series episode “The Trouble with Tribbles,” the tribbles on Space Station K7 showed their affection by purring for all humanoids, except Klingons, at whom they hissed. The Klingons returned the sentiment. Some years later, the crew of the
Enterprise
found that Cyrano Jones, a two-bit trader, has sold some tribbles on a Klingon planet, which prompted the Klingons to genetically engineer a tribble predator called a glommer (
TOS: Animated Series
, “More Tribbles, More Troubles”). In the “Trials and Tribble-ations” episode, we find out that in the late twenty-third century, Klingons hunted down the tribbles and even destroyed their home world in order to eradicate the species. Upon hearing about the intentional slaughter, one of the
Deep Space Nine
crew, Odo, remarks, “Another glorious chapter in Klingon history. Tell me, do they still sing songs of the Great Tribble Hunt?” (
DS9
, “Trials and Tribble-ations”) Although the Klingons had worked diligently to rid the universe of the tribble, the time-traveling
Deep Space Nine
crew ends up bringing back a tribble to the twenty-fourth century, thus unintentionally reintroducing it. In this series of episodes spanning across multiple
Star Trek
shows, tribbles are seen as an ecological menace, but their reintroduction is depicted in a lighthearted, comical fashion.

During the last decades of the twentieth century, the environmentalist movement came of age. As it developed into a mass movement, it gradually changed its arguments and strategies for persuading the public that endangered species are worth saving. Although depicting a universe two hundred years (and more) into the future, the environmentalism exhibited in
Star Trek
reflects these changes. The 1960s series portrayed humans as a threat to animal species, but not without cause. In both “The Man Trap” and “The Devil in the Dark,” human welfare came first and foremost. The extinction of the creature of M-113 was justified because of the threat it posed to the
Enterprise
crew, whereas the Horta's survival actually benefited the Federation.

By the 1980s, concerns about the unnecessary killing of animals took center stage. Environmentalists were heavily protesting whale hunts, which they saw as immoral slaughter, while the biologist Edward Wilson was warning against rapidly rising extinction rates and its unknown consequences. The plot of
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
brought these two concerns together, lamenting the destructive power of humans in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The decade of the 1990s brought stress on humans as agents of positive change. The Federation actively intervened to save the Corvan gilvo from extinction, relocating the species to a new, safe habitat in “New Ground.” Although unintentional, the crew of
Deep Space Nine
likewise saved the tribble from extinction by relocating one to the future. An environmental ethos centered on the animals and their welfare took over from a more human-focused one as
Star Trek
developed.

Star Trek
is far from an escapist show—the people behind it actively used the story lines as an arena for exploring contemporary political and social issues, helping to bring some of these to the forefront of the mainstream media; thus, contemporary environmental concerns made their way into storytelling around the twenty-third century. How the
Enterprise
and its crew interacted with newly discovered creatures on faraway planets and how humans had affected Earth's animals back home were vital elements of
Star Trek
's evolving environmental message. Humans might be the devils destroying life, but they might also be its saviors. The
Enterprise
's mission “to seek out new life forms and new civilizations” might aptly have been augmented with the phrase “and to preserve the old ones.”

Notes

1.
Daniel Bernardi, “
Star Trek
in the 1960s: Liberal-Humanism and the Production of Race,”
Science Fiction Studies
24, no. 2 (1997): 209–225.

2.
Andrew Isenberg,
The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750–1920
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

3.
For example, “The Vanishing Herd,”
Popular Mechanics
, January 1931, 115–116.

4.
William Mark Adams,
Against Extinction: The Story of Conservation
(London: Earthscan, 2004), 25.

5.
Morges Manifesto, scan available online at
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/morgesmanifesto.pdf
.

6.
World Wildlife Fund, “50
th
Anniversary—Celebrating 50 Years and Looking to the Future,”
http://www.worldwildlife.org/sites/anniversary/index.html
.

7.
Bruno Paul Stenson, “The World Wildlife Federation Pavilion,”
http://expo67.ncf.ca/world_wildlife_federation_p1.html
.

8.
Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, Public Law 88–578, 78
U.S. Statutes at Large
, 897.

9.
Endangered Species Preservation Act, Public Law 89–669, 80
U.S. Statutes at Large
, 926.

10.
J. Michael Scott, Dale D. Goble, and Frank W. Davis, eds.,
The Endangered Species Act at Thirty: Conserving Biodiversity in Human-Dominated Landscapes
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006).

11.
Endangered Species Preservation Act.

12.
Although the Tellico Dam was exempted from the Endangered Species Act and the dam was built, the snail darter was later introduced successfully to another river and was saved from extinction. For a history of the snail darter, see Shannon C. Petersen,
Acting for Endangered Species: The Statutory Ark
(Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2002).

13.
William Shatner with Chris Kreski, Star Trek
Memories
(New York: HarperCollins, 1993), 163.

14.
Edward O. Wilson,
Biophilia
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).

15.
Leonard Nimoy,
I Am Spock
(London: Century, 1995), 250.

16.
See ibid., 250–252, for a discussion of
Biophilia
and the plot development.

17.
The protection was phased in for different parts of the world, but by 1966 it was global. For a discussion of humpbacks, see James H. Johnson and Allen A. Wolman, “The Humpback Whale,
Megaptera novaeangliae
,”
Marine Fisheries Review
46 (1984): 30–37.

18.
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), “Annotated CITES Appendices and Reservations” (2008),
www.cites.org/eng/resources/pub/checklist08/Checklist.pdf
.

19.
Greenpeace, “History of Greenpeace Campaign to Save the Whales,”
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/oceans/whaling/campaign-history/
; Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, “The History of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Whaling,”
http://www.seashepherd.org/whales/sea-shepherd-history.html
.

20.
Star Trek IV
shooting script, March 11, 1986,
http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/Trek/Star_Trek_IV.htm
.

21.
See the description of Greenpeace's action against the Russian ship
Dalniy Vostok
in David Day,
The Whale War
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987).

22.
CITES, “Annotated CITES Appendices and Reservations.”

23.
IUCN SSC African Rhino Specialist Group 2008,
“Ceratotherium simum”
in IUCN 2010, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Version 2010.4,
www.iucnredlist.org
.

24.
See the various listings for draco lizards in IUCN 2010, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Version 2010.4,
www.iucnredlist.org
.