A poor South African dying suddenly is sad in its own way. But the overall angle I had on the article was “wildlife can act in defense of other wildlife, why can’t we?” or something thereabouts.

Come back when you’re ready to depopulate and turn the Tennessee River Valley into a fenced off, guarded nature reserve for the snail darter

Maybe not the whole basin, but one of my orgs is kinda sorta working on this, one baby step at a time. For a long time I have been a huge advocate of desuburbanization and de-exurbanization and rural redefinition, and in the past few years I’ve made contact with groups that can take these dreams somewhere.