February 10, 1969

Professor Arthur D. Hasler
Department of Zoology
University of Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin

Dear Arthur:

I recently received a blurb from Intecol which came just at the time that
I was giving some thought to rationalizing the approach to preservation of
endangered species of wildlife. I would assume thet among the IUBS organs
Intecol would have primary responsibility in this area; if I am mistaken ~
about this please let me know right away.

Before I come to that, I would be very grateful if you or Dr. Whitehead could

give me a brief rundown (I mean, of course, simply references to published

statements) about the present organization of effective international activities ™
covering different aspects of species conservation. I realize that thes of ~
this must be rather fragmented, like whaling and fisheries protection, and I

would be more interested in those areas where there is no such obvious zone of
economic competition. I ask this because I am a little baffled about suggest-

ing the appropriate arena for discussing the program that I set forth further on.

Aas I have superficially remarked in the attached column, it occurs to me that
our present conservation efforts are utterly chaotic, and may in fact be ad-
dressed to an unrealistic objective, namely, the preservation of every extant
species. I would suggest as an alternative that we have a world conference
which attempts to outline the principles of selection (call it triage, if you
like) to determined those species that should command our most energetic effort,
and in fact nominate certain others where the cost effectiveaass of efforts to
maintain them may be quite futile. I must admit that I have a certain ironic
intention in making this suggestion, which is to force the public to come to
grips with the certainty that some species will disappear, and to attempt to
attach some numerical estimate to the probable cost of resisting that disappear-
ance. I am also concerned that rather superficial criteria that are involved

in immediate public fdentification play too dominant a role in the selection of
desiaable conservanda.

I would assume that Intecol would be the most appropriate place for rational-
izing these issues, but it is hard to pursue that idea without getting a better
perspective on the structure of other activities towards these ends.

Sincerely yours,

ffoele 7 Joshua Lederberg
~— Professor of Genetics