by G. Carleton Ray

About the author: G. Carleton Ray is a research professor in the Department of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Petruchio’s impassioned speech to Katharina in [William Shakespeare’s] Taming of the Shrew (Act IV, Scene iii) encapsulates a conservation dilemma: “What, is the jay more precious than the lark, / Because his feathers are more beautiful? / Or is the adder better than the eel, / Because his painted skin contents the eye"”

Is conservation in the eye of the beholder? Is the song of the lark more to be valued than the silence of a rose? Should the richness of the painted coral reef take precedence over the reefs formed by the succulent and possibly endangered oyster...