It has taken humanity less than a million years to claw its way to the top of the food chain. Just because we’re number one it shouldn’t follow that we act like humanoid equivalents of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, madly devouring everything in our path and laying waste to the lesser creatures. And that includes cuttlefish.
This isn’t intended as some animal rights rant. Groups like PETA are off with the fairies. Vegetarianism seems a militant lifestyle choice when pursued as a matter of morality, rather than simply as a valid response to not liking the taste of meat, especially on the part of those who can see no inconsistency between rejecting flesh but happily wearing leather shoes.
That said, there are some members of the human race who don’t seem to have evolved far beyond the T-Rex in their hostility towards the more vulnerable and less intelligent members of the foodchain.
There’s a kind of guffawing indignation whenever some plucky species comes along and gets in the way of what’s loosely described as progress.
The green and golden bell frog was public enemy number one in Sydney in the late 1990s when it appeared to be the only species in Australia which thought the Olympic Games shouldn’t go ahead. By any measure the green and golden bell frog is a low-rent creature. Despite having access to the majestic mangrove system of the Lower North Shore this mangy little amphibian opts instead for rough trade, living in large numbers living in a scunge-filled brickpit smack bang in the middle of what’s now Sydney Olympic Park. On account of its questionable lifestyle choices this poor frog endured sustained teasing from the sports-loving masses who said maybe the pit should just be cemented in so we could let the games begin. Happily a compromise was reached and the green and golden bell frog not only survived but became a bit of a star at the games, lending its likeness to the logo for the Olympic Park Authority.
Other species have had more success in actually stopping major projects in their tracks. There’s a legless lizard in the ACT – possibly legless after a big night at Mooseheads in Civic – which lives at the end of the Gunghalin Expressway and has successfully thwarted the full extension of the road.
A couple of parrots have also got the anti-development runs on the board. Peter Garrett closed a timber mill near Deniliquin because the logging of river red gums was destroying the habitat of the endangered green leek parrot. The decision cost 1000 jobs. Even the non-tree-hugging Howard Government acted to save another cockie, the orange-bellied parrot, ruling in 2004 that a Victorian wind farm could not proceed for fear the birds would be sliced up by the turbines.
All of these decisions were met with derision and even anger by the develop-at-all costs crowd. It’s also worth noting that the media love these stories and habitually give them the has-the-whole-world-gone-mad treatment. The uglier or more comical the creature the greater the ridicule it faces.
This is where the giant cuttlefish now finds itself. This majestic cephalopod is threatening to stop the construction of an explosives factory at Port Bonython on South Australia’s Spencer Gulf. The $350 million project would create 400 jobs in the construction phase and 80 ongoing jobs. Environmentalists fear it could also destroy the habitat of the giant cuttlefish.
Being a fatter version of a squid, it’s unlikely to attract the same level of public sympathy as the orangutans of the Sumatran jungle or the doe-eyed baby seals of Canada. South Australia’s Minister for Mines and Energy Tom Koutsantonis is strongly backing the construction of the explosives plant but claims that he doesn’t want to do anything to harm the cuttlefish. I really like Tom but I reckon his idea of preserving cuttlefish probably involves olive oil, bay leaves and vinegar.
While Koutsantonis is at least claiming that he wants consideration for the cuttlefish, others are taking a much tougher line. My esteemed colleague Greg Kelton wrote on these pages this week that the cuttlefish stand-off showed South Australians were a pack of pedants and Nimbys who could never get anything done.
“Naturally there had to be some obscure species of fish at the top of the Gulf which the mob of whingers could seize on,” he wrote.
At the risk of being cast as one of the whingers, I reckon it would be a terrific shame if the cuttlefish were cast aside in the name of progress. Equally, the people of Whyalla have every right to ask whether their town and its environs are being used as a dumping ground for heavy industries which city people would never tolerate. It’s the same phenomenon we have seen in Sydney over the years where a suburb such as Kurnell becomes the venue for desalination plants and anything else that the leafy inner suburbs would rail against.
There have been some mildly amusing claims from the environmental lobby that the giant cuttlefish is such an untapped tourism drawcard that SA could actually make more money by facilitating cuttlefish-related holidays than it would from making explosives. Who knows, they may be right. And SA: The Cuttlefish State would make a terrific numberplate.
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