Smelt

There is a small fish called the Delta Smelt out in California and a few years ago the government put this fish on the Endangered Species List and as a result water was cut off to farmers in the area. As much as 100,000 acres of farm land was affected causing unemployment in the area to rise to 40%. Over the past few years most of the farmers in this area have gone bankrupt. My first thought was that this was an extreme example of government overreach so I investigated and found that this fish was like the canary in the coal mine, in that it represented possible harm to another dozen species in the area. I thought then that perhaps there was some logic to protecting this area but upon further research I found out that 50,000 species go extinct every year. I suppose this year there will only be 49,988 thanks to the sacrifice of some farmers in California.