[Taxacom] when is a common species critically endangered?

[Mark Wilden]

Obviously, my "naive" question related to the mite, and whether it's
endangered. It's clearly not - no matter how it makes its living. If
humans and their artifacts (such as plant cultivation) are considered
as just another ingredient in the environment, then this mite issue
goes away, it seems to me.

Take a 747 airliner. No one would call it a "part of nature". But
what's the difference between a plane and a beaver dam?

///ark

Mark Wilden
Web Applications Developer
California Academy of Sciences

(Of course, there may be other reasons for us to desire a higher
population of the mite in certain areas than simply to perpetuate its
species, but that's not what "endangered" means.)