[FiniteField]

I don't mean to say this as a challenge to what you said, but as a genuine question: Do you hold any value in the continued existence of the red squirrel in Great Britain? Would you see its extinction as any kind of loss? I know many people that are hugely invested in securing the red squirrel, but would never be seen dead expressing any kind of hesitancy towards the idea of their own ethnic group disappearing. I've always found it a little odd, given that squirrels don't have culture, traditions, or a written history attached, and it's purely aesthetic.

[donkeybeer]

Brits aren't a different species

[FiniteField]

Why does the technicality that red and grey squirrels are different species hold any weight to you? The effect is still the same: They are two discernibly different populations, of which one is on the decline in its native land alongside the increase of another. As humans, we are orders of magnitude more sensitive to population differences amongst humans than amongst squirrels. Squirrel populations do not have associated music, dress, religion, traditions, and so on. So the question remains: Why does the decline of a discernable population of squirrels carry immense sentimental weight to many people, but not the decline of an ethnic group? Especially when most people would give a very different answer if that ethnic group were, for example, Native American or Palestinian? The only answer to me is that people feel that they aren't allowed to hold these sentimental thoughts, and work to block them from their own mind.