Over @ GNXP, Suman Palit put up this article about how Viagra is helping save the Seal population of Australia / Alaska.

The results are preliminary, but the paper's authors, Frank von Hippel, of the University of Alaska, in Anchorage, and his brother Bill, of the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia, have shown that the trade in such exotica as seal penises is falling rapidly. They suspect, though they cannot yet prove, that this is because men with “vigour” problems who once placed their faith in penis soup have found that Viagra works rather better.

What todays watermelon environmental activists would have us do is to climb down from the technological ladder of progress, when it is increasingly obvious that the lions share of solutions to our environmental and conservation issues will come from climbing up that ladder, as fast as we can.. free markets drive technological innovations, which provide consumers with choices. Sometimes these choices can have remarkable effects, such as reducing the human-use footprint on the environment.

I'd add further that Watermelon Activists prefer to see the long term solution to this class of problems via a widespread bureaucratic solution.  On the demandside of the chain, they seek nothing less than an overt behavioral modification program.  On the supply side, they see broader monitoring infrastructure of the Seal population along it's full lifecycle and habitats.  

Palit uses the phrase "unintended consequences" in the title of this blog entry and it points to one of the classic human phenomena that only an economic system can capture benefit from -- in this case pharma R&D dollars saving the Seals.   No technocratic solution envisioned by any activist group could have possibly delivered a solution as elegant as Viagra.