An Alternate Ending to the Starfish Story

There's an old inspirational story by Loren Eisley that makes the rounds from time to time. It goes like this:

There was a man who was walking along a sandy beach where thousands of starfish had been washed up on the shore. He noticed a boy picking the starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean. The man observed the boy for a few minutes and then asked what he was doing. The boy replied that he was returning the starfish to the sea, otherwise they would die. The man asked how saving a few, when so many were doomed, would make any difference whatsoever? The boy picked up a starfish and threw it back into the ocean and said "Made a difference to that one..."

Chris Tolworthy provides a humorous alternate ending to this story:

The wise man shook his head sadly and put his hand on the young man's shoulder. "Do you know why there are millions of starfish dying on the beach, my son?"

"Because God is cruel?" asked the boy, hesitantly.

"A lot of people think so, but no," replied the wise man kindly. "It is part of the cycle of life. For countless millennia the starfish have ended their lives peacefully on this beach, quietly contemplating the sun. They then provide food for the many endangered species of coastal bird life. When you remove that food source, those little birds will die.

"But it meant something to that starfish!" said the boy.

"The starfish does not have a complex brain, my son," said the wise man. "But the little birds do. Before there was no suffering. Now, with their food source removed, a little bird will die and its mother will look for it, calling its name, and there will be no answer."

"I never thought of it like that," said the boy slowly.

"Do you know how much food there is in the sea for the starfish, my friend?" asked the wise man, after a long pause. The young man did not know. "Enough for a certain number of starfish. Otherwise the number of starfish would increase until they filled the sea, and plainly that is not so. When you return one starfish to the sea, it will eat food that another starfish needed, and that other starfish will die."

There was a long pause as the waves continued to crash onto the sand.

"And do you know the concept of natural selection?" Asked the wise man, gently. The young man shook his head. The wise man continued. "Some starfish are more likely to be washed up on the beach than others. They don't have offspring. The food they would have eaten goes to the starfish who know not to venture close to the beach. That is how starfish learn to stay in the water. But when you return them to the sea they have offspring, and those offspring end up dying on the beach. Do you know how many offspring a single starfish can have?" The boy shook his head again, but didn't want to know the answer. "For every starfish you save, you condemn many more to death."

"And you see that beautiful coral reef out there in the ocean?" The young man shielded his eyes and saw, just beneath the waves, the most beautiful sight that had ever met his eyes. "Starfish are not endangered, but coral is. That coral, and the millions of species that depend upon it, is fighting for its life." There was a long pause. "Do you know what starfish eat?" asked the wise man. The young man said nothing. Somehow he already knew the answer.

The wise man began to speak again. The young man wished he wouldn't. "Do you know how many people die of starvation every hour, my friend?" The young man did not know. "About a thousand." There was another pause. "And you believe that the best use of your time is in saving starfish?" There was another long pause. "I understand your thinking, my friend. Humans are causing the extinction of many species, so it is right to let them die." There was another pause. "The funny thing is though, starfish are not endangered."

They two of them gazed out to sea for several minutes. Finally the wise man spoke again. "You look like an intelligent boy, my son. You have a fine head on your shoulders. If you really wanted to save the starfish I know you could think of far more efficient means, such as getting involved in marine research, or at least spending a couple of minutes on Google. What was the real reason you were throwing starfish?

"I ran out of flat stones to skip" came the barely audible reply.