Naturalist and Sierra Club founder John Muir once wrote, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” The winter issue of Earthjustice has an example of what Muir was talking about.
In the 1920s U.S. government policy allowed the extermination of wolves in Yellowstone, which caused an ecosystem collapse. Here’s what happened. Elk populations exploded. The elk overgrazed the aspens and willows, which were used by beavers for food and dam material. Scavenger species, such as bears and ravens, declined, since they no longer had wolf kills on which to feed.
Coyotes became the apex predator, but they eat rodents, not elk. As a consequence, smaller animals that eat voles and mice, such as foxes and hawks, began to decline.
In 1995 wolves were reintroduced. Coyote numbers dropped by half, elk numbers dropped, beaver colonies in the North range increased from 1 to 12, and scavenger species again had wolf kills to eat.
On another subject entirely, I had my root canal this afternoon. It was almost painless--thank you Lehigh Valley Endodontics.
There is a place for all creatures in this world. Too bad that man continually upsets the natural order of nature.
ReplyDeleteHere in Illinois we have an issue with asian carp that were brought in to clean the catfish farms in Louisiana. Everything was fine until the catfish pounds were flooded and the carp got into the Mississippi river. Now the fear is that they will get into the Great Lakes thus destroying that ecosystem. All of this just to save dollars. Man and his greed continues to mess up nature.
Just can't wait to see what fracking will do. We now have a glut of natural gas and yet the gas companies are raising the price of gas. Guess the gas companies are now dismissing the law of supply and demand. The dollar continues to rule.