Tag: wildlife

HUMAN FOLLY

The weakness in Goldfarb’s idea of beaver management is that human society has never been good at “managing” animal behavior. The laws of unintended consequences seem to always get in the way.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Eager (The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter) 

Author: Ben Goldfarb

Narration by: William Damron

Ben Goldfarb (Author, environmental writer, journalist based in Colorado.)

Goldfarb has written a book about beavers, a nocturnal, thick furred, waterproof coated animal with teeth powerful enough to fell trees, strip bark, build natural dams, and carve channels through wood. His history of beavers is a mixture of positives and negativities about an animal that is both ecologically beneficial and destructive. Goldfarb clearly comes down on the side of ecological value for society to endorse beaver preservation and growth.

Beaver species.

A fairly balanced history of beavers is given by Goldfarb but those who take the time to listen/read his book are likely to be skeptical. Beavers naturally create wetland habitats that store water, filter pollutants, and create habitats for fish, birds, amphibians, and insects. Beavers are natural hydrological engineers that slow water erosion, restore groundwater, and mitigate drought. The ponds and wetlands they naturally create become fire safety breaks. Beavers create ponds that store carbon, buffer heat, and aid human climate-adaptation. On the other hand, beavers cause flooding of roads, basements, and farmland fields. They destroy trees, flood crops, and interfere with irrigation systems. They naturally propagate themselves to aggravate negative impacts on human farming and habitation.

Wetland management.

Goldfarb suggests the negative impact of beavers can be mitigated by human management of their behavior in natural habitats. To prevent flooding, he notes human actions can be taken to control water levels with flow regulation. Goldfarb notes beaver deception devices have been created by humans that effectively prevent flooding by deceiving beaver’s natural building habits that raise water levels. Goldfarb notes beavers natural dam building can continue with human oversight to control water levels with culvert diversions. Particular trees can be fenced or protected by wire mesh from being destroyed. The population of beavers can be managed by moving species to other sites or by limiting their areas of colonization. The advantage of beaver management is that beaver productivity would benefit society at less cost than human engineering and building of water management systems.

Natural beaver habitat?

With proper management by society, natural beaver habitats can improve water storage, buffer for fire damage, create natural fisheries, and restore the benefits of wetlands to the environment. Beavers could become the engineers and laborers needed to create an improved natural environment.

Mackenzie Wolf Alaskan Tundra Wolf or Canadian Timber Wolf Canis lupus occidentalis wolves in the snow

However, history shows humans have overfished habitats of Atlantic cod, Bluefin tuna, and salmon which has been exacerbated by poor hatchery management and dam construction. Predator eradication by humans wiped out wolves across Europe and North America causing explosions in deer and elk populations that overgrazed forests and caused excessive river erosion. Bison killed by human hunters nearly disappeared on the Great Plains in the 19th century. Their eradication is partly responsible for prairie ecosystem deterioration from invasive grasses, soil carbon depletion, and increasing dust storms. Mass poisoning campaigns of rats and mice led to their resistance to poisons and indirectly killed owls, hawks, and foxes.

The weakness in Goldfarb’s idea of beaver management is that human society has never been good at “managing” animal behavior. The laws of unintended consequences seem to always get in the way.

NATURE’S BALANCE

Do humans upset nature or are they another victim of nature’s balance?

Blog: awalkingdelight

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead”

By: Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Narrated by: Beata Pozniak

“Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” is well narrated, but its appeal seems lost in translation. The book is written with financial support from the Czech Republic. It makes a fundamental point about the animal world, but its story is diminished by its main character’s representation.

WINTER IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

The heroine of the story believes in astrology. Those who are non-believers are distracted by the heroine’s constant reference to what many, if not most, consider a pseudo-science. Janina is an older woman who lives in a small settlement in the Czech Republic. She is a schoolteacher who has responsibility for the caring of second homes in a wilderness settlement when not in use by their owners. There are only a handful of residents that stay in the settlement during harsh winters.

The story begins with the death of a year-round resident. It appears the death is an accident from choking on a deer bone, but several mysterious deaths occur in that winter that make the local police realize a murderer is in the area.

The schoolteacher argues the deaths are a result of a rebellion against hunters by deer and wolves that have been indiscriminately hunted and killed for sport. She supports her argument with evidence of deer and wolf tracks near the death scenes. She reinforces her unwavering belief with astrological observations of the planets, human’ dates of birth, and the solar system’s orbital interference with each other.

The schoolteacher argues to all who would listen that indiscriminate human predation is causing an animal rebellion in their remote location.

She has mysteriously lost two pet dogs in this winter of death. The truth of her theory of rebellion becomes less believable and more mundane with the discovery of more human deaths and her characterization of her pets as lost daughters. Her dogs may have just run away or been eaten by wolves. With more human deaths, the police are convinced there is a human murderer in their midst. The story becomes a murder mystery, not a conspiracy foretold by the heavens.

What actually happened to her dogs is the clue that solves the case.

One surmises the underlying meaning of the story is that human beings are indiscriminate murderers of nature.

How many buffalo, elephants, lions, wildebeests, rhinos, tigers, boar, elk, and deer have been hunted and killed by humans for their ivory or trophies with carcasses left to rot?

In one sense, all predation is simply a way of keeping nature in balance. In another, human predation upsets the balance of nature by volitional choice. To the author, it is the second sense that tells listeners–humans do not preserve but arbitrarily upset the balance of nature.

The murder mystery is solved in the end, but the question lingers. Do humans upset nature or are they just another victim of nature’s balance? Time, not religion, science, or fiction, will tell.