In the web of life, man is
a newcomer.
He arrived on the scene with the omnivorous
habits of a racoon, the ambition of a beaver
to move the earth and stop the waters and the
unique cleverness of the human primate to
invent tools for building and weapons with
which to kill game and destroy any
competitive
meat eaters
Untill the last half
century, few americans worried about the loss
of
wilderness or of it's wildlife.
From Daniel Boone to Lewis and Clark to the
California 49ers and Buffalo Bill, the
pioneers shot their way across the continent,
the railroad builders lived of the great
bison herds of the plains, and by 1900 the
army and the buffalo hunters had killed off
the
rest, except for a last few individuals.
The present herds are the descendants of
those survivors, 21 in the U.S and a small
herd
in Canada - all that remained in place of an
estimated population of 60 million animals in
1600.
In the eastern united states, many species
are regionally extinct or nearly so - wolves
and cougars, wapiti and moose.
In the last hundred years North America has
lost 20 species, more than Europe has lost in
the past 1,000 years.
The ancient prejudice of man against the predator, which is world-wide, as strong in the herdsman on the Russian steppe as in the cowboy on the plains of Texas- Ignores the root cause of the trouble, misuse of the land itself.
Nothing in nature is
certain except change - but natural change
usually
is slow and almost unnoticeable.
Modren industrial needs have led to the quick
destruction of habitats that have evolved
over immense peroids of time, each habitat in
balance with others and with the whole of
the natural world.
On a global scale, there is an acceleration
of change now taking place which has never
been witnessed before, nor are its
consequences fully understood.
Each animal species in itself represents a unique combination of genes, never to be repeated when once extinct.
Like all forms of life that
manage to survive, man has the capacity to
adapt himself to the changing conditions of
his environment, but man also has the ability
to change, control and adapt the environment
to his needs
How wisely is mankind using that awesome
power ?
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