“In wildness is the preservation of the world.”
-Henry David Thoreau
Want to reverse purported “climate change”? Fantastic! Let me tell you how to begin the process...STOP KILLING APEX PREDATORS!!! Whether sharks in the ocean or wolves on the land, apex predators regulate the natural order and minimize destruction to the environment that can occur with their absence. This is known from the evidence, most especially in areas, like Yellowstone National Park, where wolves have been reintroduced. Decades of destruction almost immediately reversed by their mere presence. Why? No longer are their prey - deer, elk, etc - able to lay waste to the environment unchecked.
Why bring species back from the brink of extinction, only to once again allow the hunting and trapping that practically wiped them out? It is unreasonable, and it is without logic. Sustainable environmental policies only work if policy sustains the environment; remove any crucial component(s), and the system, naturally, will break down. Of course, there always is something more to it. Environmental policy constantly is handicapped by other interests, namely those of landowners and cattle ranchers seeking to curb the alleged, and exaggerated, threat from these predators.
Hunting for sustenance, and even as a cultural ritual, is understandable and makes sense to a certain extent, notwithstanding modern standards and conditions that prudently require neither. Ghoulish trophy hunting offers no such expediency, satisfying only a morbid curiosity that is more deranged gratification than sporting recreation. Similarly, government-sanctioned culling - under the dubious auspices of “wildlife management” - serves only as reminder of an intrinsic, and misguided, predominance that arrogantly places the human species above all others. Yet, it is the exceptional being that maintains life worthy of protection rather than deem it arbitrary by sanctimonious degrees.
Humanity is the usurper of its own place within the framework of nature. When it comes down to the survival of species, our time is up. A favorable option are the ones that can save the planet, rather than those who further its demise through unwarranted hubris and willful ignorance. Unless, of course, it is more about money and political clout rather than actually reversing climate change.
©2019 Steve Sagarra
No comments:
Post a Comment