Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 1772–1834
In my last post, I asked a question about the reinstatement of wolves into the Western United States. From the thoughtful answers, I think we all feel about the same. We love the wildness of wolves and feel there should be a place for them. But we don't know exactly how it will work, what with our own species ever expanding.
I've come to distrust the charitable organizations that purport to support wild creatures such as the wolf, then spend much of their budget on administration and much of it on lawyers who sue the forest service for this and that. I read that the Forest Service spends forty to fifty percent of its budget defending lawsuits. Who wins besides the lawyers?
I'd been happily sending donations off to these groups and feeling pretty virtuous about it too, until we had a forest fire here a few years ago. Many pine trees were left blackened and dead, but standing. In that state, they could only become tinder dry and hazardous, but once cut, could serve a purpose, if only as fire wood. Nevertheless, some anti-logging group based in Florida filed a suit to prevent the removal of the dead trees. It was short lived, and the removal progressed. But I'm sure it cost the Forest Service dollars that could have been better spent taking care of the forest and the creatures therein. Now there's a new issue and expense for the National Parks and National Forest Services to deal with. The big scale growing of marijuana by drug cartels!
Oh dear...........this post ran away from me! As you may guess by the illustrations, I was going to speak to the issue of animals and their rightful place among us. I got carried away by the perplexities of Forest care and truthfully, no one has ever got that right. From the moment Teddy Roosevelt wrote National Parks into existence, well meaning managers have made one mistake after another. We simply can't replace Mother Nature!
Noah Did His Best to save them all!
It must have been a great relief when the waters receded..
Thanks for bearing with me! Next time I'll try to stay on track.....
16 comments:
You did great! all you have to do is tie the two together, which should be simple. LOVE those beautiful old pictures. Just think of being a little child in the 1800's or so, and finding one in a book, hand-tinted and rough to the touch from the engraving process... Ahhhhhh-h-h...
Those are interesting pictures of the Arch Noah. I like especially the last one which shows the different species of animals that were saved from the Great Flood. This artist had a lot of phantasy.
OldSD, Noah had the right idea:) I fell for the pictures too...
Olivia, the last is my favorite..the old fellow on dry land at last, surrounded by the creatures he saved....
It's a difficult puzzle. The simplistic piece of me says that the earth can support only so much biomass & if human numbers keep growing, then we will, willy nilly, account for more and more of the biomass, leaving less opportunity for other critters. A sad commentary, if true!
GJ, I'm afraid you're right on:(
She..I don't care what you say, or how you say it, I always get something from your posts!
I love these pictures, too..and have you ever thought what it must have been like on that ark?!! :)
As Olivia said, Phantasy.
My heart breaks for the animals, & the races of humans, who have been decimated in the name of 'progressive thinking'.
In my neighbourhood, land is being covered with houses and big box stores and roads and parking lots at an alarming rate.
Trees are being cut down.
Fields are being bulldozed.
There are fewer songbirds in my back yard.
There are deer running in people's back yards.
There are raccoons and groundhogs and other wild things invading people's houses.
We are leaving no room for the wild kingdom.
Thanks Jan:) Somewhere, sometime I read a fun bit about the upkeep on the ark..the cleaning..the feeding..the noise..wish I could remember where and when..oh dear, this could be another goose chase!
Oh meggie, mine too:(
Ex, yes.. here comes progress, clomp clomp, clomp leaving giant carbon footprints behind..
Interesting discussion. And quite a coincidence as well as I was mulling over whether or not to post on my blog that my cousin has adopted two wolves as pets. I think it was total foolishness on her part and I'm wondering if she did any research at all into this.
QD, I hope you'll keep us posted regarding your cousins pet wolves!
I wonder if they'll require a lot of exercising to keep the wild edge off or if they'll be gentle as lambs..
What a beautiful post! How true that try as we may we (though we may think we are) are not as smart as Mother Nature and can't replace her. Once I learned to look at charitable budgets to see how much actually benefits the charity I have become very disheartened by most of them.
I think there is a place for them all too sheoflittlebrain and as a rancher I feel for the folks who have lost livestock because of these predators. There has to be a common ground though, we don't want them to become extinct.
Hey Teach, I give to local stuff now. The Salvation Army, our little zoo etc. It's so disheartening to realize that a donation goes to line some fat cat's pocket!
Joni, I'm glad you commented on this subject as you bring a perspective none of the rest of us have. There is a wolf report online that outlines, by year, how many cattle, sheep, and dogs have been killed by wolves and how many wolves are killed by ranchers and wildlife managers...
I never knew where the verse that inspired the Herriot books was Coleridge. Thank you.
Where I live, we have the issue of the moose. It hasn't been reintroduced, but some find there way here, and unfortunately too many of them are hit by cars. As you say, it's hard to know where to stand as Man crowds out more and more habitat.
A success story seems to be the wild turkey. From the introduction of a few in northern NY about 25 years ago, they have become plentiful and seem to do no harm. Sportmen (and I say that with a sneer...) and environmentalists/naturalists love them. Wiley Coyote is also doing well. This Eastern Coyote (sometimes called "coy dog") is quite wolf-like; only slightly smaller. They're beautiful to see and wonderful to hear on a still night.
Wiz, a moose is a big critter to share space with! I think the eastern coyote is interesting. I've read they've made some adaptations, longer legs is one, I think.
I can't help wondering what would happen if the wolf prospered as well as the coyote has done.
At least we can feel good about the turkeys, and that makes me feel happy!
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