Today I read the following email:
Lots of steaks on that one! 🙂
You’d think it was harmless – but no. First thing, I recognize the attitude of a guy introducing the kids to what you do to Nature when it’s a threat.
You kill it. Individually, a harmless, even virtuous act. Collectively?
That’s what kills off species. ‘k, interesting how the morality of the individual act is opposed to the morality of the collective acts.
But that, of course, leads to wondering how this small, individual act leads to the perturbance – not unbalancing, since I don’t believe in a balance of Nature – but how this individual act, and all its cousins, will affect the local ecology. What meals will this rattler miss, what rodents will reproduce rather than become dinner, will those rodents spread disease among humans, or eat too much of our food supplies – what unforeseen affects will be encountered because this snake, and its cousins, are killed because of our fear – reasonable or not – of snakes? Perhaps we should limit our own range rather than killing this snake which is – probably – not malicious, but simply following its instincts? For a more vivid example, read this post.
And then I remember a film from long, long ago, probably National Geographic, although I can’t find it, of an encounter between an enormous rattler and a big cat of some sort, mountain lion or something. You’d think they’d just avoid each other, but, no they fight, and it doesn’t go well for the rattler.
And the cat leaves the rattler’s body behind. No attempt to eat it. And so we circle right around to where we started. How do we differ?
Because we obsess over it, don’t we? The cat killed the rattler because it was there – but probably didn’t make a hobby of it. Us? We set bounties, celebrate all the trophy heads, and hate on Nature.
Or at least we did.
