Harmony and Conflict in the Living World - Alexander F. Skutch [79]
"Pest birds," like Red-billed Queleas in Africa and Eared Doves in Argentina, appear to contradict the foregoing statements by building up excessive populations that devour field crops, especially grains. They live in artificial situations. Farmers unintentionally help them multiply, then complain when the birds take advantage of agricultural bounty. Predators fail to reduce the teeming populations of these birds enough to save the crops. Thus, we might say, with reference to birds, that predators are either unnecessary to control populations or are ineffective. The same appears to be true of many other kinds of animals, but to discuss this matter here would lead us too far astray.
As the forces of destruction increase and their weapons become more devastating, conservationists wage a losing war. It is time to reconsider our strategy. The promotion of biodiversity is unselective, supporting both our allies and our enemies in our major endeavor, which is to preserve ecosystems. When we analyze an ecosystem, we find it an association of organisms that by their diverse roles mutually support one another, as in the plant-pollinator-disperser alliancethereby making and preserving the system, with a large
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admixture of organisms hostile to these key members of the system. The former support our efforts to preserve forests and other ecosystems, the latter oppose our efforts. Instead of maintaining an essentially neutral attitude toward the protagonists in the internal struggle that afflicts an ecosystem, we should throw our weight on the side of the defenders, giving them preferential treatment and whatever aid we can, perhaps not trying to exterminate all their enemiesin any case an impossible taskbut at least not supporting them. If we humans could make ourselves more compatible with the biocompatible associations that are the mainstay of the natural world, we would form an alliance that might preserve it indefinitely.
After this digression, which seemed necessary to counter certain objections to a conservation program that would exclude from protection some of the most predatory vertebrates, let us return to the advantages of biocompatibility over unlimited biodiversity. In the first place, it would help to preserve the maximum sustainable number of individuals (our second alternative) of the protected, nonpredatory, or mildly predatory species, which are nearly always more numerous than the animals that prey upon them. In particular, it would help to retard the widely lamented decline of many species of birds, especially the Neotropical migrants. Predation is only one of several factors in their plight, but it is by no means negligible; raptors take a heavy toll of migrants, especially while they are concentrated at the staging places where they interrupt their journeys to replenish their depleted reserves of energy.
By benefiting the extremely important plant-pollinator-disperser association and its allies, biocompatibility would promote human economic interests (our third alternative). It would make close association with nature more rewarding and pleasant to the growing number of people who enjoy the majesty of trees and the beauty of flowers and birds and are distressed or repelled by the sight of predators striking down and tearing their victims and the hideously mangled remains of what yesterday was a beautiful animal going peaceably about its business and enjoying its life. By no conceivable effort could conservationists, however numerous and well
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funded they become, bring perfect harmony into the living world, but by their united efforts they might bring it a little closer to the realization of this ancient, widespread, and perennially attractive ideal.
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The Troubled Childhood of Intelligence
The mind that can reason, understand, foresee, create, respond to beauty, feel