[saymaListserv] Re: Fwd: Re: Speaking truth to mutterings

[Joshua Stuart Rose]

At 02:24 PM 5/5/2005, Janet  Minshall wrote:

> > the ivory-billed woodpecker survived on its own, with no help from humans.

I hate to continually nit-pick, but had to respond to this. The 
Ivory-billed Woodpecker survives in the Cache River National Wildlife 
Refuge, which was created in 1986. In 1973, the US Army Corps of Engineers 
had plans to completely deforest this land, channelize the river, drain the 
wetlands, dig a network of canals throughout the area, in order to convert 
all of the swamp forest into agricultural land, mostly soybeans and rice 
for big agribusiness. The Corps had already destroyed, by that point, 80% 
of the bottomland forest along the lower Mississippi, including 75% of the 
original Cache River bottomlands. It was the hunters, primarily duck 
hunters, who saved it; the Cache bottomlands are also the world's largest 
wintering area for migratory Mallard Ducks. A groundswell of hunters, led 
by the governor of Arkansas, successfully fought the Corps and stopped 
their activities, eventually leading to the creation of the refuge and the 
protection of the Woodpecker's habitat.

That sounds kinda like "help from humans" to me, even if that help was 
directed at habitat protection in general and not specifically at the 
Woodpecker...

The point being? There are several. These facts surfaced on a bird-watching 
e-mail list, where hunters are often denigrated as bird-killers; so this 
actually reinforces one of Steve's points, that good ideas can come from 
anyone. But perhaps more so, this underscores that we can no longer remove 
humans from any environmental equation. As my wife used to remind me, the 
adjective "natural" can no longer be used as an antonym for "human". To 
some extent, we're all natural. And to some extent, all nature reflects 
humanity. May God forgive us for the species we have lost, and continue 
blessing us with those that remain, and with new species yet to evolve.

Josh


Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D.
jsr6 at duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/

Duke Natural History Society
http://www.biology.duke.edu/dnhs/

Program Director
Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association
http://www.ellerbecreek.org/

Environmental Chair
Old North Durham Neighborhood Association
http://www.oldnorthdurham.org/

Duke University
Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)