Solving Nature's Problems

[leechlake]

A few weeks ago I was at the cabin and ran into an old Siguard Olsen book and browsed through it a bit. I ran into a chapter that caught my eye. I will paraphrase what he wrote, by the way I believe this was early/mid 1900's:

'I went to do some trout fishing at a fantastic spot from years gone by. When I got there beavers had taken over. The once clear fast running water was mucky and unfishable from the dams they had made. These days many people are too rushed and many would try to destroy what the beavers have done, only to have the beavers rebuild shortly thereafter. Mother Nature does a much better job. About ten years later I was in the same area and checked on my once favorite trout spot. Seems the beavers ran out of food and left the area, Spring floods destroyed the dams and the river was back to how I always remembered it; clear, fast running, trout abound.'

My point is that whether we are concerned about today's deer population, walleye population, wolf population etc all the contrived fixes that the DNR or us Sportsman come up with may just not be in the plan. The ebbs and flows are supposed to be in longer periods of times as noted above. With good intentions we step in and most likely make things worse by trying to improve things ASAP.

It may stink for us, a certain business that relies on that revenue. All people have bad times, all business industries experience slow times. By intervening we just make things worse. My two cents.

[leech~~]

Very well said.

So, if the Beaver would just wait, the area would flood again by itself and he would not have to build a dam to improve his environment.

I like that, just sit back and let life happen. Aauuu!

[CANOPY SAM]

Been a fan of old Sigurd for many years.

Also been saying the same thing for many years.

Not too many years back I got into a debate with the Delta Waterfowl group who claimed the only way we could usher great duck numbers back into the prairie pothole region was to kill every last living predator. This was amidst the last long prairie drought we witnessed during the late 80's early 90's.

I simply claimed that we should just wait for the water to return to the prairie, and along with the water the ducks would rebound as well.

Guess who's prediction came true?

Sometimes we can have a meaningful positive impact on wildlife thru our careful and thoughtful intervention. But much of the time we are simply tossing millions of dollars, and mountains of resources into the wind. The earth is an amazing, self-sustaining, self-correcting machine. It doesn't really need us to correct it's mistakes.

[DTro]

I agree to a point, but for example do you think the demise and rebound of things such as bald eagles or lake sturgeon is laid on mother nature? How is that working out for the American Bison?

[SkunkedAgain]

Sorry Dtro. Those are completely different. Siguard was talking about Mother Nature, or more to the point ecology, taking care of its own problems. Sometimes it has the capacity to cover up man's interventions. However, man-made problems are different. You can't expect the earth to overcome our acts of over-fishing, over-hunting, or dumping chemicals. Man needs to limit or eliminate harmful acts and then the earth can do its thing to recover.

[ClownColor]

I agree to a point, but for example do you think the demise and rebound of things such as bald eagles or lake sturgeon is laid on mother nature? How is that working out for the American Bison?

Agree to a point also. But human development makes mother nature impossible. Look at all the wetland we've taken away building housing developments. Wasn't leech lake mostly once a shallow duck slough? What about shoreline development from lakeshore owners? Farming has taken away pheasant shelter. If we didn't step in and help, hunting and fishing would be part of the past. But yes-generally speaking mother nature will survive but a kick start by intellegant human interaction can benefit.

[leechlake]

I think that mother nature can take care of itself, but yes since man can first alter things by development, farming practices, or other of the things mentioned Ma has a tough time counteracting those things. When we intervene then, if it isn't done correctly, we can create a mess.

My point of mentioning the original post wasn't as a solution to all problems in a hands off way but to bring the point to light that many times are lack of patience attempts to solve problems that may be solved on their own just a few years slower than we hoped for.

[BoxMN]

My point of mentioning the original post wasn't as a solution to all problems in a hands off way but to bring the point to light that many times are lack of patience attempts to solve problems that may be solved on their own just a few years slower than we hoped for.

I like that point. I would also offer up that, just as the beaver is a part of nature, doing what it does and knows how to do , sometimes to the detriment of local ecology, so are humans a part of nature. And so then might what we do to the local (global) ecology be also a natural process. In the end Ma Nature will take it all back, though likely (hopefully) not in one or many human generations.

That doesn't mean humans should go out and rape the land and water, just that a different take on what truly is natural, and what truly is best use and best practices of modifying the Earth. Hopefully we keep learning as we do good and bad things, and try to do more of the good. Some of which is letting things run their course.

(PS we actually had this conversation as part of our field ecology class while up in the BWCA back in my skinny college days )

[Mr.Seaguar]

Nature has 1 problem. Us.

[leech~~]

Nature has 1 problem. Us.

Well she does pretty well hurting herself and us with her weather occurrences! See-Tsunami and the rest!

[leechlake]

man is part of nature just like a beaver. Man hurt's Ma and tries to help Ma some times too. Not really cut and dried either way.

[delcecchi]

Also, nature's equilibrium might not be pleasing to us. An example is that there seem to be two stable points in the moose-wolf system. Few moose and few wolves or many moose and many wolves. (or some moose, few wolves, and some guys with guns)

[PurpleFloyd]

I went to College in Ashland and walked by the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute every day and he had a pretty big influence on the college.

I agree that we would be better off in the long run if we quit trying to micro manage the earth and we would also be better off if we actually spent some time paying attention to how it all works and living within it rather than trying to force it to work within our narrow view of how it should work.

[Grum]

I agree that we would be better off in the long run if we quit trying to micro manage the earth and we would also be better off if we actually spent some time paying attention to how it all works and living within it rather than trying to force it to work within our narrow view of how it should work.

+1

[Tom7227]

Just look at pictures from Chernobyl and you will see that Nature will ultimately win. Doesn't mean that we can keep on tearing things up.

[delcecchi]

Just look at pictures from Chernobyl and you will see that Nature will ultimately win. Doesn't mean that we can keep on tearing things up.

Nature has an answer. We just might not like what it is.

[Down Deep]

Sigurd was speaking to natural cycles. IMO mother nature has no right or wrong. Nature is what it is. The forest grows and gets old, and fire comes along to to sweep it clean and begin the cycle once again. People like the old forest and want to live there so they build houses. Now when the fire starts it gets put out and the forest gets older until it dies completely. Then it can't regenerate because the people live there. Move the people out and back comes the forest.

Most of us only need look at our own lawns and landscaping to find an unnatural environment. If I quit cutting the grass and let the trees go nature would quickly take over and I'd live in the forest -----till it burned.