As Forests Reclaim the East, Man Struggles With Nature

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Tuesday, May 21, 2002 | JAMES P. STERBA

[TroutStalker]

OXFORD, Mass. -- Don LaFountain stopped his pickup beside a beaver swamp along Route 12 opposite a Wal-Mart and tossed out two traps that look like wire-mesh suitcases. He baited and set the traps, lowering them into water not 15 feet from the buzzing morning traffic.

[stainlessbanner]

"wildlife-damage-control professional."

The PC Police strike again!

[pt17]

How about this-I'm in 02120 within Boston and have seen raccoon, fox, possum, pheasant, skunk and wild turkey here

I believe it and the fact that you're not talking about the politicians.

[Steve0113]

What's that statistic where you could fit the entire population of the world, giving each person a small apartment, into a 40 mile by 40 mile by 40 mile cube or something?

Don't know about a cube, but I did the math on this once. The entire population of the world could fit in Texas, with each person having about 1,300 square feet. When you factor in apartment buildings, where many people are sharing the same land area, the space per person is multiplied. That's why in Manhatten, with so many apartment buildings, the space per person is around 200-300 square feet.

[RightWhale]

Real Americans are totally at home in the forest. The forest has everything you need, including these days an Internet jack to FR.

[sphinx]

This cannot be true. Acid rain killed off the Eastern forest 25 years ago. The Sierra Club told me so.

[Free the USA]

Check the Bump List folders for articles related to and descriptions of the above topic(s) or for other topics of interest.

[okie01]

You'll appreciate this one, I believe.

[Carry_Okie]

You'll appreciate this one, I believe: From Leviticus Chapter 26:

1. If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;
2. Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
3. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
4. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.
5. And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
6. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
7. For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.
8. And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.
9. And I set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.
10. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.
11. I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.
12. But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;
13. And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:
14. I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
15. And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.
16. And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
17. And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:
18. And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.
19. And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.
20. I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.
21. And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me;
22. Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.
23. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
24. And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.
25. And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;
26. Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.
27. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.
28. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.
29. And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.
30. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.
31. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.
32. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.
33. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.
34. And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.
35. And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.
36. And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.
37. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.
38. If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;
39. And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:
40. Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.
41. The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes.
42. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God.
43. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.

[okie01]

It's not often that a ping brings forth Leviticus...

Y'know the great thing about nature? It's the original conservative. It takes care of itself...naturally.

[Carry_Okie]

It takes care of itself...naturally.

I don't ascribe to that belief. Nature doesn't care if the planet is sterile. There is a chapter in my book that deals with this specific issue and concludes that it is a Type II error. It is based upon a tautological logic; i.e., that Nature is whatever it becomes because it does so without human intervention, as if humans are not a seamless component therein.

Isn't it fascinating that those who accept the observable fact of natural selection and then leap to the doctrinaire belief in evolution to the exclusion of any other logical theory, then separate humans from that system in their preferred policies as if all we could do is harmful. Perhaps this is the gaian articulation of original sin.

[okie01]

P.S. I include us as an integral part of nature, one of God's creatures, along with the moose, the coyote and the tumblebug. We're part of the equation that fixes stuff...naturally. Your work is a good example of exactly that.

[Angelique]

You know Carry, you used to be a nice man, but since you have become belligerint that aspect is gone. Does publishing a book make you smarter? What a lesson you are giving to your children. I never realized that picking up the SC beaches would include your giant head.

[sasquatch]

Does publishing a book make you smarter?

Publishing a book helps one understand the process of publishing.
The research required to write a quality book makes one more knowledgeable.
Reading such a work may or may not change your outlook. I'd suggest you read the book.
It is probably the most important work I've studied in my adult life.

[sasquatch]

What a lesson you are giving to your children

Those two kids are getting the best education available on this planet.

[Angelique]

I was trying to stick up for Sierra, and evidently you think cruelty is a good lesson for kids. Bon chance.

[Angelique]

BTW who in the heck are you? Riddle the board with your self serving idiocy?

[sasquatch]

Are you OK?

[Angelique]

Are you?

[bert]

Washington DC is full of Skunks, Democratus liberalis I think.

[Redcloak]

Let's see now... What was that word? Oh yeah...

Schadenfreude