Nature rarely listens to mankind’s wishes. She dishes out hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, hot and cold weather, floods and droughts – all at her own will.
Nature also has a set of laws that we need to understand and learn for our own benefit. Let’s look at two of such laws.
Nature’s Law No. 1
The first and foremost of her laws is that she is in command.
There are many mortals who think otherwise. They believe that if we just enact the right legal rules of order, then we somehow can control nature to suit our whims. Others think we can trick or deceive nature into doing us a favor. These souls are no less mistaken than the others. Even when it appears that mankind has won a battle, nature typically has a way to make us lose the war nonetheless.
The first lesson here is: Don’t think you can control nature.
Nature’s Law No. 2
Nature’s second law is equally misunderstood by most. It pertains to the survival of species.
Contrary to common view, a species’ survival is best guaranteed not by “protection” from predators but rather by having a system of competition where both predator and prey are depending on each other’s survival. There are numerous examples of that, such as:
The Grouse Cycle
The Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) and Spruce Grouse (Falcipennis canadensis), either one commonly referred to as “partridge” are ground-nesting birds the size of a small chicken that are found throughout the boreal forests of North America. Their numbers wax and wane with great regularity from being nearly absent to over-abundant in 11-year cycles. Their main predators are foxes, coyotes and wolves, but their main breeding success (or lack of it) is determined by the weather. If it’s cold and wet during egg-incubation and prior to the hatchlings becoming mobile, it’s a poor year for the birds. If the weather is favorable, each of a dozen eggs may result in a healthy adult bird by fall. As a result, the number of partridge birds in the woods increases by a factor of ten from one year to the next.
Of course, the increased availability of bounty provides more opportunity for the predators so they are doing well too. That means their litters will have plenty of food and are likely to produce even more offspring the following year.
Now, assume (and it does happen) the partridge have a great breeding success for three years in a row. It means that their number in the woods may increase by orders of magnitude in a few years. Naturally, the number of predators too is increasing accordingly. The next years have cold and wet springs. Nearly all the partridge broods are lost and both theirs and the predators’ numbers plunge again for a few years.
The Moose & Wolves on Isle Royale
There is a large (2300 square kilometers) island in Lake Superior named Isle Royale. It is part of the State of Michigan though it is closer to Canada. Until the early 1900s Isle Royale never had any moose or wolves on it. Then, either in a particularly cold winter with solid ice between the mainland and the island or traversing the gap by swimming, moose arrived on it. Sometime later wolves did as well.
Of course, moose are an important prey for wolves. So, when they came across all that “free food” they took to it with vigor. After some initial wild swings in either population, they now have coexisted in some kind of balance since then. The wolves make sure that the moose are kept in check by hunting only fragile moose and no (non-suicidal) wolf would want to tackle a healthy moose.
This predator/prey relationship on Isle Royale has now existed for several decades. It is also one of the most widely studied ones.
The Importance of both Predators and Prey
There are numerous other predator/prey combinations that are well known; the above are just two prime examples from this continent. The question is what can we learn from them?
In short, the examples show that the long term survival of any species is best served by having a balance of predators and prey. If mankind is going to wipe out the predator, the prey population will increase rapidly by living an easy life off all the “low hanging fruit.” However, once that is depleted, starvation follows rapidly and survival of the species becomes precarious due to declining health and food supply. Lack of predation and competition, the typical protectionist response to any problem by (manmade laws) only leads to “easy food” and complacency.
