quote:
Originally posted by Animalman:
Beavers and Alligators just use what's there to shield them, and only take what they need to survive. They leave the forests and swamps and meadows intact. They maintain the natural order.
Yeah, but if the beaver population gets too big, it impresses upon the natural order. The natural order, actually, is just another way of saying the balancing point between two utterly self-interested opposing forces (let's be simplistic here and assume it's only two). Not that one side or the other is consciously or even intuitively trying to bring about a state of harmony. The woods would choke out the beavers if it could, just as the beavers would strip the woods bare if they could.

As unsavory as we humans are, Americans in particular, we're "smart" enough to know how to beat back the woods. So that's exactly what we're doing.

And in competing for the same resources, which all forms of life do, they drive each other into extinction constantly.