I am currently making my way through William Stolzenburg’s Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators. For lovers of predators and Nature in general it is required reading. Stolzenburg writes clearly and explains the importance of top predators to the health of ecosystems. From the seas to Yellowstone, this book covers the gamut and there are plenty of fascinating tales of predators. Go to the library, buy it online or at your local bookseller, but read it!! It’s the best book I’ve read in many a year! BTW, check out the jaguar on the cover!
October 30, 2008 at 4:58 am |
Hi! I just want to reinforce that: READ IT!!! This is one of the best books I have read last times!
Best from Brazil!
Fernando
October 30, 2008 at 7:25 am |
Thanks for visiting, Fernando. Glad to see you’re back from the wilds!
November 1, 2008 at 9:45 am |
[...] So let’s bring it in a simple example. Imagine the oceans start to raise… think it’s not difficult to imagine that – since Global Warming came to environmental agenda everybody is talking about it. In this example let’s put this in a extreme rates: there still just a few islands in the world, where used to be the highest mountains. Millions of people would die, but to where the survivors will run? Same with animals! All the survivors run for their lives to the forest refugees. This “inflates” the population size. This situation is temporary, because there is not enough resource to everybody and individuals starts to die from starvation, low reproductive rate, disease, high infant mortality… Until it reach an “equilibrium”. Some species disappear and usually the most sensitive to environmental changes goes firs. It bring us to another issue: carnivores! The big things that run the world! Without predators, prey goes wild and increase population size. It brings radical changes in the system. More competitive prey species eliminate others and we have a decline in diversity. If you found that interesting you NEED to read “Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators”, well cited by our friends on SouthWest Jaguars Blog. [...]