In simple terms, carrying capacity is the number of individual species an environment can support without significant negative impacts to other living things and/or the environment. When it happens, and we as people get to make the judgments, Todd types suggest “decreases” to put everything back in balance.
Columnist: Gene Fox
Is there a carrying capacity for humans? I’m just asking. Outdoor columnist In a similar way that some people are taken in by the “Bambi Myth,” there are those who mistakenly have a “Walden Pond Illusion” of the beaver, which has become urbanized. But the carrying capacity formula is non-emotional, science.
Is there even a Bambi myth? Gosh, I can’t really think of one. Man is bad?
I suppose Gene is implying that the sweet beautiful drawings of the cartoon character ignore the fact that deer chew our plants and disturb our traffic patterns by getting hit by cars and maybe even start fires like bambi’s dad. Or something. He invokes the sportsman-repellent properties of Walden Pond to appeal to the reader’s logic. I suppose what he means to say is that if you have compassion for animals you aren’t rational, and nobody should listen to you anyway.
He goes on to say that ‘science’ supports a habit-forming dependence on trappers like the hero described in his article, Todd Meese. Todd is given the impressive qualifications of a ‘damage wildlife biologist’ which sounds as close to a toolbox full of hammers as we are likely to find. (I guess that explains why beavers all look like nails.)
A day or two after the visit, I got a report that two beavers, one 65 pounds and the other 45, had been removed.
Just to be clear, by “removed” he means “killed” – don’t want to be too ‘Bambi’ about this. Looking at the weights I would say he trapped an adult and a yearling. It’s late summer so the colony probably has kits, which he obviously didn’t get. Let’s hope there are some family members left to take care of the young so he can come back next summer and do all it again – and the summer after that, and so on – all those child support checks won’t write themselves.
And quite candidly, a big reason the furbearers have gotten a disproportionate foothold on our turf over the last decade is because trapping has gone out of favor. Less social acceptance, less money in the business. Of course, as population density increases, birth rate will decrease eventually because the death rate will typically increase because of either disease or lack of habitat/food. Or beavers will move into our backyards through the waste water systems.
Through our wastewater systems? You mean like those pale alligators in the New York Sewer System? Ohh, you mean culverts and drains, all the little waterways that we have co-opted with concrete to become our storm systems. It’s funny how that works, we turn these natural structures into the most unnatural devices and are furious when nature keeps being – well – natural. Like the beavers in Alhambra Creek. Did you ever hear about them? It’s a great story I’ll tell you sometime.
Ok Gene, here’s some science from the Bambi faction. Beavers are a keystone species so every single colony in that housing tract on 291 increases the bird, fish, and wildlife population of the area. Beavers improve water quality, raise the water table and increase valuable wetlands. Don’t you have some sportsmen in Missouri? Beaver ponds increase important game species like wood duck and trout. In fact there isn’t a single thing you could add to your waterways that would do more to help increase the carrying capacity of the area.
It’s possible you’re not as interested in science when it disconfirms your beliefs. Okay, let’s talk dollars then. There are proven effective and inexpensive tools for managing beavers that offer long-term solutions and will save tax-payer dollars. Beaver Deceivers and Flow Devices will control most any waterway problems and allow the habitat to remain. Wire wrapping or sand-painting of trees will protect property and everyone can benefit from the safe wetlands that beavers create.
If Missouri’s biggest problem really IS the beaver, its because the entire state is using the wrong tools. Instead of encouraging more people to use more hammers, it might be a good idea to introduce a few wrenches and some pliers.
