Posted by kelphead on March 02, 2001 at 16:08:05:
In Reply to: Re: They sure are destructive...??? posted by mike on March 01, 2001 at 22:17:48:
"... they had been here before we were, what were the effects of their presence then, and how have we altered the equation?"
exactly! and i've mentioned this before.
b/c otters have such a high metabolic rate, there
is no question that they EAT A LOT!!! but that's
just the way they were created/evolved (choose
your preference = ; b ).
one of the phrases that mike has used more than once
in the past is that otters "starve themselves" and
should not get any pity from us.
i accept they eat a lot (~25% of their body per day)
and i also don't have a problem w/hypothesizing that
sea otters can control their own population size,
cycling as it were btwn high and low pops depending
on food source. there are cycles of 'drought' and
plentifulness and in any ecosystem, the predator will either
suffer or thrive depending on the amount of food source.
but that's just the way it is!!!! i don't hold
such things as a NATURALLY large appetite against
an animal--that's just the way that animal functions.
you can't blame it(!). that would be ludicrous.
by that logic, we need to blame practically all
predators for their own predicaments, and i just
believe that this a short-sighted view. as you
point out, there are more q's that we need to find
the answers to.
if sea otters are THAT desctructive to the ecosystem,
why are there three species (asian, alaskan,
californian) and why do they have a river cousin?
this, by all accounts, is a SUCCESSFUL species
and successful species are doing something RIGHT
by the standards of NATURE, not by the standards
of man.
if sea otters are so desctructive to their own
ecosystem, why then did they number in the millions
only to be driven to near extinction by HUMANS,
not by their own starvation?
i'm trying to allude to the point that there is
more to the story than we know and i just don't
settle for the "let's blame it on the seemingly
aggressive hungry 'greedy' SUCCESSFUL predator".
by the logic that seahunt uses (and perhaps others use),
there must by other predators on our planet which
are also destructive to their own ecosystem...well,
which ones are they...?...
i'm just attacking seahunt's premise on a more
philosophical or abstract level b/c i just don't
think we have enough data to interpret the situation
completely.
...or maybe i just don't like the current interpretation
and am just waiting for some OTHER data to come
along proving me right! = : ) isn't that
what good little scientists do??? = ; b
kelphead.