Reclamation
In 1957 the Game and Fish Commission of Tennessee and the National Park Service decided to “reclaim” Abrams Creek for the rainbow trout, a non-native species popular to fishermen. To this end, workers poisoned the creek with Rotenone in an attempt to kill off the less-popular fish native to the creek. They succeeded in killing most of the species of fish in the area, including one previously undiscovered species that they then thought to be extinct (but turned up years later in another creek).
I’m pretty much pro-environment and anti-destroying it; however, I would really like to hear more about the newly created species for awhile. I’m tired of hearing about species becoming extinct (not really, just kind of). I’m reading A Walk in the Woods (which is very good), and Bryson is fond of describing trees (the American chestnut, for example) that have been destroyed by various natural and unnatural means through the years. With so many things dying off, surely new things are being introduced. I figure the ecosystem is like a dictionary where words fall out of use while new words are added all the time. Evolution has not just stopped. There must be new species. I want to hear about them. I’m tired of feeling like we’re killing the earth. I want to know that even though we are killing the earth, that the earth is still pretty resilient. Are we really the insignificant dust in the universe that some people claim? Or are we really so significant that we can change the fate of an entire planet? Or are we the planet’s fate to begin with? And who believes in fate anyway?
I’m pretty much pro-environment and anti-destroying it; however, I would really like to hear more about the newly created species for awhile. I’m tired of hearing about species becoming extinct (not really, just kind of). I’m reading A Walk in the Woods (which is very good), and Bryson is fond of describing trees (the American chestnut, for example) that have been destroyed by various natural and unnatural means through the years. With so many things dying off, surely new things are being introduced. I figure the ecosystem is like a dictionary where words fall out of use while new words are added all the time. Evolution has not just stopped. There must be new species. I want to hear about them. I’m tired of feeling like we’re killing the earth. I want to know that even though we are killing the earth, that the earth is still pretty resilient. Are we really the insignificant dust in the universe that some people claim? Or are we really so significant that we can change the fate of an entire planet? Or are we the planet’s fate to begin with? And who believes in fate anyway?