Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Thinking Like a Mountain

An ecosystem only works when every plant and animal is connected together in a balance, a harmony that equalizes the predators, and the prey, and creates a symmetric bond.  Aldo Leopold came to understand this during a hunting trip, when he witnessed this harmony in nature.

Leopold goes on a hunting trip and sees a wolf swim across a river below them.  The old wolf is met by   a pack of grown pups who greet her excitedly.  Leopold and his buddies start shooting the wolves, excited to kill them.  Then as they watch the old wolf die, they see a fire in her eyes that makes him realize there is a balance to the mountain, and he has just disrupted it. Leopold comes to understand that a mountain needs its wolves, because without wolves to eat the deer, the deer eat everything on the mountain, leaving it bare.

This article was really sad.  I was amazed to read about how the hunters shot the wolves without hesitation!  To them that was a great opportunity, but to our generation, it seems inhuman.  There was a lot of descriptive language, which helped me to connect.  I understood what he was saying about the mountain being eaten alive.  It was awful for me to think about them killing the wolves so easily.

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