This is a collection of articles dealing with organic gardening, ecology, environmental restoration, news items of interest, travel and just about anything else I find of interest and willing to share with others around the globe. - ENJOY!
On that note regarding nature, first of all you need to know that for successful detailed observation of Nature it does NOT require a Scientific Lens. You do NOT need to be Credentialed. You do NOT need Alphabet Soup Intitials behind your name on some business card. Same thing when it comes to making judgements about people, you don't need to be a psychologist. The old saying, "Don't judge a book by it's cover," is a metaphorical phrase that means one shouldn't prejudge the worth or value of something (or persons) by its outward appearance alone. In other words people will often not take the time to open a book to find out it's true contents if the cover & title do not have that eye candy appeal. Humans have done this for centuries and the result has brought us our present world of disunity & intense hatred which has further resulted unintended consequences of our present planet's degraded natural world. Yup, we are at a crossroads of where our planet's natural world is collapsing at an ever increasing rate because living things are being judged for the same reasons that people throughout history judged by other people from the very beginning. As imperfect human beings we all do it. We can't help it. We're predominantly visual creatures. Much like the advertisement on any product's wrapper in which consumables are packaged, this appeal to the eye not only powerfully affects what interests us, but also how we react when we open and view the contents we find inside. Scary isn't it ? 😟
Here's where often Nature falls Flat in the Eye Candy Appeal Department
Years ago in the early 1970s while in High School, I became intrigued with how various plant ecosystems functioned aside from all those narratives stated in all the science-based textbooks in my Ornamental Horticulture class. What I noticed was that people basically chose plants based on looks, colour, fragrance, food source, money making ventures, etc. Still there were 1000s of others out there that I reasoned must serve some type of useful function & purpose within the environment. Below here I stumbled upon a list somebody jotted down about important qualities for people to cultivate which they considered necessary for getting at the truth about how the natural world really works. Mainly it takes a lot of patience and careful observation in arriving at the truth which may even may lead one to alter their previous worldview on matters regarding Nature.
Illustration - Keri Smith
The one thing you have to appreciate is that Nature has basically been successful for countless 10s of 1000s of years, long before the 1950s Green Revolution where scientists insisted mankind could be saved from itself if they only gave unquestioning obedience and allegience to the prevailing Scientific Orthodoxy. Most of my Agricultural & Ornamental Horticultual textbooks back in the early 1970s were heavily influenced and inspired by the well known agro-chemical 1950s green revolution introduced by the former industrial munitions manufacturing corporate giants of World War II (both Allies & Axis Powers), now using those same bomb making chemicals for peace time agricultural business interests who claimed they only wanted to feed the world. Think I'm kidding ??? Look at this memory lane video from this 1977 Chevron commercial where they reminded us of just how harsh and unforgiving nature really was and without the help if industrial science to save us from an unforgiving planet, we had no chance.
Most of that technology was based on gross ignorance of how Nature actually works out in the wild. Pause and consider, for countless 10s of 1000s of years our planet's natural world operated like a well oiled finely tuned machine. What happened later was a little thing called human ignorance & arrogance (you can also throw in greed). Amazingly what Chevron did was use a soft warm reassuring voice of a well known actor & voice-over artist named, Mason Adams. You may remember Mason Adams was the Character Actor that starred on the TV Show "Lou Grant'. He was also the famous voice of those Smuckers Jams and Jelly TV commercials. Remember, "With a name like Smuckers, it has to taste good" ??? And people believed it and responded by throwing their hard earned money at what was advertised. He was also the famous voice behind that 73 AMC Matador Dealer Film or 64 Buick Wildcat Commercial. Indeed, so comfortable and reassuring was Mason Adams' voice, that back in the 1950s/60s that same warm Mason Adams' voice could get you to believe that Chesterfield Cigarettes were good for you and millions followed that lead much to the unintended consequences of bad health and early death. It's all marketing folks and Science has been good at marketing junk for decades and now we have Climate Change as a result. Most of the green people won't admit that of course, but it's true. Bad Science led us all here. Let's fast forward and visit another subject known as "Plant Blindness."
Back in September of 2018 of last year, the Memoria Press published an article by Martin Cothran dealing with the subject of plant blindness. The article was interesting in that it revealed far too many college students taking plant science courses are incapable of actual identification of plants (trees, shrubs, etc). But instead these students are studying plants from a commercialized applications perspective. Nobody, really seems interested in the plants and how they function and what purpose they serve within any ecosystem anymore. Like the illustration on the right, today's average student has those racehorse blinkers on which prevent them from having a peripheral view. One of the best quotes in that article was this one below:
"Not only are there fewer university botany programs, but those who graduate from them may not be well versed in plant identification. The cutting edge of plant science, which has commercial applications, is molecular. Students and universities are following the significant money."
One of the most demonized Chaparral Plants in California - Chamise (Adenostoma fasticulatum)
Photo - Gabi McLean (Eaton Canyon)
In the historic past, many ancient peoples were very familiar with a great variety of plants. Many Native Americans for example well knew which plants they could derive potions, pultices, and/or poisons, and eventually most European would have learned and recognised these same plants for food, medicine, etc. By comparison, research has shown that most modern day people can’t even name more than a few wild flowers. This is sad because it means people no longer take the time and patience to find out what good and beneficial qualities many plants serve either for us or their value and purpose within any ecosystem. Of course there’s a name which has been created for this inability to notice or recognise plants in one’s own environment, it's called “plant blindness.” Most of Earth's population resides in major large cities and urban centers, so generally speaking most city dwellers over time have been separated from nature. So there is very strong disconnect between humans and the environment, and we’re basically blind to the natural world around us. This is further exacerbated by the fact that humans spend less time outdoors in favour of their addiction to electronic devices.
Fathers are supposed to take the lead
Without giving a long list of the so-called ugly plant examples where people have judged certain plants worthless based solely on outward appearances, let's just take one classic example from California where I am from, Adenostoma fasciculatum (Chamise or Greasewood). This plant is often admittedly rugged and rangy looking, hence not even on a choice list of garden ornamentals. The second common name given to this plant, "Greasewood," is meant as a derogatory term describing it's explosive flare up in the event of wildfires because of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present within it's woody stems. Of course what many people forget is that most all plants do burn ferociously under the right insanely windy weather conditions. Look at the tropical Amazon rainforests. Who would have thought wet humid tropical plants would easily go up in smoke so ferociously ??? Many also consider Chamise to be competitive towards other more desirable plants even considering it invasive in it's own native habitat, often because it dominates the wild landscape where it is native. In other words none of the desirable plants can get a foothold because of Greasewood's presence. This is totally false of course and I have my own personal experience with the plant to testify to that.
Image - Mine 2015
First, from a purely observational viewpoint, I've seen California Holly, Parry Pinyon, Coulter & Jeffrey Pines including both Cuyamaca & Tecate Cypress on steep southern slope exposures in direct sunlight exposure thrive where the plant community is dominated by Chamise. I found that curious and odd decades ago when I first noticed this in the San Jacinto Mountains above Palm Springs, California, because I also at one time viewed Chamise as an aggressor. But apparently it's not an aggressor as much as a facilitator of other plants ability to survive. One other remarkable thing about Chamise is that it will grow where most other plants will not. It has an incredibly deep root system (several meters deep). This is important for erosion control. Chamise's deep root systems will penetrate fractured rock and facilitate hydraulic life & redistristribution of water to other plants during the summer hot months and pump excess water into subsoils during the rainy season to be used later and shared with other plants if conditions are right. AND during acceptionally wet period events, this normally Endo-Mycorhizal host plant will become Ecto-Mycorrhizal by sending out chemical messages through it's root exudates to alert ectomycorrhizal fungi to colonize it's roots which will in turn help all oak and pine seedlings to pioneer and colonize into chaparral plant communities where they did not exist previously. The seeds themselves being incredibly heavy were placed there by the common ScrubJay. Same with it's relative the Redshank or Ribbonwood (Adenostoma sparsifolium) chaparral shrub. Major changes in one's worldview is drastically needed here.
A little thing called "Plant Blindness" all begins with Man's judgement of fellow Man
The majority of mankind are traveling on a broad and spaceous motorway where fast paced lifestyle, impatience and lack of being content dominate. Like literal motorways or freeways, these expressways were purposefully created to replace what was viewed as slow, outdated & old fashioned. Yet the old curvey and twisting two lane highway never offended the land. Rather they moved with the landscape, around obstacles rather than blasting through them. Yes, it was slower and took more time, but you got more out of the travel through adventure. Mankind in general needs to slow waaaay down and ditch the broad and spaceous Motorway and opt for the narrow and curving cramped one. We hear today about all these paradigm shifts and progressive movements, but in actuality these are nothing more than the same old recycling of failed ideas dressed up to look enlightened and sophisticated. Our world continues on a sharp decline. Getting back to that laundry list above on how to be a better explorer, let's just look at that first jotted down point.
#1 Always be looking (notice the ground beneath your feet)
Photo is mine from 2013 (south of Julian, CA)
I love this first suggestion of always be looking at the ground beneath your feet as you walk or hike. It took some years before I really started doing this more and more. A lot of that habit came from slowing down, observing and later doing more research about things that interested me. The photo above is of a Pisolithus tinctorius truffle or mushroom I saw on a small game trail in the Chaparral brush habitat off Hwy 79 south of the town of Julian at the Desert Viewpoint Overlook. Had I not slowed down decades ago and taken time to gain experience and do research, the intuitiveness to spot what was hidden in plain sight, this truffle would have gone unnoticed. Like the average person on a hike, I probably would have passed over this truffle thinking it was nothing more than another stone. But lo & behold I was able collect a large sack of dried curred PT Mycorrhizal truffles whose chocolate spore powder I would use for injection into my landscape on host trees back down in El Cajon. Below here in the 2nd photo of the same truffle, but I've cleared away the debris from the truffle to reveal it's true nature in the second photograph as compared to image above where it's almost camoflaged.
Photo is mine from 2013 (south of Julian, CA)
image - Wikipedia
It took me a long time to develop deep appreciation for what some call the Dog Turd Fungus (Pisolithus tinctorius) you see above. I mean it's not the most photogenic of Mushrooms or truffles. Not as popular as the Christmas mushroom icon & Mario Bros Game energy mushroom known as Amanita muscaria or more commonly known as the fly agaric or fly amanita pictured to the right. This popular forest mushroom is known for it's distinctive eye candy appearance, known for bright bright red (sometimes bright yellow) with white spots, and for their hallucinogenic properties. Here in Sandinavia where I now live, the Saami & Siberian Shamans originally dressed up in Santa Claus type outfits & used this drug trip inducing mushroom to get in touch with the spirit world. Hence the reason for so many ancient myths continuing to live on.
But getting back to the uglier Pisolithus tinctorius truffle, it too has some remarkable qualities. Although not being as pretty as other mushrooms, it has amazing purpose and function in forested ecosystems where they are found. In the High Desert Mountain ranges and Chaparral plant communities of California where I come from, a healthy plant community and forested ecosystem thrives where these fungi are present. Why ???
Image - UGA Pecan Extension (Lenny Wells)
Image - Mike's Fab Shop
Shouldn't take a genius to see the advantages of a symbiotic fungi colonized on the root system of a specific host. PT Mycorrhizae will increase water and nutrient uptake for it's host tree by anywhere from 200% to 1000% depending on the health of the system. Of course in turn the tree feeds if sugars manufactured through photosynthesis. I've provided in the past when writing about this very subject with an illustration of the performance enhancing qualities of exhaust headers on a 1960s muscle car compared to the plain old stock factory exhaust system. Take the example of exhaust headers on this racing dragster in the photo on the right. They eliminate backpressure and increase horsepower with the industry’s finest selection of air-pushing, muscle-pumping performance exhaust headers compared to common factory showroom stock engine exhaust system. That's what the lowly Dog Turd fungus does for a Pine, Oak, Cottonwood, Eucalyptus or Pecan tree. Like our own gut bacteria, they can process and refine mineral nutrients from the surrounding soil which are locked up in a physical form not available to a tree on it's own. They can also send chemical messages into the tree to boost the immune system. I save money when installing an urban landscape or in habitat restoration by rejecting science-based synthetic chemicals for this natural option which has worked for countless 1000s of years. This is the same PT Mycorrhize I mentioned above which will colonize Chamise roots in exceptionally wet periods allowing forest trees to increase by pioneering into dense chaparral cover. When the fungal grid is present and pine nut or oak acorn germinates, it's taproot will immediately connect to the fungal grid establishing the trees and eventually replacing the chaparral 100s of years later. This understanding did not come over night and it certainly was not enhanced by the truffle's rather drab appearance. But seriously, if you saw at first glance this basket of Pisolithus tinctorius (dog turd) truffles, what would be your first impression minus all the knowledge we now possess as to their real worth ??? 😐
Pisolithus tinctorius photo by Tanya Riedel
Without all that knowledge of all these trees, shrubs and fungi you lose so much value for practical application in restoration work, landscape installation, etc. What is even more amazing is that even the credentialed people who champion the cause for Chaparral plant ecosystems don't even discuss this phenomena. Mainly it's mostly politics which offers no value in understanding our natural world. And yet researchers have written about it for decades, but to be fair, most environmental organizations push politics over education and that too is killing this planet. This very same thing works when it comes to judging people for their real worth by taking time and getting to know them, irrespective of their race, colour, ethicity, tribe, clan, culture, language, economic social background, etc.
Let's take some simple Illustrations from Familiar Situations that can actually Teach
Image - Pebble Shore Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana
Think back when you were a kid out on a camping trip or on a day picnic outing with family and friends along a lake or seashore. What was it that motivated you to chose the rocks you collected ? Was it the rock's colour, shape, size or pattern ? 😍 Whatever it was, it start with the natural eye candy visual of outward appearance. And as in the case of the photo above, there are so many options to choose from.
Image - The Rock Shed
But what about these stones in the photo above ??? Based on outward appearance, would any of you chosen any of these ??? You and I both know almost no one would ever collect such rocks when out on a hiking adventure, unless of course they had acquired knowledge of the true value of such rocks. And right there is the biggest problem. Actually taking the time and effort needed in getting to know the truth about any subject is looked upon as laborious and boring.
Animation - WikiHow
These rocks of course are called Geodes. Here is the Wikipedia explanation of what Geodes are.
"Geodes (derived from the Greek word "γεώδης" meaning "Earth like") are geological secondary formation within sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Geodes are hollow, vaguely circular rocks, in which masses of mineral matter (which may include crystals) are secluded."
Since I come from the desert (volcanic) regions of the Southwestern USA, I learned about Geodes and hunted for them since I was a kid in the middle 1960s. That's because somebody older took the patience and time to teach my friends and I such things. I am very familiar with many different types, but only because I learned from someone else who was experienced and taught me about them. Of course when it comes to collecting nothing is certain, so you need to be patient by taking a rock hammer and chisel or rock saw and very carefully opening and looking inside to reveal the true contents of the rock or stone.
Image - kabeeragate.com
So what is inside ? Could be a number of beautiful colours and patterns. Every geode is unique and different. Many are hollow while others solid. But in most cases beautiful patterns and colours emerge. Hollow geodes have various beautiful crystal formations known as Amethyst. You may even recognize many of these types of rocks from your past when you saw beautiful bookends on someone's bookshelf, although you may not have known at that time they were called geodes or where they came from.
Photo - Marie Douce
The whole point of this post is to illustrate how all things can have real value and worth though not immediately revealed by it's outward appearance. Mankind's mistreatment of each other has also been a reflection on why they fail miserably to hold value on all things in the wild. Many things in Nature have suffered because they were not immediately eye pleasing or perhaps no monetary value could be found in them, hence this is where biodiversity suffers and monocultures are desired. The effects on the planet have been devestating as a result. So who's responsible for a young person's appreciation of nature and fellow human beings ??? Environmentalists ??? Social Justice Warriors ??? Churches ??? Government or Public Schools ???
It's a Parent's responsibility to instill appreciation for Nature at an early age. Not the State's, not the Public School's, not some militant non-profit radical environmentalist group. It's all on Parents.
Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew (Credit: Getty)
It is important to get children involved with plants early, such as on nature walks, like the one shown here at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew in the United Kingdom. There is a biblical example which illustrates this beautifully. You don't have to believe in the bible to get the point here. The nation of Israel wanted a King so that they could be like all the other nations around them. They in effect wanted to reject theocracy (God rule) in favour of democracy or human rule. The almost impossible task of choosing was given to the Prophet Samuel. Notice how that went at 1 Samuel 16:6-7:
6 As they came in and he saw E·liʹab, he said: “Surely here before Jehovah stands his anointed one.” 7 But Jehovah said to Samuel: “Do not pay attention to his appearance and how tall he is, for I have rejected him. For the way man sees is not the way God sees, because mere man sees what appears to the eyes, but Jehovah sees into the heart.”
Humans of course do not possess supernatural abilities when it comes to sizing up another person and determining who and what they are as far as worth as to character. We have to work harder at that, but that's the point, it takes time and energy on our part to get to know what qualities another person posesses as to their true value and worth or whether association with them should be rejected altogether. Ponder over this info the next time you make a judgement call towards another human being or something else out there in the natural world. 😉
Hey Look, if Cornell University can say that Snakes act as 'ecosystem engineers' in seed dispersal because they eat cute little field mice with bulging check pouches loaded with seeds which can later be pooped out to spread seeds to germinate in other newer places, then I can say the same thing about extinct Megafauna. Frankly I think a snake as an ecosystem engineer in the spreading of seeds is a stretch, however their role as far as checks and balances in keeping ecosystems in a healthy state as a predator are undeniable. Actually I highly doubt Snakes really help spread all that many seeds to create new ecosystems, but that's just my opinion. Kooky narratives are a dime a dozen these days. Unless of course weedy annual invasive plants (mouse diet) are going to become in vogue sometime soon when it comes to redefining what the term "pristine" means. (Definition Shell Games are all the rage now days) I did see something the other day however that did make me sit up and take notice. It's a subject that I've pondered for a long time now, but have always shelved it away in the back of my mind to be reopened at some other future date. This subject (ecosystem engineering) actually has real potential for positive benefits regarding forest health management versus the negative consequences if we ignore it. My subject here is about the historical presence of megafauna and what their ancient role (purpose) may have been in actual engineering of ecosystems in ways that negate this incessant almost religious worship of Wildfires (both prescribed/controlled or just plain human stupidity) as the only solution to forest health. I'll provide some examples today that still exist in Africa of the large animal role in ecosystem engineering there, but let me first focus and single out what life may once have looked like in North America.
Thunder Beast Park, Oregon
I was doing some googling the other day and stumbled across this goofy looking image of a giant Ground Sloth. The place where this statue can be found is at an old theme park called Thunderbeast Park up in Chiloquin, Oregon. It's closed now and that is irrelevant to my point. It's the setting I saw in this photo here on the left. It's the image of a Giant Shasta Ground Sloth standing on it's rear hind legs within a pine forest with other conifers. I had seen this setting before in many photos from museums and PopSci articles dealing with the subject of the giant ground sloths and other megafauna. I sometimes visit a blog website which deals with forest management and other public lands policies. Generally the consersation over there is nothing more than a collection of opposing ideologues of two opposing religious philosophies engaged in figurative spitting and poop throwing contests and debates about which side has the moral high ground on forest management. More often than not it's neither side. The debates are quite often about the definition of what a pristine forest is and what natural mechanisms in history played the biggest role in healthy forests and other vegetation ecosystem management. In general both sides will accept the blind faith religious concept that fire plays the biggest role and it's fire suspression's fault that things have gotten so out of hand. But is that really so ? Wildfire is NOT a creator, it's a destroyer. Take a look here at some other artist's concept illustrations of how Scientists most often depict the Ground Sloths in action. I have in fact previously written about megafauna, but from the standpoint of their role their (Mega-Fauna Poop) played in ecosystem benefits and function.
(From the BBC Credit: Mike Danton/Alamy)
Artwork by Wayne Ferrebee
In almost every single artist's depiction of a Giant Ground Sloth, these animals are almost always shown standing on their hind legs stripping trees branches a few meters up the tree's trunk. Other megafauna may be seen browsing the ground as they pass through a forest. In other cases whole young trees are toppled over to the ground for making easier access to the abundant foliage and tender bark. More than likely these young saplings would rarely recover which provided a much needed thinning service of a forest understory. It would be easy to see how only a small percentage of trees eventually would become those giant old growth trees we've seen in photos and other photos from the fossil record. Add in other large browsing and grazing herbivores along with medium and small herbivores, we can visualize a clearer picture of what perfect forest understory housekeepers those animals really were. But they are all gone now. Unfortunately, humans today have to labor at forest management by using axes, chainsaws, bulldozers and other heavy equipment along with their precious control burns. This is a very similar experience of 20th century Secular China who killed off Sparrows because they mistakenly believed in ignorance that the sparrows were going to eat all their grain. Later it was discovered that sparrows did more than eat grain, they are also incredible insect foragers. With the increase in insect pests, came the increased innovation in synthetic science-based pesticides, with the resultant of indiscriminate killing of all manner of insects (Good & Bad) which eventually included the decimation of honey bees and other pollinators which now forces Chinese Farmers to employ labour intensive hand pollination techniques formerly done by Nature.
Artwork by Velizar Simeonovski based on scientific research Mastodon Lake in Aurora, IL
Opening scenes in Jurassic Park
And it's not just the role that the large conventional mammals may have played in ecosystem engineering, function and maintenance, but what about all those mysterious giant creatures we call Dinosaurs ? We can only imagine what their roles were through the scientific narratives provided by PopSci journals and Hollywood movie producers. We are often only treated to a dinosaur world narritive as a vicious violent "survival of the fittest" beasts which provides the popular entertainment value that modern human beings unfortunately crave, despite more responsible protests to the contrary by some. Death and destruction sells. Old school ecosystem documentaries don't. But what if the ancient world back then wasn't really like the violent place they want us to believe it was ? Take this illustrative gif on the right here. Do you remember that scene of the giant Brachiosaurus browsing the tree top of the tall Eucalyptus creating a neatly manicured open forested woodland ? And what about that vicious killer T-Rex so commonly described in all the narratives as the ultimate Alpha Predator with it's bloodthisty and violent lifestyle ? In his 1993 book "The Complete T. Rex," paleontologist Jack Horner, promoted the idea that T. Rex may have actually been primarily a scavenger. 😲 Knowing the Scientific Orthodoxy's obsession with control of academia's approved worldview, you can imagine how well that went down. 😠 But seriously, if something as large as a Brachiosaurus dies, what on earth is going to clean up that rotting mess ??? Flies & their baby maggots ??? That stench and foul disease spreading scenario could've lasted for months and months. Jack Horner once told an audience:
"He has no arms, can’t run fast, appears to have a large olfactory lobe and he’s big. Interestingly enough if you think about it, one of the best things to be if you are a scavenger is big so you can chase away anything else around the carcass."
But people in general love the violent Dino-World fantasy scenario. They don't want to hear about T-Rex being some sort of land vulture in Dino-World. This is in line with all other things violent mankind today enjoys as entertainment (video games, movies, News Media, sports, etc). And Hollywood is all to happy to oblige, as does the Scientific Orthodoxy who knows all too well what sells and what inspires further funding for their pet projects within academia. Clearly, we can even imagine how herbivore dinosaurs engineered and shaped ecosystems as well as those later smaller scale versions of Mega-Fauna killed off by the much celebrated ecological Indians. But are there any illustrative examples left in the wild today that provide an illustrative view of the importance and loss of Mega-Fauna for providing ecosystem services ???
Not exactly ancient Mega-Fauna, but Africa's large mammals will do
illustration - vecteezy.com
Photo credit: Josh Donlan.
Ever wonder how those iconic Acacia trees of the African Savanna you see into those iconic photos and film documentaries got their picturesque pattern & form ? They don't shape themselves that way without help. In fact without all browsing animals, Acacia trees would look like nothing more than giant versions of Mesquite Bosques in the southwestern USA, just a massive ball of tree from the ground up and with masses of thorns. Fortunately for us, Nature lends a hand in various stages of growth from the Acacia's youth to it's tall maturity. In the beginning millions of delicate Acacias are probably eaten. Those that escape grazing may make it to bush than small tree. Early browsing would first come from smaller browsers like these goats seen here above right in the Galapagos Islands or the Gazelles in east Africa and others like antelope or Deer.
Such browsing by goats in this way has been going on since the time of the ancient Egyptians who recorded their browsing behaviour in trees. Later animals like Camels move in to take their share, never killing the tree, but eating enough outer branches to continually force the growth in the middle ever higher upward. It's interesting to note that these desert and dry Savanna animal diets consist of things with nasty thorns which would be tough on most domestic animals. I have to imagine that the same would be true of the past rugged megafauna and their choice of a rangey dry thorny diet (chaparral, mesquite, Osage Orange, etc). Take note below of this Camel eating a Prickly Pear Cactus pad with all those thorns.
Camels browsing large Acacia in the Sinai Desert
TripAdvisor in the Sinai
Well, where the goats can't reach beyond a certain height the larger Camels take over. But even they have a limited reach compared to this Elephant below standing on hind legs to reach as high as possible low branches with leaves.
Image - Jaldapara-National-Park
Image - Jacques Jacobsz
Ouch, once again, there is nothing more thorny than the long thorns of an African Acacia tree, but these giants with the tough mouth parts and their powerful grinding equipment can pulverize tough plants and cycle them through their cast iron guts further processing this meal which allows an ecosystem to be engineered and managed to provide many other opportunities for a plethora of other creatures to make a living. Clearly the Elephant will do whatever it takes to reach a meal like standing on it's hind legs. But what a meal. This thorny mouthful you see here on the right is from Etosha National Park in Namibia. Big animals have the biggest appetites. Such plant parts with all their mass of fiber probably don't have a whole lot of nutrition, which requires lots of time spent browsing and pruning. That's a good thing, because we need more and more mechanisms in the phenotypic plasticity department for shaping trees. But elephants are simply another phase in the final outcome of the iconic image we have of Acacia Trees. Elephants also offer another important service for the Acacia and other trees.
Image - Reforestation.me
In the absence of such large animals as Elephants, scores of tree species may be left without a means of long-distance seed dispersal, which is essential for forest structure and colonization. Trees whose seeds are dispersed by smaller animals cannot fill the void left by the absence of larger elephants, dramatically altering forest composition. Fewer elephants will also mean a more limited distribution of the nutrients contained in their dung. This phenomena is true of all plant community ecosystems where elephants are an integral part, like the Central African Rain Forests. Below is an important research link on that area which has been recently published.
So what about the need of Mega-Fauna to engineer and maintain major North American forested ecosystems ? Fat chance of that ever happening ever again despite all the fantasy rewilding articles about cloning Mammoths from degraded frozen DNA. Or maybe all we really need are just more and more Wildfires, Native Americans and😕 Fire Ecologists to tell us what we need to do in order to fix the overgrown forests since megafauna absence 😞
Final Phase in Acacia Tree sculpting - Savanna's Giraffes
Photograph - Giraffes in Tanzania
Image - AKFTravel.com
Of course the final refinement phase of sculpting an Acacia Forest is provided by the Giraffes who have the highest reaches possible. Giraffes are the tallest large animals left in the natural world. Giraffes use their height to good advantage to browse on leaves and buds in these Acacia treetops that the other animals I reference earlier couldn't reach. Even the giraffe's blue-black tongue is a long tool for this task. The 21-inch tongue helps them pluck their preferred leaves from the high branches. Giraffes eat most of the time (16 to 20 hours a day) and, like cows, they regurgitate their food and chew it as cud. A giraffe eats hundreds of pounds of leaves each week and must travel miles to find enough food. Such a large appetite benefits the entire ecosystem from a broad perspective.
Photograph by Kit Korzun
Image - Veronika Marchina
Some Giraffes target the deciduous Acacias and others like the more permanent evergreen trees. Without Giraffes there would be no pictureque forms of trees within any African ecosystem. Sadly the reality of giraffe disappearance is coming closer than many think. While it is popular today on social media to expose the iconic image of the mighty white trophe hunter (which is often thru lottery for conservation we are told), there is also the other main problem of indigenous peoples which almost no one seems to want to expose. Like North America's eventual extinction of it's Mega-Fauna by Native Americans, Africa also has an indigenous population which has an over hunting problem influenced by cultural traditions. Folks forget that while these people can be respected for the great knowledge and understanding of Nature, they themselves are also real human beings with the same imperfections and flaws much like the vilified white European. Take this Giraffe's tail photo on the right. Did you know it's a status symbol to have a Giraffes tail in some African cultures ? These animals will be killed and their carcass left with nothing more than it's long tail taken off. Just like Asians killing whole Sharks for nothing more than fins for soup or Rhino horns aphrodisiacs, Elephants for tusks for carvings or Bears for paws or gall bladders for mystic medicines. Every race, culture and ethicity of human being on this planet is capable of stupid decision making motivated by ignorance and greed. It's not just the evil peoples of European origins for whom conservationists are fond of targeting. Take a moment and view this video of recent tragedy.
Garamba National ParkDemocratic Republic of the Congo
What Africa would look like without the large Mammals
Photo by CSIRO
In the photo above in Arizona there is a small desert tree (Mesquite) which forms what are known as Mesquite Bosques. These woodlands in many areas are almost impenetrable. One wonders with the presence of North America's Mega-Fauna how different such the Mesquite Bosque plant communities may have looked like than they appear today. And all those thorns. A person could only imagine how tall, bushy and dense Acacia Bosques might be if Elephants, Giraffes and other browsers were completely eliminated from the African ecosystems. Acacia thorns are like Mesquite thorns, but on steroids.
A couple of the many Creatures that would be missed without the services of large Ecosystem Engineers
Image - Jo Crebbin of Florida (July 2011)
How many times have you watched a documentary and seen the preferred home of the iconic African Leopard being a tall open Acacia tree ? Where or in what would the Leopard live without them ? They need safety in tall Acacia trees (or other trees) and a place for viewing their claimed territory for danger or for their next meal.
Image - Bing Daily
What about another iconic creature in the Savanna like the Weaver Bird colonies. Of course there are many, some more communal than others, but where would they go and nest ? Of course in the absence of trees they have used telephone poles. But seriously, telephone pole weavers ?
Studies - Past & Present Ecosystem Engineers
This information below is pretty kool, so pay very close attention 😎
Important Quotes: Take note of the lack Wildfire being labeled as a Creator or Ecosystem Engineer. Somewhere around the world Fire Ecologists are falling off chairs after reading this one.
"The integrative study by modern and paleo-ecologists shows large herbivores to be major engineers of ‘landscape openness’."
"Present-day large herbivores substantially open up otherwise wooded landscapes. This sheds new light on the consequences of the extinction of the very large herbivores that roamed the earth during the Pleistocene. Think of mammoths, ground sloths, diprotodons, and many others."
"Lead author Liesbeth Bakker from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology explains: “Large herbivores are not merely victims of the circumstances they live in, but actively engineer their environment. This has major consequences for other species, and for the structure of the entire landscape.”
“Acknowledging the major ecosystem-engineering role of large herbivores, you can’t imagine that vegetation stayed the same regardless of their presence or absence in the Late Pleistocene,” says Bakker.
Instead, the team proposes to predict the openness of landscapes based on the diversity of the herbivore community and on actual animal densities. Modern techniques allow further application of this framework for a better understanding of events at the end of the Pleistocene.
Present-day implications (Pay Real Close Attention)
"The findings of the study even have implications for our understanding of present-day ecosystem functions, An 'underbrowsed landscape' - that is, without large herbivores - leads to increased fire incidences: a phenomenon also observed after the Late Pleistocene extinctions."
"Furthermore, contemporary conservation practices have to deal with another decline of native large herbivores, resulting in more wooded landscapes. Or with the opposite case of locally high densities of herbivores such as deer, that lead to increased landscape openness. The present study facilitates a better prediction of both cases."
From one of the references in the article above
Early Native American encounter with Mylodon or Ground Sloth in it's cave
So let's recap: the loss of this planet's ancient Megafauna created heavily dense vegetative ecosystems and greater potential for destructive Wildfire. Did you notice the lack of Tribalism worship of indigenous peoples in that article as the ultimate conservationists lighting fires everywhere as something considered good for maintaining the environment ??? 😳 We have countless arguments going back and forth (between power hungry ideologues) today about how we need more regular fire within the planet's wild ecosystems and that lack of wildfire with decades of suppression gave us today's megafire scenarios. Well, no, they stated emphatically that it was the huge lack of large herbivores which cause all these modern day Wildfires. And it wasn't just North America either, it was also human (indigenous Aboriginals) in Australia which caused the extincton of Australia's Megafauna and increases in destructive fire on that native landscape on that continent. This interesting video below of the Kumeyaay Natives of San Diego County admits at the begining that the early ancestors used larger Spears to hunt and kil close up Giant Ground Sloths and shorter Mastodon Elephants into extinction, which forced them to give up larger weapons for smaler bows and arrows to kill Deer, Bighorn Sheep, Rabbits, etc.
Tragety in the American West, Forests are not regenerating
The photo above is incredibly sad. Trees in the western part of the United States just aren't producing enough viable seed anymore to revegetate the landscape and what seed that does germinate no longer survives. In an interesting research study on fire frequency (increases) and it's causes, it has been found that in 90% of the wildfires experienced today, just in North America alone is at 90% human caused. That leaves 10% cause being lightning or Volcano (nature) caused. That 10% Nature caused would have existed back when the megafauna were present and clearly that 10% would have had very little impact as wildfires do today in massive wholesale destruction that we are being force fed as a good thing. Here's the link to that study if wildfire causes:
Under What Conditions Would Pleistocene Large Herbivore Assemblages Have Had Most Impact? 😉
This link below and accompanying illustration show possible impacts of past megafauna around the globe in heavily wooded ecosystems by studying present impacts of large herbivores which still exist today in areas of Africa. Here is a quote from the end of this study on large herbivore impacts on woody plants.
"Studies on current megaherbivore impacts are extremely valuable because these animals are the only proxies that we have for extinct megafauna. Better insight into the behavior, habitat prefer-ences, and whole ecosystem functions of large herbivores is required to predict their impact on landscape structure. Because most are experiencing alarming declines, some may already be too rare to study whereas, for several species, the wider impacts of their ecosystem. Combining paleo-data and modern exclosure experiments to assess the impact of megafauna extinctions on woody vegetation engineering effects only very recently have started to become clear"
Hypothesized impact of large herbivore removal on landscape structure, proportion of light-demanding woody species, and fire frequency. All of these landscapes represent sites where the climate and soil allow trees to dominate. The dotted and dashed lines in A-C correspond to the three herbivore assemblages indicated on the x axis of D. The three herbivore combinations represent a series of herbivore diversity indicating simplification from the full Pleistocene fauna to the common late Holocene condition. We predict that removal of megaherbivores would result in (A) increased woody plant abundance, (B) reduced percentage of light-demanding species, and (C) increased fire frequency, depending on the densities of the remaining wild herbivores. (D) The resulting landscape structure. In essence, over time, the landscape developed in many areas from open in the Late Pleistocene, with high densities of diverse herbivore assemblages (D, Top Right), to defaunated wild herbivore communities controlled at low densities in the Holocene, resulting in a wooded landscape (D, Bottom Left), unless livestock is introduced, which could take over the role of native extinct grazers, resulting in a wood pasture (D, Middle). In the wood pasture, palatable light-demanding trees can regenerate within the protection of light-demanding thorny shrubs. When browsers are not managed, they can reach high densities, resulting in an open landscape with unpalatable, light-demanding trees (D, Top Left).
Basically with the presence of megafauna, you get more large open old growth Forests or Savanna areas with trees and clean understories. Any naturally caused fire would have been a non-event other than cleaning what has been left by the animals. Take this photograph below.
Image - Gale Science Group
Clearly, with an abundance numerous mega-fauna species keeping the forest understories clean and well groomed, if fire ever happened at all it would have been a slow moving low intensity fire like we see in the photo above. Not the so-called megafires we are use to experiencing today. Most forest fires have become these crown fires which burn up the entire forest from ground to tree tops. One would wonder with the propaganda of fire interval frequency of 30 to 70 years, how any trees ever became these old growth of trees of fame. Frankly for me it is more likely that the megafauna had more influence on old growth forests, like this reconstructed giant ground sloth in the illustration at Mastodon State Historic Site, Missouri. The picture I provided at the very top of this post showed a Giant Ground Sloth standing on hind legs and browsing and stripping off lower branches of a pine forest. Perhaps such megafauna also browsed seedlings and saplings and kept the understory clean that way as well as the seasonally migrated. Who knows ? But clearly wildfire would not have been the natural creator and engineer many want to make it out to be. I've only focussed on Ground Sloths. I haven't even mentioned the Mastodons (browsers) or Mammoths (grazers) or any of the other creatures that would have helped engineer ancient ecosystems. As an example, take a look at what has changed since that ancient time below with Lodgepole pine forests.
Photograph - Jim Peaco - Yellowstone Sept 1998
Image - Walter Feller Mojave.net
At top here we have a Lodgepole Pine forest burnt back in 1998 and the resulting 1000s of saplings which have replaced those 1000s of dead trees. As is typical of a common Lodgepole Pine forest, the average person will generally sees or envisions a kind of Matchstick Forest, hence the name Lodgepole when we think of an American Indian culture and their Tepee with it's lodgepoles. But an incredibly puzzling thing here is the label of Lodgepole Pines needing fire as part of it's lifecycle ecology. And for that we see the labels of "Obligate Seeder" or "Serotiny" which describes plants which are said to only release seed from tightly sealed cones after wildfire resulting from the melting of the resinous layer locking the cones shut. But still, one has to wonder if a Lodgepole forest was always nothing more than matchsticks and if perhaps the ancient Mega-Fauna didn't play a more direct role in their ecosystem development of openness in which any fire's effect was negligible. Especially when you consider this giant old growth single champion Lodgepole Pine here in the photo up on the right which was taken by Walter Feller in the San Bernardino Mountains. The world "Champion Lodgepole Pine" (discovered in 1963) is a magnificent, double-topped tree which towers above the surrounding forest reaching a height of roughly 110 feet. It's age is estimated to be older than 450 years, which means that it germinated some time about the year 1560 CE. You see, my problem here is that there's also that nagging claim by many fire ecologists who give us this personal narrative worldview of what was once natural or pristine when it came to fire and plant communities. Here is what I mean from these quotes below. This first is from Utah State University on Lodgepole Pine fire intervals as they understood it back in 1985:
"Fire Frequency (Stephen Arno 1980) concluded that fire has historically been more frequent in lodgepole pine than previously realized. He reported fire-free intervals of only 22 to 50 years in many lodgepole pinedominated stands in the northern Rocky Mountains (table 1), yet some high elevation areas have fire-free intervals measured in centuries (Romme, 1980).
This next quote is from Richard Halsey of the California Chaparral Institute. Keep in mind he is mainly talking about the Chaparral Plant Community, but chaparral is also intermingled with forests, especially in Southern California where this very anomalous Champion Lodgepole Pine is located within the San Bernardino National Forest. It's a little higher interval.
"The natural fire return interval for chaparral is 30 to 150 years or more. Today, there are more fires than the chaparral ecosystem can tolerate."
This next quote comes from the San Diego Union Tribune which relied on University of California Riverside's Fire Ecologist, Richard Minnich, whose calculations could only legitimize the present western States wildfire causes to include the 90% as normal and natural. As weird as that sounds, here is what he says about the large wildfire up near Idyllwild California called the Mountain Fire in 2013. (Interval 20 to 50 years just like Utah State)
"Southern California forests are two to three times denser than they were then, Minnich said, and pack far more ground fuel. The thickly wooded peaks of Mt. San Jacinto hadn’t burned in 130 years he said – more than twice the site’s historic 50-year fire cycle."
Below here, Chad Hanson of the John Muir Project, spoke about fire intervals of high intensity being 300 to 400 years in between events. But he also stated possibility of a length as long as 800 years and if longer and most likely these were low intensity fires. In referring to the Sierra Nevada Mountains of eastern California, he said this:
"This equates to fire rotation intervals for high-intensity fire of roughly 400 to 300 years (i.e., for a fire rotation interval of 300 years, a given area would tend to burn at high severity once every 300 years on average).
"Given the size of the forested area in the Sierra Nevada, about 13 million acres (Franklin and Fites-Kaufman 1996), this equates to a highintensity fire rotation interval of more than 800 years in current forests (longer rotation intervals correspond to less high-intensity fire)."
So for me Hanson's interval of wildfire with bare minimum 300 to 400 years works better for me and provides a clearer explanation for why the Champion Lodgepole Pine in the San Bernardino Mountains has lived so long and grown to immense stature. Even with the past several decades of human caused wildfire increase, this Lodgepole has been extremely lucky, you know, given the extra 90% ??? This also tells me something about a Lodgepole Pine's ancient historical life cycle being far different than how we view them today as matchsticks for some Log Cabin Kit company to sell to the public.
Image - Jim Peaco
Let's revisit that 1988 Yellowstone Lodgepole Pine forest recovery scenario where 1000s and 1000s of Lodgepole saplings came back the following rainy season in 1989 with a vengeance. If Utah State University in 1985 claimed an interval of 22 to 50, Richard Minnich's claim of 30 to 50 years or the Chaparral Institute's 70 to 150 years are true, then these assertions of fast turnover don't really allow for a Lodgepole Pine to become that famous old growth champion of the San Bernardino Mtns. From the over crowded saplings scenario above right, if left unmolested and thinned, they allow another high intensity total destructive event as described by Utah State University and Minnich. Why would that be something to celebrate ? Well, it's not. The intervals they are describing may well have been a reality when numerous Native American tribes were lighting annual wildfires to run wildlife off cliffs, making war against hated enemy tribes or any amount of dumb mistakes common to every other human being. This hardly fits the bill for the definition of what the words/terms "Natural" or "Pristine" are supposed to mean. Instead, what if sometime way back in history 100s of years ago there were higher populations of large animals, especially megafauna which would have periodically migrated through such large woodland areas and greatly thinning these masses of young tender Lodgepole Saplings by either eating or simply crushing them under hoof ? Trees that succeeded would have been further apart with future periodic pruning over decades taking away the lower branches negating any fire-ladder scenario. In that case, any truly natural caused lightning fire would have been a low intensity event with many healthy trees being able to survive with no problem. Hence fewer impenetrible density of trees, but more open forests giving us old growth examples.
Now the longer large fire intervals as suggested by Chad Hanson would make for a more positive setting for Lodgepole Pines to become old growth over 100s of years with lower intensity fires resulting from cleaner understories provided by megafauna herbivores. What if Lodgepole forests looked more like today's old growth Sequoias on a smaller gage of course. Seriously, if wildfire were more common within the forest where the Champion exists, that tree would have burned up long ago from the massive lower branches almost reaching the ground. Unfortunately today, fire is considered by land management experts the ONLY healthy way to maintain forests, aside from thinning through harvest of timber. The justification is because fire is natural and the other old time favourite, "Because Indians did it." So ? Yes fire is natural and can even be properly used as a tool. But the question still remains, did mega-fauna regularly move in through forests and clean understories through their own dietary habits and ground disturbance by their shear size and bulk ??? Remember what happened with China's zero tolerance for Sparrows where they anihilated most all those birds (mistakenly believing they were going to eat all their grain), thus causing insect pest increase on crops which increased pesticide use which in turn killed of their honey bees. Now they have to hand pollinate. Now given the extinction of megafauna and their ecosystem engineering services, humans have to be more hands on with grazing techniques that work and some forest thinning harvest (not clearcuts) should be used in biomimicry of the ancient services the Mega-Fauna would have provided historically for thousands of years. I realize that the majority of the Environmentalist people have a passionate dislike for ranchers, cattle and other grazing animals, but let's take a look at what is coming out these days regarding research in this area of holistic grazing by a handful of dedicated ranchers.
One More Brief Note On Large Elephants
Credit: Sergio de la Rosa
These sculptures above, were made by Mexican artist Sergio de la Rosa. They show three ancient elephant ancestors of our modern elephants: (from left to right) the Mastodon, the Mammoth and the Gomphothere. To the right we see both the African Elephant and the Asia Elephant. What is interesting is that there are also variations of both of these in the continental territories. But basically they are all related and can interbreed. What researchers have found is that from researching all the genetic material in all Elephantids (as scientists have coined the new phrase) the same DNA is basically shared by all. Past and Present. So understanding past megafauna behaviour, diets and impacts on various types of plant commuities, we need look no further than present days African and Asian Elephants. Here's a short paragraph of the recently published news from the National Academy of Sciences:
"Elephantids were once among the most widespread megafaunal families. However, only three species of this family exist today. To reconstruct their evolutionary history, we generated 14 genomes from living and extinct elephantids and from the American mastodon. While previous studies examined only simple bifurcating relationships, we found that gene flow between elephantid species was common in the past. Straight-tusked elephants descend from a mixture of three ancestral populations related to the ancestor of African elephants, woolly mammoths, and present-day forest elephants. We detected interbreeding between North American woolly and Columbian mammoths but found no evidence of recent gene flow between forest and savanna elephants, demonstrating that both gene flow and isolation have been central in the evolution of elephantids."
Are there any Mega-Fauna substitues for which Forests & Prairies can be managed today ? (Introduced Animals - Part I)
Image Mark and Emily Fagan
This cute little Burro colt photo on the right here was taken near Parker Dam on the Colorado River in Azizona. Burros are common everywhere in the southwest. But there is a movement to eradicate them as invasives. In far-West Texas, a coalition of government agencies, agricultural universities and conservation organizations has decided that wild burros on public lands should be eradicated. The coalition based its decision on the belief that what the burros are doing in the videos below harms wildlife – especially Desert Bighon Sheep and Desert Mule Deer – and all wildlife habitat. This belief reflects the fundamental disagreement between Big Wildlife and holistic thinkers such as Aldo Leopold over this question: In nature, do species such as burros and wolves compete with or complement other species and the system in general ??? Take special note, back when the Megafauna of North America existed, both horses and donkeys were also present. In reality, today's wild Burros provide access to water for other wildlife. Remember that famous false religious faith affirmation, "Survival of the Fittest" ??? Well forget it. It's "Survival of the Mutally Cooperative." Babylon the Great takes on many forms, even secular. Below are some great video captures by Arizona Researcher, Erick Lundgren and the holistically run Circle Ranch.
A researcher in the Arizona desert is unearthing hitherto unknown secrets about the remarkable well-digging exploits of wild burros. Erick Lundgren, a PhD student in the biology program at Arizona State University, has used motion detecting game cameras in his research to learn more about the ability of burros to dig for water, and has also chronicled many other species taking advantage of the burros’ wells. Erick, who has worked as a field technician in projects involving birds, mammals, and rivers over the last nine years, has focused his efforts on Arizona’s desert, where burros can dig wells more than a meter deep. Erick was quoted: “Many species use these wells for drinking water. This behavior has never been described in the literature, likely due to prevailing negative attitudes towards introduced species.” He explained how he first became involved in researching the water-finding prowess of burros, which is part of what he calls the unseen ecology of the species. Three years later, he had successfully documented the origin of these wells, and confirmed his suspicions: They were dug by burros. “Burro well-digging has never been described in the scientific literature,” he says. Lundgren says he is now doing his PhD research on this phenomena, which connects to a growing body of scientific thought that is shifting opinions on introduced species. “From my preliminary data, it appears that burros are significantly increasing water availability in the desert. He said, “I have found sites that are very arid, with limited and intermittent surface water, where burro-wells maintain access to subterranean water throughout the year.”
Photo - Erick Lundren
He also found that, in certain contexts, these burro-wells appeared to function as vegetation nurseries. He found that in the moist depressions there were significantly more cottonwood and willow seedlings germinated in abandoned burro-wells than in adjacent riverbank zones. Lundgren said a small grant from Arizona State University had enabled him to buy several trail cameras for his research. That enabled him to document 13 species using these wells, including bighorn sheep. He further said, “To test how burros, by digging wells, influence this, we are conducting a ‘cafeteria’ experiment – offering invertebrate herbivores fresh leaves (high in water) and dry leaves in areas around burro-wells and in areas without surface water. “The herbivores’ choice will indicate how water is driving their consumption decisions.” Should he get enough funding to allow full-time research next summer, he hoped to employ a drone, instead of surveying on foot, to measure the availability of water through the entire season. “I would then have the time to answer more nuanced questions – how do burro-wells influence the movement patterns of other desert species? How do communities of arthropods and rodents differ between areas with burro-wells and areas where burros are not present? “Unfortunately, these questions cannot be answered without treating this research as a full-time job.” Lundgren notes that burros, as an introduced species, were commonly described by the scientific community as “scourges”. “Nearly all primary scientific effect-studies about them focus on how burros overgraze and outcompete native species,” he says. He said these studies had failed to yield generalizable understandings because of weak methodologies and their failure to consider the ecological context of apex predator control. Lundgren would welcome any further contributions via his crowdfunding page to help with future research into the well-digging and what he calls the unseen ecology of the wild burro.
Note below how Butterflies are benefitted by Burro wells
Australia Forested Ecosystems also benefit from burrowing small mammals like the Bandicoots (Quendas)
Although I've focussed attention on the impact of the larger Megafauna animals on forests, let's not forget benefits of smaller animals and their burrows.
Image - Leone Valentine
"Seedlings of Eucalyptus gomphocephala are taller when grown in the spoil heap soil, produced by the foraging activities of the Southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus), compared to seedlings grown in undug soil and soil collected from the pit-base"
Horses appear to be another missing Equine component
Photo image of wild hore in BLM holding corral Devin Davis/BLM
"When I see wild horses locked out of nature in holding corrals, I see a huge resource being wasted by ignorance." - William E. Simpson
"It’s akin to putting an entire fire department in jail during fire season! If they’re not wanted on cattle ranchlands that’s fine, but there are places where there is no competition issues with cattle, where these horses can serve a greater good."
"It’s worth considering that in 1960 we had about 2 million deer grazing in California, whereas today we have fewer than 375,000 deer in the entire state. And that there is a direct mathematical correlation between the loss of large herbivores and the increase in catastrophic wildfires."
"Our local horses eat the young poison oak, scrub oak, tips of buck brush and star thistle (before the spikes come on) and the grasses as they browse (they move relatively fast as they graze, compared to cows)."
Image - HorseTalk
"A juniper tree that is frequented by horses stands out and is visibly more vibrant and more fire resistant (note the health of its canopy) than nearby junipers that are not frequented, with sparse dry canopies."
Keep in mind, this post is not just about large Herbivores, but the effects they have on vegetation health.
A juniper tree frequented by horses
A juniper not frequented by horses has abundant fuel underneath
Native Kiger horses grazing Cascade-Siskiyou National Forest
"In the above photo provided to me by the Assistant Director of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument (Mr Joel Brumm), a small family of native wild horses is shown in the Monument abating grasses and brush near a stand of large conifers."
"The Cascade-Siskiyou National Forest (and Monument) is a rugged mountainous area near the Oregon-California border, at an altitude of about 5000 feet with much steeper mountainous terrain all around, that is easily traversed by wild horses and cervids (deer and elk). Unlike cattle, the anatomy of wild horses has evolved so they are ideally adapted to traversing even the most difficult terrain."
North America no longer has it's former megafauna like Mammoths, Giant Ground Sloths, etc. But the botanical makeup of the vegetation and various plant communites of North America that exist todaye were all present back when these animals existed. These same ecosystems haven't been maintained or treated decently in many a decade. While many wish to sing praises upon the Native Americans as the ultimate in perfect land stewards, they often conveniently forget these folks were real human beings equal to everyone else, unfortunately in all the negative ways. The miserable understanding in today's enlightenment proposes that the land needs more and more wildfire, which is insane. The vegetated ecosystems need loads more animals and their multiple effects on the landscape. Africa is the only place left with the largest animals which can do this, but even Africa is in increasing trouble. Forget everything you've heard about Jurassic Park genetic technologies bringing back the megafauna. This is pure fantasy. Even "IF" they could bring them back and that's a big "IF", what kind of world are scientists going to bring them back to ? They can't even save this natural world we have now.
Bison in just North America alone it is estimated use to number in the 16th century to contain between 25-30 million buffalo. In the late 19th century (1880s) they were almost hunted to extinction, estimated between 100 to 150 animals. But such numbers no longer exist (neither for Elk, Deer or Antelope either), so considering large historical populations of wild herbivores will more than likely never exist again under the present system of things, what other artificial means are there for maintaining all manner of vegetative ecosystems ???
I'm certain this won't go over well with many since it has become popular to most ranchers now days for a number of ideological reasons. In the past the ignorance of European imposing their will on foreign ecosystems with failed European land management practices could have been justified. But some Ranchers have changed over the past couple decades and are embracing creating wildlife habitat and various wildlife populations as much as they wish to benefit their cattle. Here are some very successful Ranchers I follow out of interest.
Restoration of Susie Creek - Beaver used Silver Sagebrush for Dam building - Go figure! 😏
Photos: Bureau of Land Management
Read the whole story of how Maggie Creek Ranch worked with BLM to restore Beaver into dry Silver Sagebrush Steppe country which in turn restored the landscape and grasslands into greener pastures for grazing cattle.
Chris Gil and the Circle ranch have fought long and hard to protect the southern most herds of North American Elk on their ranch. The government calls them invasive in need of removal to protect Bighorn Sheep. The government is also engaged there in ridding the ranch of wild horses and Burros, both they say are invasive and threat to Bighorn Sheep. None of this is true. The ranch has set up water tanks everywhere in strategic locations for wildlife. I'll let Chris Gil explain it in the link below.
Now, a person would think that with all these success stories by Ranchers for holistically grazing cattle and restoring the wild landscape for many other wildlife, that Academia, Scientists and Environmentalists would be excited and wanted to get on board with these ideas. Think again. They resent it. Ecology and restoration are considered their domain and ranchers of European descent have no business advising them on how to properly restore the land. Seriously, read it for yourself:
"In this paper published in the Journal of Environmental Management, Texas A&M range scientists and their colleagues discuss why—70 years after the development of holistic planned grazing, and notwithstanding the positive experience reported by so many producers who use it—Academicians and Researchers remain closed to its concepts."
"Science can help us understand biological processes, including the interrelationships among biophysical processes that link soils, plants, herbivores, and people (Provenza, 2000). Science can help us appreciate the workings of the processes of nature, which enable creatures to adapt, but there is no absolute truth in science. All concepts and theories are limited and approximate. Science is a quest for understanding, an attempt to account for observable phenomena. Moreover, nature does not show us any “isolated building blocks” but rather appears as a web of relations among various parts of the whole and that always includes the human observer and participant. While other disciplines have come to accept this phenomenon, we still cling to the notion of scientists as impartial observers who do not influence the outcomes of their experiments."
"Grazing studies have focused least on the most important feature of the management system, the human element. Under- standing biophysical processes is of little value in the absence of flexibility needed to manipulate those processes toward desired human goals in uncertain environments. What matters most to achieve sustainable outcomes on grazed rangelands is continually obtaining feedback through monitoring and adjusting herbivore numbers and movements to ensure the health of herbivores, plants, soils and ultimately people. Achieving sustainability on rangelands depends upon animals frequently moving across landscapes, whether driven by their nutrient needs, predators, herders, fire, or fenced paddocks. Intelligent, goal- directed management is required to achieve sustainable goals. To understand how to do so, we must understand biophysical pro- cesses and how the best managers manipulate and adjust them."
Mankind has no choice but to physically get off their lazy backsides, go outdoors and take a hands on approach with grazing animals. Not all methods are preferred. Neither are all Ranchers to be used as many are not on board with the holistic hands on approach. Dedicated ranchers have to be hands on stewards in their approach. No longer can it be allowed just to load up and ecosystem with animals and "Poof" instance maintenance problems averted. Mankind needs intelligent, competent, creative, and conscientious people to do more than just protest or grow trees. The forests and other woodlands need to be responsibly cultivated and carefully groomed to the point that their own independence can take over without the need for continual life-support. Unfortunately our modern society is geared toward raising generations of incompetent life-long adolescents, mired in groupthink social media networks which tend to exacerbate the mass-delusion. Think I'm kidding about this world's future generations ??? Check out this Millennial work force video.
The newer generations are less likely to be outdoor types and this will require some major deprogramming and re-education on how the natural world works. Seriously, it's bad enough that older generations don't get it, so the remoulding of Millennials will be a monumental task. More than likely it will be impossible. Mankind is not likely to achieve the kind of expansion and abundant future they are looking for working through this present system's conventional governments, academia, media, religions or other cultural institutions and for that matter even the present failed militant environmental organisations which do far more to turn people off to nature than encourage. So this isn't so much about how humans as a group can do to change the entire planet by means of the right material fix-it-pill schemes as it is what individually people can do on their own farms, ranches, urban landscapes and gardens. As environmental lawyer Gus Speth said:
"Materialism is toxic to happiness, and we are losing out connection to the natural world."
Materialism sugar-coated as ecogreen seems to be the only solution this world's modern leadership has to offer for happiness. Even in the poorer countries people are streaming to the richers countries in hopes of finding greener pastures and their slice of the proverbial pie. Most immigrants are horribly surprized to find that the so-called dream is just that, a dream. No one seems content any longer. The modern philosophy of the Secular Movement hasn't exactly been much help either. While traditionally trashing conventional old time religion's as doomday cults, they themselves do nothing more than celebrate this coming future "Sixth Extinction" while offering no hope of better future other than mobilizing today's youth to put them into power. I will conclude with this, something drastic is indeed about to take place soon, but only a fraction today actually get it.
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The death of Pleistocene beasts forever altered the Landscape - No kidding! 😒
The majority of mankind are traveling on a broad and spaceous motorway where fast paced lifestyle, impatience and lack of being content dominate. Like literal motorways or freeways, these expressways were purposefully created to replace what was viewed as slow, outdated & old fashioned. Yet the old curvey and twisting two lane highway never offended the land. Rather they moved with the landscape, around obstacles rather than blasting through them. Yes, it was slower and took more time, but you got more out of the travel through adventure. Mankind in general needs to slow waaaay down and ditch the broad and spaceous Motorway and opt for the narrow and curving cramped one. We hear today about all these paradigm shifts and progressive movements, but in actuality these are nothing more than the same old recycling of failed ideas dressed up to look enlightened and sophisticated. Our world continues on a sharp decline. Getting back to that laundry list above on how to be a better explorer, let's just look at that first jotted down point. 
