Saturday, January 29, 2011
Which Should Live?
Ecology is the branch of science that studies the distribution and abundance of living organisms, and the interactions between organisms and their environment. If you change one part, some other part will change in response to that change. In this case conservationists have been so successful at protecting the endangered birds in a Spanish nature reserve that the birds are now killing the reserve's ancient cork oak forest. The birds are killing the trees because there are 70 nests in each tree and the birds are creating so much feces which affects the soil system around the trees. The birds feces also leads to high concentration of salt in the soil and the salt makes it hard for the trees to absorb enough water. Alternatives at the moment are either moving the birds nests to another location or possibly reducing the bird population in the area. These trees are very important to the reserve because they are used by other endangered species as homes and food. There is clearly a trade-off between maintaining the area for the birds and protecting the ancient cork oak forests so a solution must be made.
http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/42123
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In my opinion, those birds should be taken off the endangered species list so they can start trying to move or even get rid of some of them. If the trees are so important to everything surrounding them, then they should be the first priority especially since the birds are thriving so well now. Not only are these birds hurting their habitat, they're also hurting other species who are endangered and need that tree for homes and food. The chain reaction caused by one bird could do much more damage than trying to control this bird's population.
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