Mother Nature is a Cruel Bitch

Internet wildlife ethicist seem to like to dictate that mother nature knows best because she loves us. Reality is mother nature typically is a cruel bitch that snuffs the life out of most things in this world that is whelped, hatched, pollinated, or fertilized usually long before it has much of a chance at life. She doesn't love you or anyone for that matter - you and all other life exist in spite of best efforts to squelch out your life through starvation, exposure, disease, and pure raw competition for finite resources. There is no woods vet nor morphine for most wildlife big or small and most of these lives end out of sight of human eyes as even the car struck possum tends to die in the ditch.

This is the true way of the world. We all owe a death that we will pay if we want to or not so it creates some questions about how we choose to live and how we choose to die. It also creates some questions of what we kill and in what quantities. Vegetarians - you don't get off free in this regard. Habitat loss due to human population and the ever needing expansion of agricultural land is the #1 wholesale killer of wildlife in this world. This means every acre of farm land dedicated solely to the mass production of a single crop invariably destroys a habitat.

So if you care about wildlife and care about people there are a few things you can do. One is reduce the distance between yourself and your food. If you live in Colorado and your eggs come from California produced on corn from Ohio please reconsider your choice. Either raise your own or find a more local source. You can create one to two days worth of meals easily at home and a minimal of expense and space. Join a co-op and share your wealth if you have more space. For goodness sake - HUNT!, eat all over the food chain, and eat locally. Wild animals are one of our greatest renewable resources if they are managed sanely.

Second is to eliminate excesses and monoculture in your own life. Do you really need six acres of fescue? Do you really need a four bedroom three bathroom house for just you and the SO in your life. Build some wild areas of easy to keep wild hedge and productive borders. Enjoy the show of wild creatures.

Declare war on the killers of wildlife that really serve no purpose ie, feral and freeroaming cats and wild hogs. Next to humanity and pavement the largest killers of wildlife and diversity. Strong leash laws and confinement laws would be a great step followed by the outlawing of the failed policy of Trap - Neuter - and release and feeding of feral cats. Wild hogs can devastate deer, underbrush, bird and small animal populations and are best given no quarter.