predators. Does that include us?

I agree that a vegan world must also take animals into account.
Especially because we should then let carnivores be more prosperous.
How could the world be without carnivores or with so Little?
(if we were off the diet and behaviour)

And even if we stay carnivores (as I believe the world will stay with all type of eaters)
we should just share with all animals...
(haha, we do when we have to!!! When we cannot keep deer or squirels off!!!)

wayne stephen wrote:Forty years ago the cry from ecologists { enviromentalists } was "Zero Population Growth" . I have not heard that call in decades in the public discourse.

I did not know this, and so I agree that we do not hear it!

The idea to "share" with animals is just a romantic one when people have to survive and compete because of our number.

Yes, people often fail to be good members of permaculture. However, I read that many Indian tribes practiced birth control. The average birth rate for a Cherokee woman was one or 2 children, and there were many old maids< I read. Same with Plains Indians. That's why you never see an Indian woman posing in a photo with 12 children hanging onto her skirt, like in photos of pioneer women.
The predators developed as part of the ecology and when they are missing, things go awry. I read, for ex., that elk are VIP)s in controlling riparian zones out west! Who would have thought that? Also, bison maintained the rich prairie, I read, by fertilizing the soil and aerating it with their hooves, which are different than cattle hooves in their effects on ground. Buffalo also made mud wallows which sometimes held water, like Sepp's pigs making ponds! I am all for bringing back bison.

Greta; in all fairness, comparing pioneer families to the Indians as you have, is taking the information a wee bit out of context... Pioneer families often were their own immediate community. Often it was a whole day's travel to town for supplies and another day to get back (2~3+ days absence from the farm/ranch).

Many/most Indians functioned as One Family. To the extent that, in some, children would nurse from more than one Mother... From the Indian's perspective; I can imagine them thinking of the pioneer family as small, weak and unstable.

I'm no expert on history, and don't remember my sources well. However, the Indians who had use of contraceptive knowledge were the tribes the white people encountered early on in the settlement of America. The Indians seem to have lost a lot of the medicines that you hear referred to in history books. One historian said plains INdians had over 300 contraceptives. You are right, single white families probably did look weak to big tribes.

David, even if a tribe is like a family, what counts is the number of children per woman!

I have also heard about plant birth control, and I remember about a rule of "never less tan 4 years between 2 children". I think it was in the Amazonian forest.
We know why many people have lost their old knowledge. The main question would be to know why it has been lost by our western society long before. Can it come from cristianity and the "order" to expand?

Greta, what do you mean by elks and "VIP"?

Sorry, I meant that elk are "very important persons" in riparian zones. I was reading an article about elk in the northwest, and it explained that elk control what grows along bodies of water there. I can't remember exactly what they eat and don't eat though.
The elk were restored in Kentucky, but they have retreated up around ridges a lot, whereas they originally grazed along rivers in the bottomlands. I don't know what they do here. Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation probably has a lot of information on elk, if they interest you.
Greta

I think we, like other lives, have our role in the food chain where we are both predator and prey . I think those who think we are at the top of the food chain are kidding themselves however and the more antibiotic resistant bacteria we breed the more that point could be proven.

Lisa, we already mentioned this point, and I agree, and others too, that there are some miscroscopical living beings that are part of the food chain.

I also agree that a predator can also in turn be eaten... It is not all or nothing.
And you can say that an herbivore also eats some bugs in the grass...

But the predator forum is talking about flesh eaters.
This is the traditional meaning of a predator. You know, the ones that want to eat your hens!

Yes but this antibiotic problem is very well known and is not about the food chain, even if it causes death!
I even think that bacteria like you better when you are alive.
...and a predator enjoys you dead.

The predator forum is different from talking about diseases or bugs,
and even different from talking about deers (who do not predate on flesh but on plants!)

We never concluded either that we are at the top of the food chain. Many carnivores are still able to eat us.
The fact is that we protect ourselves and our animals (livestock) better and better.
This does not change the diet question...

This is really strange that when humans are included in the predator chain, then the conversation goes to bacteria or mosquitoes in a way that I doubt would have been the same in a conversation talking about wolfs or lions predating cattle...

Here are typical examples of talking about predators, in the "munching on my sheep" topic - eating, be eaten and protecting -

Renate Haeckler wrote:Please be careful! They attack humans more than just about anything in the US! I knew a guy who raised one as a mascot for a university and when it was grown it bit his face off - just in a bad mood that day. (He survived but needed LOTS of stitches!) These animals are dangerous!

If you're finding half-eaten carcasses or injured animals it could be a very young puma that's having trouble figuring out how to hunt.

Fred Morgan wrote:I have some other very good pictures of the full cat, including cubs. Very cute. Our pumas don't attack people (never been reported), probably because no one goes into the jungles without a "long tooth", mine is a 28 inch machete which could easily decapitate a puma. Since I walk with a dog, and no puma is going to sneak up on us, I am not worried.

The puma stays, the sheep are gone, but I have goats now. They stay pretty close, except if I am out with them. Also, we have some pretty good size horses in the area, and the pumas aren't big enough to take on a couple of horses without serious risk of injury. Jaguars on the other hand can kill a full grown mare, but it is rare.

One issue you have up there is animals getting used to people, here they rarely see people, and if they do, they run the other way.

Honestly, I worry more about the 20 foot boa that was spotted one day, and the tapir, which we say a foot print. We also heard a giant anteater, which are pretty dangerous as well. But I would prefer wildlife, with a bit of risk.

A topic is talking about ticks, but it is also part of the bug forum, and (though there was a concern about lyme disease),
it mainly asks about what can predate on ticks = eat the ticks out.