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Originally Posted by Sultana
All species have a place to balance out nature. Just because people may not understand the importance of brine shrimp, for example, doesn't mean that it's a good idea to wipe them out.
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Exactly. For example, you have 3 species of animal in an environment. A large carnivore, a mid size omnivore and a small herbivore. The omnivores eat the small herbivores but never wipe them out because the large carnivore eats enough of the omnivores to keep their populations in check. Balance is maintained.
Man comes to the environment, hunts the large predator to mount its skin and head on a wall somewhere and what happens? The populaton of the omnivores explodes, their being no one to prey on it, and the omnivore goes on to wipe out the small herbivores, dooming itself in the process. This situation has been documented in environments invaded by man in the last few hundred to few thousand years, notably on various islands from Madagascar to Polynesia.
The same thing may occur if whales are destroyed or severely hunted. They are very vulnerable to extinction. The whaling countries all know this, but don't care.