Prairie Dogs ? A Modern Day Plague
Almost Every Morning on the plains of eastern
Colorado, rancher Ken Holmes squints through a
riflescope and sights in on a fat, little prairie dog.
At the blink of an eye, he pulls the trigger and a
hollow-tipped slug erupts from the barrel. Two
hundred yards later, the slug explodes in the prairie
dog scattering its ravaged flesh across the plains.
Some people say that this is a horrible act, but for
ranchers like Ken Holmes, it's away to save his
grazing fields.
The prairie dog is a controversial animal because many
people perceive them to be a prolific nuisance.
Shooting and poisoning has reduced an extremely large
population, which once covered most of the western
U.S. and northern Mexico. In Texas, the historic
population at the turn of the century in 1900 was
estimated to be approximately 5.5 billion animals.
Today, numbers of prairie dogs in Texas are estimated
at only 300,000 (cdri). Maybe if these numbers keep
decreasing at such an alarming rate, the prairie dog
problem may actually come to an end. So no local,
state, or federal government should try to bring these
numbers up.
This animal digs gigantic burrows, and makes extensive
tunnels underneath the Earth's surface (bitterroot).
This natural act the prairie dog makes kills grass and
destroys fields taking away feed for cattle and crops
for food. Many scientists believe that this act is a
natural fertilizer, giving nutrients back to the soil
(National Geographic p.116). If this natural act is a
fertilizer, then why are many ranchers and farmers
faced with a loss of money. Usually due to the fact
that these burrows take up a wide range of they're
fields making it difficult to grow and raise anything
for a profit. Also, if this fertilizing act actually
fertilizes the land, then why is it that they seem to
destroy a field rather than help it?
Rather than try to shoot them or poison them, some
have tried to set aside protected areas, and relocate
the prairie dogs. In Boulder, Colorado, approximately
20,000 feet of visual barrier was installed along
boundaries of these protected areas. The cost of that
was $23,000, but that figure represents only enough to
cover about 7.5% of the perimeter surrounding the
area. It would require an additional $242,350 to
finish that barrier. Instead of this expensive
barrier, relocating them was the second option. In
order to do this, it would cost upwards of $100,000
just to move them somewhere else (ci boulder). That
is a lot of money to be throwing around on an animal
that not many people like. If people were going to
The movie takes a strong stance on sustainable farming, so much that one might be able to say that is the agenda of the movie. They mostly speak of a specific farm called Polyface Farms in Virginia. What they do there is they use the same plot of land for multiple animals. Each of them use it at a different time. They have a process called the Pigerator. It is not a huge big, scary process; it is simple. Cows are in the barn during the winter, and they make waste. When they take the cows out, they mix corn into the manure to ferment it. Later, when the pigs come in, the pigs dig looking for the fermented corn, thereby mixing the manure into usable “fertilizer”.(American Meat) They also
My first reason why it was not worth the costs is the wall actually did not keep people out. It was not very protective. The wall affected so many things. It affected life styles, people's daily routine. It also affected families.
The large herds of horses did not pose a particular problem until the western United States became settled and cattle and other grazing animals were added to the native range. The arid lands of the west could not support large population of grazing animals, so it became policy to shoot Mustangs.
When people talk about deer, they are commonly talking about the North American Whitetail. That is because they are so prevalent in this country. They can be found in every state in the US. The only place where you will not find any whitetails is in parts of Arizona and California. In most states the whitetail is very prevalent, especially in the northeast. They are one of the most hunted animals in this area, particularly in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Despite the amount they are hunted, both in and out of season, you can not drive more than a few miles out of the towns without seeing one that was hit by a car. The deer population in this area just keeps growing. It is unclear what should be done to stop the over population of this beautiful creature. Perhaps different hunting seasons or longer seasons are the answer. Possibly we should focus more on the development of birth control for the female deer, or maybe repopulating wolves into the areas where the deer population is too great. Something has to be done.
... today have their brands recorded and the records are kept in every state by brand inspection agencies. There is no more “free range”, all of the land is either owned by private landowners or companies, or by the state and national government as state parks, national parks, state and national forests, and national grasslands. Rustling still happens today, though it is rare. Instead of heavily armed bandits stealing cattle on horseback, modern rustlers usually pose as truck drivers and sell the cattle under a false name on a sort of black market. While the days of the range war are over, they are still a big part of Hollywood and literature. Many western movies are based on actual range wars, and books by authors such as Louis L’amour and Zane Grey have romanticized the range wars of the late 1800’s. They will forever be an important part of our nation’s history.
Although feeding corn to cattle speeds up the process until they reach slaughter time, evidence shows that feeding corn to cattle that are genetically wired to eat grass produces unhealthy beef which then plays a role in healthy people, minimizing the longevity in Americans. Furthermore, the logic of nature relies on complex mutual relationship where each animal contributes to the sustainability of their environment in a cyclic manner as stated in the chapter “All Flesh is Grass”:
In 1865 the frontier line generally followed the western limits of the states bordering the Mississippi River, bulging outward to include the eastern sections of Kansas and Nebraska. Beyond this thin edge of pioneer farms, lay the prairie and sagebrush lands that stretched to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Then, for nearly 1,600 kilometers, loomed the huge bulk of mountain ranges, many rich in silver, gold and other metals. On the far side, plains and deserts were part of this region; here laid the "Last Frontier"--- the "Great Plains". "For a long time, the region had been called the Great American Dessert, a barrier to cross on the way to the Pacific, unfit for human habitation and therefore, to white Americans, the perfect refuge for Indians." (Tindall 857) Apart from the settled districts in California and scattered outposts, the vast inland region was populated by Native Americans: among them the Great Plains tribes -- Sioux and Blackfoot, Pawnee and Cheyenne -- and the Indian cultures of the Southwest, including Apache, Navajo, and Hopi. Soon these Indians were pushed away from their "safe haven". "They lost an estimated 86 million acres of their 130 million acres."(Tindall 873) The reason to this is because the white man went westward to expand.
The current situation today, is that horses and donkeys have exceeded the amount to keep an ecological balance; from 26,600 wildlife to 38,300 wildlife. The horse program enacted by the bill passed in 1971, costs the government approximately $49 million a year. It takes the majority of the budget to manage the already captured horses; taking into account the life of the horses, it has been concluded that the total cost would be closer to $1 billion (Dean Bolstad, Roundup of Wild Horses…). A Federal law, allows the Bureau of Land Management to kill “excess horses to maintain what it calls ‘a thriving natural ecological balance’” (Ginger Kathrens). However, due to retaliation of animal right groups, the BLM has not taken any measures to eliminate
The U.S. Department of Interior’s, Bureau of Land Management, (BLM) was appointed to carry out the Act and given the task of managing the herds of wild horses and burros. Consequently, BLM’s management of wild horse herds has been highly criticized by animal rights activists, horse advocates, news media, as well as members of Congress. There have been numerous lawsuits filed against BLM regarding their management practices and their appalling wild horse round-ups. However, unimpeded BLM continues with the controversial issue of wild horse round-ups, resulting in the death and injury of many wild horses and burros. The vast majority of these round...
In his realistic wartime novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque utilizes animal and nature imagery in order to reflect the destructiveness of war. Initially, as the gang trundles towards the front line in the truck and the artillery shells begin to whistle, "...there is suddenly in our veins...a tense waiting...a strange sharpening of senses. The body with one bound is in full readiness," (54). As this change in their blood occurs, the men become more animalistic, more aware and alert, losing their humanity to primal instinct in order to survive. With shocking ease, Paul and his veteran friends accept this change and manage to barely flinch as the bombing begins, demonstrating their war-hardened attitude. However, they
...leaving a little portion of land to the animals is not that bad. The reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone has been very beneficial to the ecosystem. We tried to eliminate this species but in the end, we need to ask ourselves the question, do we really need to eliminate another species based on our own biases and fears? We need to look past personal gain, and leave nature to take its course.
Seldom considered, domesticated animals contributed to many of the unforeseen problems that wove the narrative of early colonial America. Creatures of Empire, by Virginia Anderson, outlines the events in which English livestock severely disrupted the lives and livelihoods of the natives in the 1600s. She writes of both the natives and two groups of English colonists’ experiences in the New England and Chesapeake regions. The colonists’ sought to civilize the Indians by means of animal husbandry and displayed little to no consideration for the preservation of the natives’ traditional culture throughout their imperialistic quest. Relations between the natives and colonists deteriorated as a consequence of oppressive English ideals, and values,
Ott, Marvin C. "Mediation as a Method of Conflict Resolution: Two Cases." International Organization 26.04 (1972): 595-618. JSTOR. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
Mediation is a way to solve a dispute without having to resort to court procedure which sometimes could turned out to be rigid, formal and time consuming especially when it needed a lot of paperwork and the possibility of adjournment which could consume years. Besides that, unlike in court, mediator as a third impartial party did not acted as a judge who decides on the resolution however, the mediator will help the parties to explore the needs and issue which before preventing them from achieving a mutual resolution and settlement. The mediation process gave the authority towards the parties to agree with each other and open up the chance for the parties to meet with a resolution at the end of the mediation session.
All government’s ultimate goal is to maintain a strong and sustainable economy but there are so many factor to consider in making it work right. Economic is a complicated matter but is very important. The government is there to look after its people and one of their goal is to provide everyone a better/higher standard of living. In this report we would like to look at the Philippine economy using the concept of Inflation and will extend the report to the importance of GDP