These are the good old days. In a situation that’s constantly deteriorating, it’s always the good old days.—Chris Cunningham (paraphrase of J. Phillips)
As I look out my front window at the giant piles of uncollected debris from the recent flood in southwest Houston, I got to thinking about quails . . . .
Many wildlife biologists are concerned about populations of all six types of North American quails. Numbers of individuals of dry-adapted species of quails such as Montezuma, Gambel’s and Scaled, rise and fall with drought and rainy years as expected, but these concerns transcend impacts due to changes in the weather.
For example, in the Southwest biologists have been noticing incursions of scrub-inhabiting quails into the suburban landscape, presumably foraging for food. The sprawl of tract housing and all that accompanies it means that the “empty” expanses of desert and scrublands are dwindling and our lovely xeric creatures are under pressure.
So, what’s the connection between giant piles of uncollected garbage and quails? Well, it seems to me that humanity can have any world it wants. Man has elected to live in a world of materialistic clutter, jammed with ephemeral consumer trash soon to be in a landfill. For this we are giving away (say exterminating) nature and paving over the land.
To alter this course will require nothing less than a new great awakening . . . .
©2015 Christopher R. Cunningham. All rights reserved. No text or images may be duplicated or distributed without permission.