Killing butterflies

[Daniel & Monica Glaeske]

Kenelm Philip wrote:
> 
> 
>         With regard to the 'Red Man's way':
> 
>         It now appears there is a good case to be made for the idea that
> human migration into North America was responsible for the almost total
> destruction of the Pleistocene megafauna. Furthermore, the book 'The Future
> Eaters' by Tim Flannery describes how the Australian aborigines (usually
> held as the epitome of 'live lightly on the land') were probably respon-
> sible not only for the extinction of the Australian megafauna, but also
> for actually changing the climate of the continent toward its present
> arid condition--an accomplishment that industrialized Western humans have
> not quite yet matched, although the Romans did a good job with North
> Africa.
> 
>         Amerindians did indeed affect the landscape in many ways--primarily
> by extensive burning of forest lands. The dense forest that the pioneers
> had to clear grew up _after_ the Indians had been reduced by disease to
> a fraction of their former population, and their land-management methods
> were no longer being applied on such a large scale.
> 
>         There is also evidence that wildlife in the western U.S. was at
> much higher densities in the no-man's-lands between tribes than they were
> within the traditional hunting grounds of any given tribe.
> 
>         These matters are not as simple as they may appear at first...
> 
>                                                         Ken Philip
> fnkwp at uaf.edu

Don't forget the speculation that overgrazing in north Africa may have
caused the sequence of events leading to the formation of the Sahara
desert.  

Daniel