Regal Fritillary

[Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  (I am practicing to be an evasive politician)
Ideally we would have left enough "natural" habitat as our societies
developed so that we could allow some natural disturbance and emulate some
disturbances such as natural fires by setting some.  Unfortunately in many
cases we are down to a few fragments of some ecosystems and if they should
happen to contain an endangered species, the legislation would prohibit any
emulation of natural disturbance that would imperil the said endangered
species.  And conversely maintenance of a particular endangered species
might require a management intervention that would nuke other worthy or even
endangered species. Nothing right or wrong or ethical or unethical about
this unfortunate circumstance; just the way it is due to a history of social
choice.
-papilionis coactoris posing as an empedocles imperialis :-) :-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris J. Durden [mailto:drdn at mail.utexas.edu]
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2000 2:19 AM
To: leps-l at lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Regal Fritillary


Norbert,
  Is manipulation of a habitat in favor of one or several of its component
species any more natural or ethical than our present manipulation of all
habitat for human economic short-term gain?
  This is basically a restatement of the oxymoron "wildlife management".
........Chris Durden


At 11:45  21/08/00 -0700, you wrote:
>Agreed, well mostly :-)  The only thing I would add is that in some
>ecosystems it is not enough to leave the habitat alone.  Rather, some
>instigated natural disturbance or emulation of natural disturbance is
needed
>to prevent natural succession from changing the habitat into a condition
>that is no longer suitable for the species of interest.  
>