Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if Homo sapiens didn't essentially wipe out most of the North American megafauna. Sure, dinosaurs get a lot of the attention, but not very long ago there were lions, saber-tooth cats, mastodons, glyptodons (think an armodillo the size of a tank), giant sloths, and plenty of other crazy critters running around here. The ideas as to how all these wonderful beasties disappeared, well, the run the gamut from disease to climate change to overhunting, and personally I think it was a bit of all of them. Even so, the arrival of man in North America seemed to signal the end of many of these big animals, and it reminds me of a trend that is far more visible today.
Let's say for a second that mastodons (most people call them wooly mammoths, but mastodons are distinct and endemic to N.A.) were able to survive all the environmental factors thrown at them and survived to the present day. Can you imagine what a nightmare that could potentially be? Imagine driving being stuck on a highway because a mastodon decided that it liked the shrubs in the median, or if one decided the apple tree in your front yard looked tasty. Hell, we have enough problems in New Jersey with white-tailed deer, I can't even imagine if we had to cope with ancient elephants, saber-toothed cats, and ground sloths rooting around in the backyard. If these animals were allowed to survive at all they certainly would have changed the way we live, but then again it wouldn't be in human nature to let them persist.
Before the word ecology even existed, there were large mammals in North America. Sure, they weren't as strange or magnificent as those of the Pliocene epoch, but bison, grey wolves, mountain lions, and other creatures are pretty neat in their own right. For one reason or another, mostly through misunderstanding, many of the wonderful N.A. mammal fauna was eliminated to the point where they disappeard from areas altogether or required government assistance to keep from going extinct. The bison had Teddy Roosevelt and the bronx zoo, while predators (wolves, mountain lions, coyotes) didn't have champions until more recently, but even so humans did not see it fit to share the landscape with the endemic wildlife.
It seems that part of settlement, part of claiming the wilderness, is wiping out the animals there, particularly predators. We've seen it with wolves and mountain lions out west, alligators in the south, and with bears in the northeast. Surely we can't survive in such close proximity to such dangerous animals without huge risks to life and limb. The odd thing is, however, since the protection of animals once despised, many of them have made such a comeback that they're actually knocking (sometimes literally as in the case of an alligator in South Carolina) at our front door. You would think that after so many years of hunting, these animals would avoid man altogether, keeping themselves hidden in the mountains somewhere. Instead, suburban sprawl has brought us closer to the home ranges of many predators of all varieties, and they've adapted quite well. In fact, we've made life a bit easier for them.
One good example is alligators. When I was growing up, alligators were considered endangered creatures, in need of protection. They did get protection, but who would have guess the extent they would have rebounded? Now alligators are more of a nuisance than anything, and since Florida is full of canals and various interconnected waterways, there were plenty of places for the reintroduced species to spread out and come into contact with people. Some Florida citizens didn't help the problem by feeding the animals, considering them almost as pets or as just another part of the local wildlife, not much more dangerous than squirrels. Lately, however, restrictions had to be placed because these reptiles were getting far too big, and the bigger they got, the more options showed up on the menu. Now, alligators aren't as vicious as crocodiles, and you'd be hard pressed to call them man-eaters, but in recent years especially there have been break-outs of attacks on people, and how many small pets have never come home after being let out I don't know. I'm not trying to suggest there is a growing menace threatening to gobble up the children of Florida, but Florida was poorly designed in the sense of keeping humans and alligators seperate, and when you're dealing with a reptile that lays many eggs and cares for the young for at least some amount of time, you have to expect they're going to bounce back strongly.
New Jersey, the great suburb of Philly and NYC that I call home, has its own share of problems. Deer have always been ubiquitous, but they've been even more problematic in recent years. With no major predators and plenty of green grass to feed on year-round thanks to lawns, it's no wonder why the deer population has exploded to such levels. We inadventantly created a white-tailed deer paradise, only they don't seem to always know to look both ways before crossing the street. Black bears have been problematic in norther NJ as well, as it has been made easy for them the find food due to trash bins in the suburbs. This seems to be a common phenomenon with bears and suburbs- improperly concealed trash is appetizing to bears, making for easy food and drawing them in to suburbs. I did hear of a black bear grabbing an infant off a porch some years ago, as well as a few scares, but I can't remember any black bear attacks. Coyotes are another matter, however, and are often out of sight. Many times relocation of suburban or urban (there are populations in NYC) animals don't work because they were born in the suburbs and cities. London has the same issue with foxes, and people there go so far as to put out food for the "poor things."
Indeed, it seems that although mankind has wiped out many different species, we're creating prime habitat for many other animals that can quickly overpopulate or become a nuisance, and it will probably continue to be so. I don't see a day where everyone deals their garbage properly, do not feed predators, allow animals like cougars or black bears or coyotes to enter back yards with no attempt to scare the animal away or instill fear of man in them. In trying to push out nature, we've found we can't escape it, and unless people desire predators to be eliminated completely, there will always be "accidents" here and there as well. Ecology doesn't simply stop when mankind modifies the environment, rather the biodiversity goes down but some animals find ways to thrive, sometimes by living off the scraps of the creature that once tried to eliminate them. It seems that we are inadventarntly creating our own kind of nature, where the stealthy omnivore or patient predator or easily-appeased herbivore can thrive, often to the frustration of human settlers. We're closing off niches, yes, but we've closing some animals in with us.
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