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naturens@zdoit.airpost.net wrote:
> May I share my personal humour on this subject? I think there is danger
> describing something done by people as non-natural. It encourages the
> belief that people are not part of nature. I even find humour in the
> idea that a bird bringing an alien seed to Nova Scotia natural, but a
> human doing the same thing otherwise.
* certainly People are part of the world, but surely the meaning of
"natural" is "what happens without the intervention of People."
Since People have been in deglaciated North America from the beginning,
modifying Plant & Animal populations in various ways, there's nothing
entirely "natural" in our environment, but things are "natural" to the
degree that they're done without the intervention of People.
If a European songbird were to defecate out a seed of European Buckthorn
in Nova Scotia and it germinated and founded a population, that
introduction would be "natural" to the extent that the habitat colonized
wasn't created by human action. If a Starling were to do the same from
somewheres in New York, that would be less natural because the source
population and the vector would both be human introductions. If a Person
were to carry the seed in the cuff of his pants, that would be a direct
but accidental anthropogenic introduction, while an introduction as a
garden plant would be less natural, and planting the species as a
"conservation" measure would be the least natural of all.
imho,
fred.
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Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
Thirty Years Later Expedition -
http://fragileinheritance.org/projects/thirty/thirtyintro.htm
Longterm ecological monitoring - http://fragileinheritance.org/
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
http://www.doingnaturalhistory.com/
http://quietcuratorialtime.blogspot.com/
RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
(613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
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