В США обсуждают закрытие целлюлозного завода и этические дилеммы защиты редких видов

Do you know where Glens Falls is? It's a small town north of Albany, New York, along the Vermont border to the east and the Adirondacks to the west. It also employs many locals at a pulp mill. The owners plan to close the processing plant because it’s no longer profitable. For generations, the mill purchased pulpwood from Vermont loggers and loggers logging private forests in the Adirondacks. They made paper from the slash left over from logging operations, along with aspen forests that primarily provided pulpwood. We in the United States and probably most of the world no longer use paper to the extent we once did. Computers now send messages that once required reams of paper, not to mention first-class postage. But we still use logs to build things. In the past, we used the tops for paper, but now loggers leave them on the forest floor, where they dry out and fuel wildfires. Also, where once the pulpwood aspen forest grew and provided food and cover for wildlife, landowners might be looking for forests to provide veneer logs. If you’ve walked through a mature cherry grove in the fall, you might find ferns covering the grounds and an occasional grouse eating cherry pits. There is no stem density from young shrubs and trees and no thermal cover from evergreens. As paper products made from scrap and pulpwood decline, wildlife will change, perhaps into burned-over acreage that regenerates on its own. Young, field-successional forests provide opportunities for wildlife, offering a variety of foods, places to nest, and cover from predators. The dense thickets of young shrubs and trees provide most of what turkeys, deer, bear, and many songbirds need to flourish. On a related subject, but further west, Washington decided that, to protect the northern spotted owl, Fish and Wildlife must shoot 15,000 barred owls because barred owls eat the prey of the northern spotted owl, which primarily eats small rodents that live in the forest where northern spotted owls live. Not only can’t loggers harvest trees from the spotted owl's habitat, but now they must be protected by shooting a different owl species. It’s been illegal to shoot a hawk, owl, or eagle for more years than I can remember, but now the federal government wants to kill 15,000 barred owls. For more than a century, most scientists have subscribed to Darwin's theory, which, in a nutshell, says survival of the fittest. Animals have gone extinct, and other animals have filled their spot. Since 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, plants and animals have been exchanged. Potatoes from Peru landed in Ireland. Earthworms came as ballast on Raleigh’s ships along with rocks and soils. They ate through six feet of sugar maple leaves in no time once they arrived. I like to think we can save a remnant population of Northern spotted owls, but should it be at the expense of another owl?