Lake Ontario

this is an interesting piece......the Great Lakes have undergone considerable
biological shuffling since man started his imprint upon things. One we anglers
tend to overlook is the introduction of Pacific Salmonids to the picture. Way
more fun to catch than, say, Zebra mussels, but an invasive species
nonetheless. Now, the radical way to return Ontario or the other Great Lakes to
their "original" status is to eliminate human habitation along the shoreline to
a huge degree, end all motor transportation across these lakes, physically
remove all non-native species and hope for the best. Anyone out there think
this will happen soon??
Tom

Tom,
Not likely. Lake Champlain is facing similar issues. Non-native is an
interesting concept. At point in history do we decide is the demarcation
point between native and non? Playing the devil's advocate, brown trout are
non-native. Apple trees are non-native. Do we eradicate apple trees from
the landscape and brown trout from our lakes and streams? I definitely do
not know the answer to this one, and I spend an awful amount of time
thinking about it when I am fishing and hunting. Geez, most of us are not
native.

Definitely one of greatest challenges of this generation. Our progress has
caught us looking ahead.

--
James Ehlers

Outdoors Magazine
www.outdoorsmagazine.net



"Tom Littleton" wrote in message
...
this is an interesting piece......the Great Lakes have undergone
considerable
biological shuffling since man started his imprint upon things. One we
anglers
tend to overlook is the introduction of Pacific Salmonids to the picture.
Way
more fun to catch than, say, Zebra mussels, but an invasive species
nonetheless. Now, the radical way to return Ontario or the other Great
Lakes to
their "original" status is to eliminate human habitation along the
shoreline to
a huge degree, end all motor transportation across these lakes, physically
remove all non-native species and hope for the best. Anyone out there
think
this will happen soon??
Tom

Jim E asks:
At point in history do we decide is the demarcation
point between native and non?

exactly my point

Tom

Tom Littleton wrote:
Jim E asks:

At point in history do we decide is the demarcation
point between native and non?


exactly my point

Tom



The preservation of native species is something that is important to me
as is the preservation of natural environments.

The definitions of what constitutes a native species and natural
environments are basic foundations for preservation. I've given this
quite a bit of thought and it seems to me that both definitions need to
be based on the absence of man's influence. There seems to be a problem
with some people on ROFF accepting these definitions. For native, I
think I'll start using indigenous hoping that will be more understood.
But for a "natural" environment, I don't have another word to substitute.

The reason I bring this up is that it's fruitless to discuss an issue if
there aren't commonly held definitions. Without common definitions, the
essence of the discussion becomes lost.

Here's a challenge to you guys that have a problem with the definitions
of native and natural being based on mans' intervention:

Come up with a meaningful definition for either that doesn't specify an
arbitrary, specific time. I don't think you can do it without your
definition logically leading to accepting genetically engineered animals
as native or a nuclear wasteland as natural. Maybe for some of you a
genetically engineered animal could be native and a nuclear wasteland is
a natural environment. If so, we're on different planets when we're
having discussions using these words.

Willi



Willi

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 13:11:07 -0700, Willi wrote:



Tom Littleton wrote:
Jim E asks:

At point in history do we decide is the demarcation
point between native and non?


exactly my point

Tom



The preservation of native species is something that is important to me
as is the preservation of natural environments.

The definitions of what constitutes a native species and natural
environments are basic foundations for preservation. I've given this
quite a bit of thought and it seems to me that both definitions need to
be based on the absence of man's influence. There seems to be a problem
with some people on ROFF accepting these definitions. For native, I
think I'll start using indigenous hoping that will be more understood.
But for a "natural" environment, I don't have another word to substitute.

The reason I bring this up is that it's fruitless to discuss an issue if
there aren't commonly held definitions. Without common definitions, the
essence of the discussion becomes lost.

Here's a challenge to you guys that have a problem with the definitions
of native and natural being based on mans' intervention:

Come up with a meaningful definition for either that doesn't specify an
arbitrary, specific time. I don't think you can do it without your
definition logically leading to accepting genetically engineered animals
as native or a nuclear wasteland as natural. Maybe for some of you a
genetically engineered animal could be native and a nuclear wasteland is
a natural environment. If so, we're on different planets when we're
having discussions using these words.

Willi




Many species are invaders without having been introduced by humans.
Indigenous can simply mean (in reference to humans) the original
inhabitants or those who have been there the longest, considering that
the original inhabitants may be long gone. I don't think it is a term
that works well in the non-human world. Humans are part of the
natural world and they have been shaping it even at the prehistoric
level. The indigenous populations of North America were shaping the
flora and fauna well before Columbus showed up. Perhaps some brought
animals (dogs?) across Beringia -- we don't know. We can't just look
at human intervention as a recent, Western thing, though obviously the
rate of extinction and introduction has greatly accelerated with the
spread of Western industrialized society. But it is just that, an
acceleration, not a beginning.

For the sake of conservation, we can adopted the label of "native" --
meaning not introduced by humans. It was there before human arrival
and intervention (or more popularly, before the coming of the white
man). We can choose to focus on the time span after the start of the
Industrial Revolution as before that period, human intervention
happened at a much slower rate. For example, the development of corn
from its tiny, original wild state to the large, domesticated cob
today, took the indigenous peoples of North America centuries to
accomplish. Modern genetic manipulation today could achieve the same
thing over a decade or so.

That said, it is a worthwhile thing to preserve native species just
from the diversity aspect alone. While some would try to place value
on some native species and not others (favouring brookies over an
endangered sucker), we should not do so. It is ironic to read the
whining that recently introduced species are harming other introduced
species that we happen to like.

Peter

turn mailhot into hotmail to reply

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Peter Charles wrote:



Many species are invaders without having been introduced by humans.
Indigenous can simply mean (in reference to humans) the original
inhabitants or those who have been there the longest, considering that
the original inhabitants may be long gone. I don't think it is a term
that works well in the non-human world. Humans are part of the
natural world and they have been shaping it even at the prehistoric
level. The indigenous populations of North America were shaping the
flora and fauna well before Columbus showed up. Perhaps some brought
animals (dogs?) across Beringia -- we don't know. We can't just look
at human intervention as a recent, Western thing, though obviously the
rate of extinction and introduction has greatly accelerated with the
spread of Western industrialized society. But it is just that, an
acceleration, not a beginning.


But that acceleration is overwhelming.

I also think it is a recent thing. The amount of time that man has made
any significant impact on the world's environment is just a mote in
god's eye compared to the evolutionary process as a whole. However, in
that short period of time, man has had more impact on the world's
environment than any other species throughout time.



For the sake of conservation, we can adopted the label of "native" --
meaning not introduced by humans. It was there before human arrival
and intervention (or more popularly, before the coming of the white
man). We can choose to focus on the time span after the start of the
Industrial Revolution as before that period, human intervention
happened at a much slower rate. For example, the development of corn
from its tiny, original wild state to the large, domesticated cob
today, took the indigenous peoples of North America centuries to
accomplish. Modern genetic manipulation today could achieve the same
thing over a decade or so.

Or much less.



That said, it is a worthwhile thing to preserve native species just
from the diversity aspect alone. While some would try to place value
on some native species and not others (favouring brookies over an
endangered sucker), we should not do so.

We're in agreement on that.


It is ironic to read the
whining that recently introduced species are harming other introduced
species that we happen to like.


Yeah and that "liking" changes over time. Carp were widely stocked in
the States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And now?? Tough to
turn back the clock.

Willi

"Willi" wrote in message
...

...Here's a challenge to you guys that have a problem with the definitions
of native and natural being based on mans' intervention:

Come up with a meaningful definition for either that doesn't specify an
arbitrary, specific time. I don't think you can do it without your
definition logically leading to accepting genetically engineered animals
as native or a nuclear wasteland as natural. Maybe for some of you a
genetically engineered animal could be native and a nuclear wasteland is
a natural environment. If so, we're on different planets when we're
having discussions using these words.

Definitions are beautiful and terrible things.

A definition of anything as "native" or "natural" that takes human
intervention into account may seem simple at a glance, but it ain't so.
Looking at North America (with which I am most familiar) for example, the
hasty will be willing enough to declare anything that predates Columbus as
native. Aside from the obvious introduction of humans anywhere from about
20,000 to 100,000 years ago.....I think that pretty much covers the spectrum
of estimates.....there is also the problem of whatever microflora and
microfauna they brought with them, in addition to the possibility of larger
species. While this may seem like a niggling detail as compared to the
wholesale introductions that occurred in the 15th through the 20th
centuries, anyone familiar the basic principles of epidemiology will
understand its significance.

Language is always fraught with slippery and often hard to detect biases.
"Genetic engineering", as the term is generally understood today, typically
refers to various techniques...recombinant DNA being the most
familiar...developed over the past few decades. IF the term is used with
that in mind, some of the obstacles to understanding and agreement may be
removed, but others remain in place, and most stubbornly so. In fact,
humans have been actively and very busily engaged in genetic engineering of
another sort for thousands of years.....compare teosinte with modern hybrid
corn (aka maize) for one of the classic examples. Human induced selective
pressures are so pervasive, in fact, that virtually NO important vegetative
food crops can be considered "natural" in the sense that they are free of
human meddling. Basmati rice, apples, sweet corn, cauliflower, Carpathian
walnuts, Peruvian purple potatoes, tomatoes, wax beans, Bing cherries, and a
host of other things we take for granted simply didn't exist 50,000 years
ago. Animal species, for reasons that should be obvious (think motility,
for instance) have been somewhat less tractable than plants, in the main,
but the principle holds nevertheless.

The best we can hope for, and it really isn't too complicated (which is not
at all the same thing as not too difficult), is to find a definition for
terms that is simple enough to work with within a given context and for a
specific purpose. Unfortunately, and as is virtually always the case, the
best we can hope for is always more than we can reasonably hope for. The
barrier to fruitful discussion is not a matter of a dearth of useful
definitions, but rather a plentitude of agendas to which mutually acceptable
definitions are anathema.

So, the by now bored reader might wonder, what does all this pompous
pedantry lead to? Well, the CAREFUL reader will have noted that the terms
"understanding" and "agreement" were used above in a manner that suggests
they go hand in hand but, more often than not, people looking for one are
working at cross purposes to those interested in the other. For people
striving toward agreement, understanding is a gross impediment, while those
for whom understanding is the goal must eventually come to the conclusion
that agreement is a chimera.

Wolfgang
who would be happy enough to supply useful definitions......if it weren't so
much fun to watch people thrash each other over things that are
comprehensible to none of them.

Wolfgang wrote:


Definitions are beautiful and terrible things.

A definition of anything as "native" or "natural" that takes human
intervention into account may seem simple at a glance, but it ain't so.
Looking at North America (with which I am most familiar) for example, the
hasty will be willing enough to declare anything that predates Columbus as
native. Aside from the obvious introduction of humans anywhere from about
20,000 to 100,000 years ago.....I think that pretty much covers the spectrum
of estimates.....there is also the problem of whatever microflora and
microfauna they brought with them, in addition to the possibility of larger
species. While this may seem like a niggling detail as compared to the
wholesale introductions that occurred in the 15th through the 20th
centuries, anyone familiar the basic principles of epidemiology will
understand its significance.


Man has been around for awhile but his impact on the world's environment
has been anything but constant during that time. Man has made more
changes to the world's environment in the last 200 years than the rest
of the time he has been on this planet. You go back a few thousand years
and man's impact was much more in balance with the impact of other animals.



Language is always fraught with slippery and often hard to detect biases.
"Genetic engineering", as the term is generally understood today, typically
refers to various techniques...recombinant DNA being the most
familiar...developed over the past few decades. IF the term is used with
that in mind, some of the obstacles to understanding and agreement may be
removed, but others remain in place, and most stubbornly so. In fact,
humans have been actively and very busily engaged in genetic engineering of
another sort for thousands of years.....compare teosinte with modern hybrid
corn (aka maize) for one of the classic examples. Human induced selective
pressures are so pervasive, in fact, that virtually NO important vegetative
food crops can be considered "natural" in the sense that they are free of
human meddling.


I agree.


Basmati rice, apples, sweet corn, cauliflower, Carpathian
walnuts, Peruvian purple potatoes, tomatoes, wax beans, Bing cherries, and a
host of other things we take for granted simply didn't exist 50,000 years
ago. Animal species, for reasons that should be obvious (think motility,
for instance) have been somewhat less tractable than plants, in the main,
but the principle holds nevertheless.


Animals as well as plants have changed dramatically through selective
breeding. I see selective breeding and genetic engineering as two very
different things. However, I don't think either method can produce
native plants or animals.



The best we can hope for, and it really isn't too complicated (which is not
at all the same thing as not too difficult), is to find a definition for
terms that is simple enough to work with within a given context and for a
specific purpose. Unfortunately, and as is virtually always the case, the
best we can hope for is always more than we can reasonably hope for. The
barrier to fruitful discussion is not a matter of a dearth of useful
definitions, but rather a plentitude of agendas to which mutually acceptable
definitions are anathema.

So, the by now bored reader might wonder, what does all this pompous
pedantry lead to? Well, the CAREFUL reader will have noted that the terms
"understanding" and "agreement" were used above in a manner that suggests
they go hand in hand but, more often than not, people looking for one are
working at cross purposes to those interested in the other. For people
striving toward agreement, understanding is a gross impediment, while those
for whom understanding is the goal must eventually come to the conclusion
that agreement is a chimera.



I think that definitions in math and science play a different role. The
language of the sciences is much "tighter." Even though there is not
always total agreement about definitions and sometimes definitions are
proven "wrong" or not useful, accepted definitions are a necessary part
of the sciences.




Wolfgang
who would be happy enough to supply useful definitions......if it weren't so
much fun to watch people thrash each other over things that are
comprehensible to none of them.


Don't think there will be many takers. Most Roffians find more amusement
in toying around with Mr. Outdoor Magazine!

Willi

"Willi" wrote in message
...


Wolfgang wrote:


Definitions are beautiful and terrible things.

A definition of anything as "native" or "natural" that takes human
intervention into account may seem simple at a glance, but it ain't so.
Looking at North America (with which I am most familiar) for example,
the
hasty will be willing enough to declare anything that predates Columbus
as
native. Aside from the obvious introduction of humans anywhere from
about
20,000 to 100,000 years ago.....I think that pretty much covers the
spectrum
of estimates.....there is also the problem of whatever microflora and
microfauna they brought with them, in addition to the possibility of
larger
species. While this may seem like a niggling detail as compared to the
wholesale introductions that occurred in the 15th through the 20th
centuries, anyone familiar the basic principles of epidemiology will
understand its significance.


Man has been around for awhile but his impact on the world's environment
has been anything but constant during that time. Man has made more
changes to the world's environment in the last 200 years than the rest
of the time he has been on this planet.

Well, maybe. I mean, I guess it depends, at least in part, on how you
define "more changes".....or who does the defining, for that matter. I've
been meaning to ask that very question of the Pleistocene megafauna......but
they never return my calls.

Then too, there's that distressing business of grazing animals and deserts
and all that ****.

You go back a few thousand years
and man's impact was much more in balance with the impact of other
animals.

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and guess that you're not a
gomphothere.

Language is always fraught with slippery and often hard to detect
biases.
"Genetic engineering", as the term is generally understood today,
typically
refers to various techniques...recombinant DNA being the most
familiar...developed over the past few decades. IF the term is used
with
that in mind, some of the obstacles to understanding and agreement may
be
removed, but others remain in place, and most stubbornly so. In fact,
humans have been actively and very busily engaged in genetic engineering
of
another sort for thousands of years.....compare teosinte with modern
hybrid
corn (aka maize) for one of the classic examples. Human induced
selective
pressures are so pervasive, in fact, that virtually NO important
vegetative
food crops can be considered "natural" in the sense that they are free
of
human meddling.


I agree.

Probably a mistake.

Basmati rice, apples, sweet corn, cauliflower, Carpathian
walnuts, Peruvian purple potatoes, tomatoes, wax beans, Bing cherries,
and a
host of other things we take for granted simply didn't exist 50,000
years
ago. Animal species, for reasons that should be obvious (think
motility,
for instance) have been somewhat less tractable than plants, in the
main,
but the principle holds nevertheless.


Animals as well as plants have changed dramatically through selective
breeding.

True, but to nowhere near the same extent either in terms of number species
or, generally, degree of change. There are very good....and very well
understood....reasons for this. There are also extensive and readily
available resources explaining these reasons.

I see selective breeding and genetic engineering as two very
different things.

So do I.......in some limited contexts having to do mainly with more or less
current legal, ethical, and public health issues. However, if the ancient
Mesoamericans had worked within the same cultural framework as we (a
substantial stretch, I admit) "genetic engineering" would have a pedigree
roughly equal to that of monotheism or historiography and considerably more
impressive than that of say, the existential dilemma.

However, I don't think either method can produce
native plants or animals.

Human chauvinism, no different than that which informs the biblical
imperative to subjugate the Earth and its multifarious inhabitants. From a
geological perspective the difference between natives and invaders doesn't
amount to half a jar of cold ****. Or, to put it another way, what
you....or I....think is less than irrelevant absent a consensus....or....to
put it yet another way, see the paragraph immediately below.


The best we can hope for, and it really isn't too complicated (which is
not
at all the same thing as not too difficult), is to find a definition for
terms that is simple enough to work with within a given context and for
a
specific purpose. Unfortunately, and as is virtually always the case,
the
best we can hope for is always more than we can reasonably hope for.
The
barrier to fruitful discussion is not a matter of a dearth of useful
definitions, but rather a plentitude of agendas to which mutually
acceptable
definitions are anathema.

So, the by now bored reader might wonder, what does all this pompous
pedantry lead to? Well, the CAREFUL reader will have noted that the
terms
"understanding" and "agreement" were used above in a manner that
suggests
they go hand in hand but, more often than not, people looking for one
are
working at cross purposes to those interested in the other. For people
striving toward agreement, understanding is a gross impediment, while
those
for whom understanding is the goal must eventually come to the
conclusion
that agreement is a chimera.



I think that definitions in math and science play a different role.

Yes, to a large extent. The successes enjoyed by the sciences (and they are
considerable successes) reflect, among other things, the degree of consensus
concerning what is being explored and debated.

The
language of the sciences is much "tighter." Even though there is not
always total agreement about definitions and sometimes definitions are
proven "wrong" or not useful, accepted definitions are a necessary part
of the sciences.

Wolfgang
who would be happy enough to supply useful definitions......if it
weren't so
much fun to watch people thrash each other over things that are
comprehensible to none of them.


Don't think there will be many takers. Most Roffians find more amusement
in toying around with Mr. Outdoor Magazine!

Not surprising. After all, ROFF is what it is.

Wolfgang
who really wouldn't want it to be anything else.