At 03:01 PM 12/27/97 -0800, you wrote:

>Actually, war is often quite beneficial to animal populations -- when
>humans are slaughtering one another they generally stop slaughtering other
>species. Fishery populations on the Georges Bank, for example, rebounded
>during the war of 1812 because fishers could not venture out without fear
>of capture. Similarly, game populations apparently increased during the
>Civil War. Total war, of course, may well be a different matter. I doubt
>that game populations in Europe were benefitted by WWII.

And of course we have the example of the US using the destruction of the
free-ranging buffalo herds as a tactic to force native tribes to yield
to the strategy of moving them to reservations.


- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net