On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, James West wrote:

> My faith in the ultimate balance of nature is restored a little every time I
> see a raptor take a Starling or two for lunch -- usually it's been a Merlin,
> for whom they seem to be sitting ducks :).


The difficulty is that nature is not something that "balances." Ratter
than a static balance, nature is something that is dynamic and
continuously changing. The significant difference between human-induced
changes and other changes is one of scale: human-induced changes are often
dramatically more rapid.

Dale Goble
Moscow