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Showing posts from February 14, 2016

Are predators really needed in nature?

There is an argument about why predators like the tiger and the leopard are really needed in the jungle. If not for the predators, apparently, the meek (non-predators) would multiply so much and consume so much of the vegetation that the ecological balance of the jungle would be upset. The above argument is often syncretically extended to human societies and applied to human relationships, business, governance and so on. Predatory strategies abound in all these places, where the "meek" are destroyed or consumed by the "strong" (euphemism for predators) not just to feed the predator's sense of entitlement, but also purportedly, to keep some kind of social balance. It is easy to see the flaw in this argument. There are several forests that are home to deers and other "meek" creatures, with no predators to feed on them (for instance, the Jayamangali deer sanctuary near Tumkur). These forests have not exactly dwindled due to the deers. Deer population