"When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable "trophic cascade" occurred."
As the video explains, unchecked herboviore species has caused a lot of damage to the environment, grazing much of the vegetation. The introduction of wolves radically changed the behavior of the prey species and they start avoiding certain places like valleys where they can easily be trapped. This allowed the vegetation to regenerate and trees started to grow. This resulted in birds moving in. Beavers started to increase, and the dams they built provided habitat for a bunch of other species of animals. And so on and so forth. The regeneration of the vegetation provided stability to the banks of the rivers so they collapsed less often.
I'm not disputing the ecological affects of predation. I'm disputing its use/applicability as a rhetorical device to further an argument about how to live a "good life".
After all, this isn't an essay on ecology. This paragraph wasn't simply added because ecology is cool. It was added to further an argument.
You're jumping into conclusions.
His sentiment is better understood in terms of the balance of nature.
He posted this on his Twitter a while back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q
The video is titled "How Wolves Change Rivers".
"When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable "trophic cascade" occurred."
As the video explains, unchecked herboviore species has caused a lot of damage to the environment, grazing much of the vegetation. The introduction of wolves radically changed the behavior of the prey species and they start avoiding certain places like valleys where they can easily be trapped. This allowed the vegetation to regenerate and trees started to grow. This resulted in birds moving in. Beavers started to increase, and the dams they built provided habitat for a bunch of other species of animals. And so on and so forth. The regeneration of the vegetation provided stability to the banks of the rivers so they collapsed less often.
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