Population pressures

Nancy over at Life in the Second Half has ignited a firestorm with a post about a neighbor who is shooting at squirrels in her condo area. She put the post up earlier today and I just added the 41st comment. Most people think it's unconscionable for people to shoot wild animals. But there are a few who feel it's important to keep them in check. And some who get off on it.

These two beautiful fawns and Mama Doe are seen by some people as fair game, nuisances to be driven away, or shot. Squirrels and deer, along with birds, proliferate around here, and I got to thinking about how I would feel if somebody came along with a gun and shot my wildlife. Pretty angry, I would say.

The balance of nature is a tough one. We humans are actually the ones who have gotten things so terribly out of whack, because we are changing everything through worldwide overpopulation. We are crowding out other species right and left, and there doesn't seem to be any fix for it, since we will continue to grow in numbers, as shown in the following graph:
I could go on and on, but what is bothering me right now is my beautiful wild friends, who are losing their habitat everywhere in the world. The deer above live in the field on the south side of my apartment complex. It used to be a chicken farm, I understand, and when it was torn down the land became overgrown with (mostly) blackberry bushes, fireweed, and other low shrubs. It has become a haven for all kinds of wildlife. Of course, I think the fireweed is beautiful, and the blackberries are delicious. But I've learned that here in Washington state, the blackberry bramble is considered invasive. Here's a quote from Wikipedia:

In some parts of the world, such as in Australia, Chile, New Zealand, and the Pacific Northwest region of North America, some blackberry species, particularly Rubus armeniacus (syn. R. procerus, 'Himalaya') and Rubus laciniatus ('Evergreen') are naturalised and considered an invasive species and a serious weed.

This means that one person's delicious blackberries and cute squirrels are another person's scourge. As the world grows more and more overpopulated, these issues will become even more important to us. Now I'm not likely to be around when we get to 2050 (since I would be 108 by then), I might actually still be around by 2030 when that chart above projects more than 2.5 billion more people will be sharing our planet.

By then, I'll look back at my blog and show you what the world looked like, back when I was in my sixties. Wasn't it beautiful?
(click any picture to enlarge)
:-(