When an animal's population rises too high, some kind of corrective measure takes place, and the population is reduced to a more sustainable level. Lemmings, small rodents in the arctic, have the most dramatic version of this, they jumps off cliffs en masse, seemingly committing suicide, leaving a small number to repopulate their habitat.
As a 11-year-old living near a lake, outside Willard, Ohio, a friend and I decided we were going to start trapping muskrats for their fur one winter. Muskrats are rodents, basically big water rats, that live all over North America, and have thick fur. I'm not writing this post to get into the issue of fur trapping, which lots of people are totally against these days. I'm writing this post because, to get my trapping permit in Ohio, I had to take a course one Saturday, about wildlife and trapping in general.
My dad, Tom Emig, was an avid target shooter, but never went hunting. My dad abhorred violence of any kind, and never wanted to hurt animals himself. He loved a good burger or steak, but never wanted to actually harm an animal personally. But being a cool dad, he agreed to take me to a conservation league lake site clubhouse, where the trapping course and test were being held. So it was a cool father/son day for us. We had morning session of lessons for a couple of hours, and then a break and some refreshments. Dad and I walked around the lake, talking about all kinds of things. Then we had another hour or so of lessons, with about 25 other men and boys, no women were there. Then everyone took the test. If you passed the test, you got piece of paper certifying that you could go buy your trapping permit at an fishing shop or similar store near your house.
One part of the lessons we learned that fall day in Ohio, was some of the basic biological facts about wildlife populations in general. One of those basic facts, across all animal species, is that animal populations rise and fall in cycles. This is true of mammals, like the lemmings above, or the squirrels, deer, rabbits, raccoons, opossums we all see from time to time. It's also true of fish, amphibians, reptiles, and insects. If you've seen a major locust cycle year in your area, you know how crazy their populations can get.
In our wildlife trapping course, on that fall day in Ohio, we learned that when an animal population peaks, and their are too many animals for the local environment, one of two things reduces the animal's population. Either some major disease sprouts up, an epidemic in that species, and a huge number of animals die. The other option when overpopulation happens is that the local environment simply doesn't have enough food for that species, and a huge number of animals starve to death. So when an animal population overpopulates, either disease kills a large number, or starvation kills a large number of those animals. Then the number of that species drops to a level that the local environment an support, and life goes on as normal for that species.
In our trapping course, on that fall day in Ohio, we learned that this is why natural predators are so important. Predators kill and eat other animals, and that helps a species from overpopulating. We also learned that hunting, fishing, and trapping also help reduce animal species numbers, and keep them from overpopulating.
My point in this little story about basic wildlife biology, is that humans are an animal species. Except our intelligence has given us the ability to create cures for diseases that would naturally curb our population numbers. So our population grows largely unchecked. We do have wars at times, which kill large numbers of people, something other animals don't do. I've never seen a raccoon flying a B-2 bomber killing other raccoons. Like any animal population, from time to time, new diseases, or new strains of known diseases, pop up through mutation, and an epidemic, or perhaps a worldwide pandemic, like Covid-19, grows, spreads, and starts infecting and killing large numbers of humans. That's what the Covid-19 strain of human corona virus is doing right now.
Here's the thing. We're humans, we're smart. Or at least we're supposed to be. We, as a society, can recognize that we're having a pandemic, and we can take measures to limit the number of people who die from the epidemic, or in this case, worldwide pandemic. We, as humans, can also engage in misinformation and disinformation, and actually talk people into believing that the pandemic isn't real, and the measures instituted aren't needed. We have both of those things happening right now.
Our society, like in the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1917-18, put rules in place to slow down the spread of the disease. We now have mask rules, social distancing rules, and we had a major societal shutdown. Those measures, according to a scientific study, saved over half a million infections and tens of thousands of deaths. This happened worldwide, despite a complete failure on the part of the White House on this issue in the U.S.. As of right now, the morning of July 2nd, 2020, there have been over 10.9 million Covid-19 infections, officially, worldwide, and well over 500,000 deaths. Here in the U.S., there have been over 2.8 million infections, and over 131,000 people have died. I just listened to a news report that said the numbers of infections is rising in 45 out of the 50 states right now. And 4th of July is this weekend.
If you go balls out and party like a normal 4th of July, you're basically acting like those lemmings in the clip above. You may not get sick, you may not die, but you're definitely making a massive spread of the virus much more possible. If you decide to dial things back, and have a small party with family members, and avoid big crowds and events, you're showing your intelligence. And us humans, in theory, are intelligent creatures.
It's your call, hopefully many of you will do your part to slow this pandemic down a bit. Are you smarter than a lemming? Are you more intelligent than a gerbil-like critter with mass suicidal tendencies? I'm on Facebook every day, I know some of you are not. But thanks to the people out there who are smarter than lemmings, and tone it down this weekend.
Have fun, celebrate, but be smart. Happy Independence Day.
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