The Comeback of the Bald Eagle

The story of the conservation of'the bald eagle
(Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is one of success, if only after a near disaster. It is all the more valuable because success is such a rare thing in nature conservation.

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Article 2. Bear Hunting

Fish Creek, near Hyder (Alaska), is one of the few places on earth where people and wild bears still seem to be able to spend time in each other's presence without too much risk for either species. The bears come here to fish and eat berries and see people neither as potential prey nor as a threat. People come here just to experience this and respect the needs of the animals.

Bears, however, are not protected here. Throughout Alaska there are numerous guides and outfitters offering rich tourists the opportunity to shoot bears, as well as wolves, caribou, moose, etc. The costs for such adventures start at $10.000 U.S. per day.

These two ways of enjoying bears naturally are highly conflicting. One is sustainable and one is not.

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Article 1. How the beaver helped change the world.

The world would not have been the same without beavers (Castor canadensis). Each and every species on earth has a certain influence on its surroundings, but the influence of some is disproportionally large, especially when their size and abundance is taken into the equation.

The presence of a beaver in general leads to a more diverse natural system, but there can be negative effects as well. For example, some rivers have been known to be so completely blocked by dams that salmon would no longer be able to swim upstream to reach their spawning grounds.

However large the beaver's influence on the natural world is because of all that, its influence on a completely different front makes that look insignificant. Because of this large rodent, wars have been fought, borders have been established and reestablished and whole cultures were destroyed. It is fair to say that the human history of a whole continent and, more or less indirectly, of a large part of the world has been shaped around a 40-60 pound weighing animal which, to most people, looks rather uninteresting.

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