The Green TLC Wednesday message - 24 March 2021

Sometimes we take actions that have completely unexpected and unforeseen circumstances, and there is no better example in Nature than Trophic Cascading. A trophic cascade is what happens when you remove an apex predator from their natural habitat, which can happen through trophy hunting activities or when people want the land for farming or other developments. Once an apex predator is removed from their habitat, everything goes out of balance. The prey animal populations increase, and the increased numbers can have a disastrous effect on the vegetation and soul because there is a huge demand for food.

But nature is entirely resilient! It doesn't take long to bring everything back into balance again if you restore the apex predator to their rightful place.

Here is an illustration of what happens when you remove an apex predator from an ecosystem.

Here is a lovely video about what happened at Yellowstone Park, it is just about 5 minutes but is beautifully made. Yellowstone Park is indeed the classic example. Right here in South Africa, we need to remember this because we are losing our lion populations to trophy hunting and poaching - and our famous White Lions of the Timbavati are a deeply threatened population.

- The Green Teaching and Learning Community