Originally Posted by CNC
In a perfect scenario where we humans hadn’t manipulated the landscape so heavily, you would have a nice balance of habitat structure across the land that was comprised of a nice balance of grasses, broadleafs, and legumes……and that structure would be the driver for producing a nice balanced mix of cover and food where predator and prey populations also nicely balanced each other out…..They would go through ups and downs with the rainfall and vegetation but the end product that came out the back end would be in line with what the natural balance of vegetation was producing.


Lets just think about Moundville area - similar to tallassee and other native high population centers. Moundville had, estimated in it's heyday, 10,000+ natives living there associated with the complex. Walking..... Imagine the impact they had on the local landscape. They couldn't travel terribly far in a day and reports indicate they went "off hunting" to '"hunting grounds". They HAD to because they devastated the local game populations around their population centers. Just like the plains indians using buffalo jumps to kill thousands of buffalo, most of which were wasted, to provide meat for the population. There are vast areas I have seen on maps of early settlers where very few indians lived and were used only for hunting to provide food. So much for "balance". These humans heavily manipulated the habitat and the game populations. The balance was more accidental due to low populations FAR away from population centers. Balance in predator/prey sounds good in a pretty poem.

I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine