My home State(New Jersey) back in the 60's and 70's was not known for it's biological diversity despite carrying the nickname--"The Garden State"--. True that truck farms growing vegetables and fruits was what the State was known for for 150 years 1800-1943..........
The opening of the George Washington Bridge connecting Bergen County, New Jersey with Manhattan(Westchester County, NY as well as Queens NY and Long Island) in 1931 and then the swelling of the population with the World War 2 Vets returning home to start families created a surge of home building that by present day has Bergen County(and virtually the entire State of NJ) in a "built-out" condition hosting a population density that is amongst the "thickest" in the World:
Human Population per sq mile of arable land......Taiwan 6657, Japan 6657, New Jersey 5505 and China 3146.................NJ should be in Asia!!!!!
Due to this "swell of humanity", New Jersey residents have consistantly voted "YES" on Green Acres Bond issues with former Governor Christie Whitman(President Bush's first EPA Director) in her last year in office pushing through a referendum to preserve half of the remaining open space in the State.
The Northwestern "Highlands"(named after the same rugged hills and forests in Scotland) and the Pinelands, located in the Southern portion of the State, have become "sanctuaries" for "prospecting" New York and Pennsylvania black bears, Eastern coyotes(Coywolves), Fishers and Bobcats seeking new territories to "set up shop" and raise families of their own.
So, in just 40 years, the "Garden State has grown a new "crop" of native Carnivores..................teriffic, I say...................but of course with limited space for their offspring to move out into................bears have now been showing up virtually at the toll booths of the George Washington Bridge. Goes to show that if you have a remnant population of animals within a reasonable distance and corridors for them to navigate, then they will repopulate their former haunts.
How do we learn to live with them? Can we evolve so as to not leave the garbage cans out the night before...............can we keep our cats inside and our dogs on leashes................can we find a way to enjoy our "wild side" out our front door rather than just on the Discovery Channel and Ntl Geo?
No one ever discusses human overpopulation as a problem(see bear video adjacent to this article).........it is always that there are too many Wolves in the West(a couple thousand)................too many bears in NJ(several hundred)....................what about the 300 million plus of us inhabiting the land in a manner that will just not ever be sustainable. Three planet earths of natural resources needed for all 7 Billion humans on our Planet to enjoy the "American Dream"................Technology advances and agricultural revolutions will not save the day because there are not enough raw materials to make billions of computers, cars, homes, etc, etc without plundering every last inch(and two planets more) of our natural World...............A DILEMMA FOR SURE..........................meanwhile, I root for the bears, coyotes, fishers and bobcats to not only make NJ the Garden State......................I root for them to get people referring to Jersey as the Wild State!!!!!!!!!!!!
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