After last week’s column on invasive species, I was not too surprised to receive a number of responses by telephone as well as e-mail on the topic “invasive species.”

The real attention getter was my statement that these plants may be the future with regards to climate change.

Instead of organizing a “weed pull,” I might suggest first approaching a specialist such as a botanist, climate change specialist, etc. to evaluate what we might be calling “invasive plants.”

We seem to have failed to accept plant succession, as well as wildlife including everything from a walking stick up through to a moose, from a dandelion through to a giant white pine tree, are all part of a complex science, equally complex as medicine or engineering.

Climate change is just that – “change” – and if you don’t change with it, you are solely dealing on the principle of self-interest and living in the horse-and-buggy days and dwelling on self-denial.

Before we poison or pull the milkweed plant we might find growing in the Yukon, we should research the temperature zone it can survive in.

Next, we should scientifically research the benefits this plant offers in the wide scheme of things.

Actually, the milkweed is extremely good, if not imperative to the existence of the monarch butterfly, which is being pushed closer to the “endangered species list” due to the pesticides being used by communities and on farmlands.

Destroying a so-called invasive species, just because it is new to the area, is not part of science but rather a “trial and error, and that could add trouble for future plants and wildlife.”

We should crawl before we walk, walk before we run in this period of bioclimatic.

Bioclimatic is a science of the relationship between the climate, seasons, as well as the geographic distribution. It deals with the fundamental laws, principles, systems and methods of application – in general, research.

That includes economic practices, and has a special reference to the minor and major astronomic and terrestrial laws of causation represented by a variable phenomenon of life, climate and seasons, relative to geographic co-ordinates as expressed, measured and interpreted in units of time, temperature and distance.

If you don’t understand the above paragraph, why the hell are you pulling a weed that may be the future of everything from bees to caribou in the Yukon?

The aim of research is to know the truth, which our present federal government seems to want to hide with the gutting of the Fisheries Act, as well as the countless scientists who are losing their federal jobs.

The truth, even though it may be an unwelcomed truth, is better than a cherished error, and the future of all wild things depends on the extension as well the diffusion of knowledge.

As we have recently witnessed, wildlife and the environment are now deeply involved in political decisions.

As far as bogs, swamps and marshes, they are but a nuisance in political terms and simply should be developed or reclaimed.

Removing that supposedly invasive species, without first looking to its future importance within the realms of climate change, is simply adding to the political blunder of bio-politics.

Those who rebut change are the future’s worst enemy. We now live in a biological dimension, and from the smallest of plants to the largest tree, from the smallest of insects to the largest mammal, in science they are all woven into one.

One cannot exist without the other. We have been given the intelligence to deal with this, but unfortunately, in many cases, the lack of humility to learn thereof.

This week’s question: dealing with mammals, what is the largest mustelids?

So now you must get an education and look up what a mustelids actually is. Here is a hint; it stinks!

Here is the answer to last week’s question (what is the world’s largest ocean?).

The Pacific takes credit for that one. It also takes credit for being the deepest ocean at around 14,000 feet.

The Atlantic comes in a close second, with a depth of 13,000 feet.

The Indian Ocean follows, and the Arctic trails the big ones.

Although rather insignificant in size, the Arctic will play a major role in climate change as well as in the existence (or non-existence) of many birds and animals.

This week’s saying is a quote from Thomas Jefferson: “My reading of history convinces me that most bad governments result from too much government.”

You can bet I will say amen to that, brother!

The Whitehorse writer is a member of the Outdoor Writers of Canada whose column appears Fridays.

Readers can suggest ideas to him by e-mailing him at: murraywritesforu@northwestel.net

VOICE OF THE OUTDOORS
By MURRAY J. MARTIN