A Lesson from Nature
New Horizon English Course 3 (Shōwa 56) pg. 60-63
| A Lesson from Nature | |
|---|---|
| ? | |
| Details | |
| Word count | 287 |
| Book | New Horizon |
| Grade | 3 |
| Year | 1981 |
Not many years ago, some American farmers began to complain about hawks. The hawks were taking their chickens away. The farmers did not know what to do. They went to the county officials and asked for help.
The county officials said, "We'll pay you for each hawk you kill." The farmers began to kill hawks.
Many hawks were killed, but the farmers now had another problem. The field mice were growing in numbers, and they were eating up the farmers' grain.
Hawks eat not only chickens but also field mice. They eat more field mice than chickens. But the farmers who killed the hawks did not know that. So the balance of nature was lost.
When people come and live in a new place, they often destroy many wild plants. If the animals living there cannot find enough plants to eat, they will have to go to another place to get food.
In one part of the United States, for example, there are mule deer which eat a kind of wild rose. The deer are eaten by mountain lions. The numbers of mule deer, mountain lions, and wild roses do not change much if people stay away from them.
The United States government once killed almost all the mountain lions to protect the mule deer. Soon there were so many deer that they ate up all the wild roses. Then they began to eat the green leaves of young trees which were important to the farmers. So the farmers protected their trees from the deer. The deer had nothing to eat, and many of them died. The government learned a lesson from nature.
It is always necessary for us to try to keep the balance of nature.
