Trey Smith
Tens of thousands of rats killed by Hurricane Isaac have washed up onto the beaches of Mississippi and created a foul-smelling mess that officials say will take days to clean up.Upon reading this [gross] story, I immediately thought of a line from Verse 2 of the Tao Te Ching:
When the hurricane lifted the tides, the water washed across the marshy areas in Louisiana where the semi-aquatic rats live and forced them to ride the waves into Mississippi until they succumbed to exhaustion and drowned, said David Yarborough, a supervisor for Hancock County on the Gulf Coast.
The tides then deposited their bodies on the Mississippi shoreline, he said.
As of Tuesday, about 16,000 of the rodents have been collected in Hancock County, where a hired contractor's clean-up efforts are expected to continue for another week, officials said.
~ from Hurricane Isaac Sweeps Tons of Dead Rats onto Mississippi Beaches by Emily Le Coz ~
The ten thousand things rise and fall without ceaseNature has a way of dealing with excess. When one or more species become overabundant, nature sees to it that those species suffer a die off so that the overall system can get back in balance. It has been this way since the beginning of time.
While we humans work to contrive life to fit our wants and desires, nature itself is want-less and desire-less. It rises and falls in such a way as to create an ever-evolving harmony.
This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.
We also overlook the fact that we humans are not exempt to the laws of nature. Once we become "overabundant" ourselves, nature will restore balance. Technology only helps delay the inevitable, unless we can control our population and resource consumption.
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