Ever since he was killed by a hunter in 2020, the Canadian sea wolf Takaya has appeared all over the world.
Paintings, poems, sculptures and statues – including a 150lb (68kg) mixture of driftwood, sea shells and dried kelp – have memorialized a wolf whose legacy reflects the complex relationship between humans and wildlife.
But photographer Cheryl Alexander, a relentless advocate against government-sanctioned wolf culls, was shocked to see her most famous image used to advertise a big game hunting company.
“I was shocked and a bit horrified. And it really pissed me off that company was using Takaya as an advertisement to come up to Canada and kill a wolf,” she told the Guardian. “It hurt too because Takaya has become, in many ways, an international image for positive coexistence with humans.”
I’m probably going to contradict you a little.
The only balance nature has without our intervention is one or several species having a very good growth environment, which leads to an explosion of numbers, an exhaustion/extinction of their food source, collapse through mass starvation, then rinse and repeat with other species in the food chain.
Nature’s balance is a serial unchecked growth through collapse. Lots of killing and dying over and over again.
Our problem is that we think we’re above it happening to us if we even think about it at all. We’re not. We’ll grow until we collapse. And then something else will grow uncontrollably, likely feasting on our corpses.