Dam Ohop Creek

Day 312: Since my "Forest Succession" nature walk in the Ohop Valley, I have been puzzling over the aspect of human psychology which compels us to interfere. I can't claim to have come up with the rationale, but it strikes me that it is intrinsically linked to our insistence that others conform to what we consider "right," whether it is our religious belief, our political agenda, or even just our side of the nonsensical argument of whether the faces on our paper money should be centered or offset. This came up because one of the people attending my walk (someone not affiliated with the Land Trust) told me that when he sees a beaver dam blocking a creek, he opens a portion of it to allow fish easy passage, claiming that he used to work for Fish and Wildlife and by inference, that he knows better how to manage the ecology better than Mother Nature. I attempted to reason with him (asserting my side of the argument, and here I damn myself for committing the very offense which is the subject of my rant), explaining that the healthiest, strongest migrating fish will leap over a small dam such as this one, or that by the time the upstream migration occurs, high water will make passage much easier. The unstated and unjustifiable assertion that "fish are better than beavers" bothers me. Who are we to make that determination? What gives us the right? Why can't we just leave it alone (whatever "it" is), and let Nature follow her own course? She managed the balancing act quite well until we insisted on getting involved.