2. Trophic levels pt.2 (ft. humans)

Dear readers, 
Welcome back to the VOICEofप्रकृति :)
                               (read : Voice of Prakriti)

Where do you think humans are placed on the food chain ? 

Humans can be placed everywhere (except producers). Humans can be primary consumers, secondary consumers, and in many cases, even the apex of the food chain. Humans, therefore, are extremely powerful in terms of having the ability to alter entire ecosystem interactions. 

Did you ever wonder how did we become this powerful ? Our position in this food web was not the same; thousands of years back. Let's go back in time. 🕑

I would like to reference a few lines here from Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Although I couldn’t finish the entire book, the few lines I ended up skimming were so powerful that they’ve stayed with me ever since.

I have a question. Can you guess the function of the very first stone tools of humans ?
Your answer would probably be hunting/defence. 
Mostly true, but Harari talks about how the common use of the earliest stone tools was - to crack open bones to get marrow.
Let's understand the psychology and history of Homo sapiens (scientific name for us humans) through this info. Why bone marrow ?
In the past, top carnivores like lions would devour prey such as antelopes or wild boars, leaving behind carcasses for scavengers like hyenas and jackals. Humans would have to wait for stronger predators to finish, before they could approach the remains. By the time it was safe for us to scavenge, most of the accessible meat had already been consumed. Marrow, however, was still hidden within the bones, providing a rich source of fat and nutrients that other animals couldn’t easily access.

See the role of humans in the food chain here ? We were strictly in the middle. We were -

1. Hunter gatherers (who rely on hunting animals and gathering wild plants for food, rather than farming or raising livestock.)
2. Foragers (who search for and collect wild food resources - including plants, fruits, nuts, and animals, rather than cultivating crops or raising livestock.)
3. Scavengers (feed on dead plants and animals, consuming leftover food rather than hunting or gathering it themselves.)

But the top of the food chain ? Not at all. For millions of years, human hunted smaller creatures, while simultaneously being hunted by bigger carnivores. It was only in the last 100,000 years where humans jumped to the top of the food chain, says Harari. 

But what is so different about humans rising to the top ? Ecosystems have seen multiple rise and falls of various species from becoming apex predators (for eg; dinosaurs) and then becoming extinct. Harari says - the time it took for humans to rise at the top.
In ecosystems, animals who eventually become the top of the food chain, have had to evolve for years to reach that position. As they kept rising to power, the ecosystem would also have developed its own natural checks and balances to avoid the top predator from killing everyone and everything; basically stop them from overpowering. 

But humans rose to the top of the food chain so quickly - the change was so sudden; that neither ecosystem nor humans themselves, have had time to adjust to the new dynamics. 
We as humans, ourselves, failed to adjust. 
I liked this line from Harari's book the most. He says, that all the top carnivores are majestic creatures. Their prolonged years of dominance in the ecosystem have filled them with inherent confidence. But humans were just the "underdogs of the savannah", and we still have fears and anxieties of being overthrown from our new position, making us doubly cruel and dangerous.

Tell me, aren't we all scared of being forced under control? We simply don’t like being told what to do. We all dream of unbridled power and try to quash anything we think might harm us or our chances of retaining that power. From killing man-eaters and sharks to simply shooing away cats because we think they might 'bite' us (or even the stereotypical belief of not crossing the "kaali billi"), these actions illustrate the extent of control we desire in our lives.
I understand humanity's tendency to evolve and eliminate threats, but unnecessarily wiping out all flora and fauna for our "perceived threats" or exploitation, is simply unethical.

This is also where the concept of environmental ethics come in. "With great power comes great responsibility" - I think everybody's favourite Spiderman quote. 

Also, I would like to bring to your attention that this control of ours will be very short lived if we do not restore the balance of our ecosystems. Because humans may have failed to adjust, but nature has'nt.
Nature will always find a way. The most recent example : COVID - 19 pandemic.
This is what Prof Matthew Baylis from University of Liverpool had to say about COVID-19 ( when it was officially being labelled as a 'pandemic' and not just an epidemic) to BBC news -

"In the last 20 years, we have had SIX significant threats - SARS, MERS, Ebola, Avian Influenza and Swine flu. We dodged the first 5 bullets, but the 6th got us. And this is not the last pandemic we are going to face, so we need to look more closely at wildlife disease."

Did you like today's blog ? I hope Harari's words blew your mind the way it did mine. I'll see you next time with an equally intriguing concept - trophic cascades. 

[P.S. My copy is back home, so a big thanks to (my friends) Vignesh for letting me borrow his limited edition copy of Harari's book, and to Ashmit for sending me the online version.]