by Morgan Carlson

Created on: August 04, 2009   Last Updated: August 06, 2009

We all know the effects of invasive species in environments where they don't belong, and have written of the devastation involved with overpopulations of insects such as locusts and other swarming creatures since ancient times, but have little thought of ourselves in the same category. As an animal that learned to branch out from its natural habitat due to its ability to use its intelligence to overcome its physical limitations, human beings have spread to regions all over the world.

Due to our desire to live and to parent a new generation, while keeping elders living longer, our overpopulations can have no other choice but to impact wildlife. After all, we've pushed our habitat thoroughly into theirs, and think of them as the ones who don't belong within our communities.

For whatever the reason, people have begun to classify wildlife as 'animals that live in the woods'. More often than not, there are many who wonder why grazing animals such as North America's white-tailed deer are found so intermixed into communities across the nation, venturing into suburban environments and leading to so many vehicular accidents and deaths.

To say that they should stay in the woods 'where they belong' is foolish. There's little to nothing to eat in a forest for a grazing animal, and most of the valleys that they would prefer to graze, frolic, and sleep in are already settled by human beings. Thinking that there can be preservation and separation of the wild animals from human habitat is a vain thought. After all, these animals have little elsewhere to go.

Typical to most societies around the world, human populations moved into an area and took out the predators in that area in order to protect themselves and their livestock. Because of this overpopulation and spread into other areas, humans eliminated many of the great predators and isolated them to limited areas that neither wish to go.

With this movement, the predators that suffered the most were the wolves across most of Europe and the United States, all lions across southern Europe, nearly all mountain lions across the United States. Coyotes were more fortunate, but were also thoroughly reduced.

Today populations of mountain lions, wolves, and coyotes have made dramatic comebacks in certain areas, but the push of human populations into their new territories are once again leading to negative interactions.

Besides simply moving in and taking out certain wildlife species, the mere grid of human transportation

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