...crashing down hatred explodes from within. The seams that are mended so carefully, bust until nothing can be contained. Reality is no comparison, to that of which Finny resides in. The seams of a fantasy should be knit tightly together, and never come apart. A permanent fantasy becomes a haven, the place to run to when everything else is falling apart. Tucked in the back of the mind, it continues to exist and practically nothing can destroy it. Leper lives a free life, and creates his own path. While collecting snails and searching for beaver dams, the war never makes a decision for him. Peace and unity with nature are the building blocks of his life. He views elements of the world in a different manner than many others. He sees through his fantasy life, from the deepest point of the sea to the sun in the sky, nature has developed the filter he lives his life by. In Chapter Seven, when he is skiing to go look at the beaver dam, he shows his unity with nature. He tells Gene how humans have ruined skiing by making it more about speed, than focusing on being one with nature, “Oh you see a lot of trees shoot by, but you never get to really look at trees, at a tree” (48).Leper is connected to every grain of sand on the beach, and every cloud in the sky. Peace and quiet in nature is what he has always lived by. When he enlists for war, this establishes a completely new path to somewhere Leper has never been before. When he goes to training, his fantasy vanishes. Reality...
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...In my opinion the wolves did not restore Yellow Stone’s ecosystem. Before they were introduced in 1995 the wolves had been absent for 70 years. In this amount of time Yellow Stone went through major changes, some that are irreversible. Arthur Middleton from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies denies the claims saying that wolves are solely responsible for bringing life back to Yellow Stone Park. The main source to support his argument is the experimental studies on willow plants found by the Colorado State University. After humans drove away the wolves Elk took over and grazed on the shrubs until they were all but gone. “Without willows to eat, beavers declined, without beaver dams, fast-flowing streams cut deeper into the terrain. The water table dropped below the reach of willow roots, now it’s too late for even high levels of wolf predation to restore the willows” (Did the Reintroduction of Wolves Truly Change Yellowstone?, Candice Gaukel Andrews). Elk numbers have declined but wolves are not the only predators responsible. “Human hunting, growing bear numbers, and severe drought have also reduced elk populations.” Also trout numbers have been declining forcing bears to find new sources for food, Elk. Other sources, such as the videos from George Monbiot, state that Elk stayed away from areas in the park that were dominated by wolves allowing the vegetation to grow. This is partially true as they avoided a few areas, however they still mostly went and grazed...
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...Abstract. The theory of optimal foraging and its relation to central foraging was examined by using the beaver as a model. Beaver food choice was examined by noting the species of woody vegetation, status (chewed vs. not-chewed), distance from the water, and circumference of trees near a beaver pond in North Carolina. Beavers avoided certain species of trees and preferred trees that were close to the water. No preference for tree circumference was noted. These data suggest that beaver food choice concurs with the optimal foraging theory. Introduction In this lab, we explore the theory of optimal foraging and the theory of central place foraging using beavers as the model animal. Foraging refers to the mammalian behavior associated with searching for food. The optimal foraging theory assumes that animals feed in a way that maximizes their net rate of energy intake per unit time (Pyke et al. 1977). An animal may either maximize its daily energy intake (energy maximizer) or minimize the time spent feeding (time minimizer) in order to meet minimum requirements. Herbivores commonly behave as energy maximizers (Belovsky 1986) and accomplish this maximizing behavior by choosing food that is of high quality and has low-search and low-handling time (Pyke et al. 1977). The central place theory is used to describe animals that collect food and store it in a fixed location in their home range, the central place (Jenkins 1980). The factors associated with the optimal foraging...
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...4/3/2015 The Beaver and the Bird Mr. Brad Bucky, the friendly beaver that lives down in the creek near our house was hard at work, building a new home for his family. Now Mr. Bucky’s house was not a house like we have, it was a dam made from sticks and rocks and mud. Mr. Bucky needed to finish his house because his wife, Becky Bucky, was going to have 5 baby beavers very soon. At first, Mr. Bucky was making excellent progress on his new home and was nearly half done in just a few short days. But then progress started to slow down. What was the problem? High above in a nearby tree, Connie Crow was also building a nest for her own soon-tobe growing family. She was really struggling to find good sticks to help build her nest until all of a sudden one day in the creek below, a pile of stick started to appear. She thought this was a little suspicious, so she just watched for a day to see where these sticks were suddenly coming from. Early the next morning when Connie woke up, she saw Bucky Beaver hauling some more sticks to the pile and realized right away that he was building a home for him and his family as well. Connie knew she shouldn’t take the sticks from the beavers, but she really needed to get going building her own house as well, because she was going to lay her eggs soon. Connie made her decision and didn’t waste any time getting to work gathering sticks from Bucky’s home. Bucky was really confused as to why progress on his home was slowing down so much...
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...Beaver teeth are so sharp that Native Americans once used them as knife blades. Beavers eat tree bark and the soft tissue, that lies beneath the bark. Trees they seem especially fond of are willows, maples, poplars, beeches, birches, alders, and aspens. Mr. Kaiser’s beaver log was hallowed out like a cylinder with pointed ends. This log was accidently placed on the bomb fire and burned which caused physical and chemical reactions and changes. Let’s talk about some of the physical and chemical properties. Physical properties can be observed or measured without changing the composition of the matter. The beaver’s log had the following physical properties. It was shaped like a cylinder with pointed ends, brown and rough. The beaver ate the bark and the soft tissue in order to receive nourishment. Chemical properties of matter describe its “potential” to undergo some chemical change or reaction by virtue of its composition. As the beaver log burns, it goes through three phases. The first phase is the evaporation of water. As the wood is heated moisture evaporates quickly consuming heat energy in the process. The second phase is the emission of smoke. As the wood heats up, it starts to smoke. The smoke is the visible result of the destruction of the solid wood as it vaporizes into a cloud of combustible gases. The smoke will burn if the temperature is high enough and oxygen is present. The third and final phase is the charcoal phase. As the fire grows and most...
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...percent profit to which 99.9 percent of it went to himself. Another example of Astor’s lack of ethics is when he let the Indians use credit so that they would be in debt to him and they would not be able buy from any other sellers. Astor’s career shows that there is no relation between virtue and success, his lesson would have to be (don’t let virtue get in the way of success). This is the way he lived his life as a businessman, on many occasions he bribed federal officials in charge of enforcing fur trade laws. 2). In the 1830’s the consensus seems to be against the fur trade industry, I believe that Astor may have pushed to hard. As we said in class people will only take so much abuse before they revolt. People were exterminating beavers for the...
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...games similar to blitzball. Even a small game that imitates war scares Leper and he does not want any part in it. Leper also demonstrates his disinterest in the war through his searches for beaver dams and trays of snails. When Gene treks through the snow to clear train tracks, he finds Leper cross country skiing around “... looking for—a beaver dam… ‘It’s interesting to see the way beavers adapt to the winter”, Leper tells Gene, “Have you ever seen it?’” (95). Leper has always been very interested in animals and how they adapt to their environments. Even though the war is on everyone’s mind, including Gene’s, it is definitely not in Leper’s because he would rather look for beaver dams than contribute to the war effort. Contrary to his disinterest of the war at the beginning of the novel, when recruiters from the United States ski troops show a propaganda film to the class, Leper is intrigued and immediately wants to join the war cause. After hearing of Leper’s enlistment Gene claims, “that made the war seem more unreal than ever. No real war could draw Leper voluntarily away from his snails and beaver dams” (123). Gene starts to think that the war is “more unreal than ever” because no one thought that the nature-invested Leper could ever willingly tear himself away from his “snails and beaver dams” to associate with war. Leper also experiences a change of heart about downhill skiing and thinks that people were “preparing it, if you see what I mean, for the future. Everything has...
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...take Vail Resorts Inc. and run with it! Aron is definitely the strongest asset for Vail, having graduated from Harvard (in three years) and then a Harvard M.B.A. Before coming to Vail, Aron had experience in hotels, airlines and cruise lines, and knew coming to VR would be a challenge. It takes a special person to be up to the challenge of a growing business and industry and someone that will last throughout the growing pains. Aron has done just that. With Aron's arrival, the ski industry was moving away from the smaller scale resorts run by families and onto larger mergers and acquisitions of other resorts, even ones that would provide package deals for all season. Other than just a "ski industry," Vail Resorts, which include Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone, (all in Colorado) and Heavenly in California, VR also owns 18 hotels, 6 golf courses and more than 100 restaurants and shops. Breckenridge and Keystone were acquired by Vail Resort Ins. in 1996, which resolved much of the competition threats. Another of the greatest "resort" strengths is the fact that most of the Vail resorts are located within 45 minutes of each other which provides the opportunity for the organization to cater to many different type clientele with different themed rooms, restaurants and resort facilities. One of the opportunities facing Aron and Vail Resorts is that the vacation/recreation industry has changed. Aron has been quoted as saying "If you run a destination resort company...
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