A few bad actors among the more than 30,000 non-indigenous species in the United States cost $123 billion a year in economic losses, Cornell University ecologists estimate. "It doesn't take many trouble-makers to cause tremendous damage," Cornell ecologist David Pimentel.
For Cornell biologist John P. Berry, knowing the punch line to the joke, "Where does an 800-pound gorilla eat?" is not enough. Certainly, the mountain gorillas he studies in Uganda's Bwindi impenetrable forest eat wherever they want. Whatever, too.
From one ecologist's perspective, the American system of farming grain-fed livestock consumes resources far out of proportion to the yield, accelerates soil erosion, affects world food supply and will be changing in the future.
Sixteen years of hard work and setbacks have taught Professor Emeritus Richard B. Fischer what it takes to make the bluebird of happiness happy: Location, location, location. And a few amenities.