Editor’s note: Following is an excerpt from an article submitted by Skyview Junior High student Forrest Bates for his writing class.

First off, let me get an image in your mind: let us say you are living a quiet life with your family in your neighborhood and a monster many times larger than you destroys everything. The neighborhood is in ruins and three-quarters of the population there is dead. Then the monster builds a house for itself over the neighborhood ruins. ALL of the ruins for one home. How would you feel? What would you do?

Believe it or not, there are many that face this type of situation every day. From the Amazon rainforests of the equator to the evergreen trees of Alaska, many lose their homes to those bigger than them. Animals around the world are losing their homes to humans.

Why do we take what is not ours? Why do we ruin lives of those who know of us only with their eyes? Why must we destroy in order to make something that, in the long term, is meaningless?

There are many answers to each question. First off, the human population is growing. In the beginning, we were to produce many children. Today, we are still producing offspring, but at a more troublesome rate. Combine that with the increasing life expectancy, and no natural predators to keep our population in check, we need more room for that population to spread out. And because we are unable to do what the Native Americans did many years ago, live close to nature, something has to give. And with a large population comes a large need for supplies for that population. The need for food and the need for entertainment.

Which brings us to the next reason: businesses. Let us face it: most big-name companies are interested in profit. How do they turn a profit? By meeting demand for goods and services. Where do they get the materials for goods and the tools for services? By taking them from the environment. Where do they combine these things and change them into something we need or want? In a factory. And where do they put a factory in an already too-crowded city? They move to the woods and make space for a factory. Thus, more clearing of trees and flattening of ground for work.

And who is going to profit from doing the construction work that factory owners need? The construction workers. They clear out the land to build houses for the population, and factories for the company owners.

But few notice the real victims of this development. Those that are faced with the ruin of their natural habitat and starvation are the animals.

Owls, while not seen around here much, are still here. They are resting during the daytime. Raccoons are here, too, they just don’t like to be seen. And coyotes roam the area, searching for their next meal, whether it is wild or domestic. There are cougars here, too. And there is the number of daytime birds in the area.

But what happens when we encroach on their territory? They encroach on ours. A squirrel, seeking a comfortable place to give birth, might move into your attic. A coyote, seeking a place to rest after eating the neighbor’s cat, might hide in a children’s playground. A raccoon might see a hole in your house and think it is a good den. A bird, seeing the neighbor’s attempts at a garden, might come along and eat the seeds. If we push wildlife, wildlife will push back.

So what can we do to help? The most obvious way to help the animals is to stop urban development. But before the construction industry runs forth to stow me in cement and build a house over my body, I said the most obvious way, not the only way. It is the best way for nature, but the worst way for the construction industry and the economy, as a few million people would be out of work, and we will enter a recession, or a depression if we are already in a recession.

Another way would be to limit urban development to urban redevelopment. That is, to only change the areas that we have developed. While the construction industry is less likely to try to kill me this way, it would still hurt the economy, as unemployment would increase and help our way into a recession or a depression.

So I propose to help those that have been wounded by our work. We teach those humans that want to help the animals how to heal them, and we give them the resources they need to do their work. PAWS, the Progressive Animal Welfare Society, is one such organization comprised of people who care for animals. PAWS has been the northwest leader in protecting animals since 1967. They shelter homeless animals and rehabilitate injured and orphaned wildlife. Last year they had their 40th anniversary, and successfully rehabilitated and released their 50th black bear cub.

I have little more to say, except something that Chief Seattle said long ago: “What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts are gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man, all things are connected.”