Everybody seems to know about food webs these days — how primary
producers capture the energy of the sun, and pass it along to
consumers and then on to predators — but I’m not sure that most
people really understand what food webs are about. Food webs are
not like the pleasant diagrams you see with cute little mice and
clever foxes happily playing their roles in nature’s balance.
They’re the scariest places that you can imagine. Here’s a
scenario showing how food webs really work: “It was my turn to
go for groceries, which I suppose was only fair — the Thompsons
had given me Brandon’s good bike after that grizzly got him last
month, and we really needed the groceries. We hadn’t dared to go
out the last three nights because the scent of big cats had been
so strong. But tonight was going to be a good night — just the
hint of a moon, and no wind to drown out the sound of stalking
paws. I was just going to the crummy neighborhood store, so
there really shouldn’t be a problem anyway. I’d like to be able
to go acro