BuschGarpens 

 , Sea^rld 



Don't miss the 



June 8 live 



broadcast of 



the 1994 



Anheuser-Busch 



Theme Parks 



Summer 

 Celebration on 



CBS-TV^ 



The Anheuser-Busch Theme 



Parks Summer Celebration will 



be broadcast live from 8:00 to 



9:00 pm EDT from 



Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay. 



With celebrity hosts and 



entertainment, this family 



special will focus, in part, on 



the many youns people who 



are workins to make our 



planet a better place for all its 



inhabitants. This special will 



also showcase all the excitins 



new attractions at the 



other Anheuser-Busch 



Theme Parks. 



^%( 



[♦♦♦ 



eaturins< 



the Anheuser-Busch 

 A Pledge & A Promise 

 Environmental Awards! 



These awards were judged 



by representatives from the Center 



for Marine Conservation, the Hubbs- 



Sea World Research Institute, the 



Izaak Walton Leasue of America, the 



National Fish and 



Wildlife Foundation, the , 



National Wildlife 



Federation and the 



Sea World/Busch Gardens'' 



Education Departments. 



No pattern or logic there in that survival. 



Another example is one of my favorites 

 among the paleontological treasures at the 

 University of Nebraska State Museum. I 

 was fascinated by the specimen when I 

 first saw it thirty years ago, and just last 

 month I stood before it again, no less 

 awed. The central element of the exhibit is 

 the fossilized remains of two gigantic 

 mammoths. Their huge tusks locked in 

 etemal battle, the great creatures died star- 

 ing into each other's eyes. They stood 

 there in their last moments, magnificent 

 creatures to the end. And, as such things 

 go in biology, they were not alone. 



A coyote watched as the drama un- 

 folded. From experience, he knew what 

 was happening. I have tried to imagine 

 what must have gone through that coyote's 

 mind: "Never again will I have to eat a 

 grasshopper or mouse. There is enough 

 meat in these two beasts to last me the rest 

 of my life. I'll just eat my way into one of 

 the carcasses and spend the rest of my life 

 in there eating and sleeping, sleeping and 

 eating. Is this going to be great or.. . ." 



At this point, however, the unfolding 

 drama took a twist. The great mammoths 

 staggered a Uttle too quickly, a httle too far 

 in the wrong direction and fell — right on 

 the coyote. And there the coyote's fos- 

 silized skull is squashed flat, right under 

 the bones of the mammoths. 



Dead mammoths, dead coyote. But 

 consider this: the coyote — puny and emi- 



nently squashable — persists right here on 

 the same Plains where his ill-fated ances- 

 tor died, while the mammoth has become 

 extinct, along, so far as I can tell, with 

 cheap electricians and reliable plumbers. 

 The mammoth is gone and the coyote 

 thrives. It makes no sense. 



I think of that mystery every time I see 

 a road-kill coyote along the highway: 

 "Wow, if things had gone the other way 

 around, this would definitely be a good 

 place to own an auto body shop!" 



Horses were here, and then horses were 

 gone, and then horses were here again. 

 What's that all about? We're big and 

 smart, mice are little and dumb, mosqui- 

 toes are even smaller and even dumber. So 

 who do you think is winning the evolu- 

 tionary survival game within that trio? 

 See? It makes no sense at all. The brightest 

 and biggest — whales, elephants, rhinocer- 

 oses — are all threatened; the dumbest and 

 most humble of us are apparently doing 

 just fine (there was another possum in the 

 chicken house this morning). 



And yet there is change, there is cause 

 and effect, there are valid conclusions. 

 There is, for example, within the family 

 tree of vertebrates, evidence of the work- 

 ings of evolution. Vertebrates, we can 

 safely say, unquesrionably gave rise to chi- 

 ropractors. 



Folklorist Roger L. Welsch lives on a tree 

 farm in Dannebrog, Nebraska. 



28 Natural History 6/94 



