unbalanced

clear-cutting old-growth forests of brown kelp
sea urchins mow whole eco-systems down.
I'll eat more uni ('cause I want to help)
Until sea otter numbers can rebound.
At equilibrium, there's food for all!
echinoderms proliferate quite well.
Such delicacies barely even crawl
a billion years, they've trusted spine and shell.
Tool users serve their gonads up on rice
as briny sushi with that unctuous glow
the simplest presentation, shorn of spice
sophisticated diners love their roe.
We chordates have no future on this Earth
if we won't grant these algae their due worth.

no soft landing

Low-status walruses thud on the shore
to splatter messily on rocks below.
High-status males staked beach-front claims before
and snort at the idea of letting go.
As climate change puts sea-ice out of reach
they vie for any haul-out they can get.
if not prime sugar-white sand on the beach
at least a bluff that's only sometimes wet.
But depth perception doesn't get them mates
and climbing rocks won't pass their genes along.
Their females weigh a bull on other traits
that warming seas abruptly rendered wrong.
Dire metaphor for blind pursuit of cash
gigantic pinnipeds are prone to crash.

meddlers

phytophthera wrought sudden death to oaks
a cousin of the great potato blight
that fell so hard on rural Irish folks
that half the population took to flight
potatoes' generation time is brief
we can't just plant resistant cultivars
replacing a whole forest come to grief
with laboratory seedlings grown in jars
as spores, they travel light upon the breeze
like rotifers amok on a rampage
the best hope if we're gonna save our trees
may be to find a therapeutic 'phage
the human stain's a plague upon the Earth
destroying species ere we know their worth

interconnected

phytophthera wrought sudden death to oaks
a cousin of the great potato blight
that fell so hard on rural Irish folks
that half the population took to flight
potatoes' generation time is brief
we can't just plant resistant cultivars
replacing a whole forest come to grief
with laboratory seedlings grown in jars
as spores, they travel light upon the breeze
like rotifers amok on a rampage
the best hope if we're gonna save our trees
may be to find a therapeutic 'phage
anthropogenic change afflicts the Earth
destroying species ere we know their worth