Or perhaps the entire idea of 'peacefully coexisting with nature' is completely, utterly wrong and a romantic, emotionalized intellectualism first dreamed up by Thoreau and lately enfranchised by Greens because it thrums sympathetic heartstrings of the same naive urbanites that think you can hand-feed wild animals or coexist with bears (Grizzlyman!) because they're cute?
NO species "peacefully coexists with nature". Zero. Nature is a cold-hearted bitch, and to "win" against it, species have evolved their own ruthless strategies.
Every species from the single-celled protozoa to grey whales eats and reproduces heedless of the consequences to the environment. Ultimately, one of three things happen:
1) the species cannot reproduce fast enough to outrace environmental pressures and is wiped out (either slowly over time, or just a result of shitty luck like an asteroid strike - 'scale' is always the tricky question where environment is concerned).
2) the species comes to an equilibrium, where reproduction/expansion are roughly balanced against the environmental pressures, and a sort of stasis results (until the next environmental variation that exceeds the flexibility of the population to sustain)
3) the species overwhelms environmental pressures, expanding until they exhaust resources and are confronted with #1 again, or is able to move to another environment and "restart" the calculation.
That's it. Every species, ever. Three (really 2) possible results. But no matter how you decorate it, #2 isn't some delightful rainbows and unicorns happy time either - both 'sides' are voraciously, impersonally, automatically fighting both directions. Think of it as a bloody tug of war....just because the flag in the center isn't moving much, doesn't in ANY way imply that both sides aren't struggling mightily every single second, and wouldn't cheerfully win if given the opportunity.
Hell, even plants are selfish, arrogant assholes when you come right down to it and see how they fuck each other over. They just do it really slowly.
(To be clear, I'm not anthropomorphizing it either, it's simply useful for the point here to suggest the forces are 'contending'. In reality, they're both entirely insensate....which is kind of my point.)
I know it's futile, since it's such a pretty delusion (and so politically useful for so many...) but can we ever dispense with the bullshit notion that anything, ever, "peacefully coexists with nature"?