Attractions in Branson
March 21st 2008 08:25
You may not know much about Branson, Missouri, unless you’re a country music fan. It’s home to dozens of world-class attractions and is well-deserving of the nickname: Live Music Capital of the World.
But Branson has other attractions: a theme park called Silver Dollar City. It has the usual theme park rides, but it’s also home to a number of craftspeople who practice their crafts in the same way as the earlier residents of the Ozarks. Doing craftwork as your forefathers did is certainly one way to reduce the 21st century impact on the environment.
The Titanic Museum is also in Branson. I’ve written about it before in Orble – in fact, the photo of the Grand Staircase replica that I included in my post seems to get picked up by a host of searchers.
These are just a couple of the particular attractions in this part of the West, but the one that caught my eye is something not manmade. Every winter, down amongst in the Ozark Mountains, the American Bald Eagles gather. Between November and February, the Bald Eagle makes its home on the towering bluffs over Table Rock Lake, Lake Taneycomo and Bull Shoals Lake.
The American Bald Eagle is a symbol of what can be done when humans recognise that the environment belongs not just to bipeds with language, but to all manner of creatures. The Eagle suffered considerable decline for a couple of centuries to the point where it was on the endangered species list. It had been affected not just by the humans’ fishing the same waters as the birds, but by DDT, and by Alaskan salmon fishermen who suspected the birds were eating the salmon (and destroyed the birds in their thousands).
The bird was put on the endangered species list in 1967, but remarkably, so effective has been the work on protecting the bird that as of June 28th 2007, it’s off the list again. Sometimes humans get things right!
But Branson has other attractions: a theme park called Silver Dollar City. It has the usual theme park rides, but it’s also home to a number of craftspeople who practice their crafts in the same way as the earlier residents of the Ozarks. Doing craftwork as your forefathers did is certainly one way to reduce the 21st century impact on the environment.
The Titanic Museum is also in Branson. I’ve written about it before in Orble – in fact, the photo of the Grand Staircase replica that I included in my post seems to get picked up by a host of searchers.
These are just a couple of the particular attractions in this part of the West, but the one that caught my eye is something not manmade. Every winter, down amongst in the Ozark Mountains, the American Bald Eagles gather. Between November and February, the Bald Eagle makes its home on the towering bluffs over Table Rock Lake, Lake Taneycomo and Bull Shoals Lake.
The American Bald Eagle is a symbol of what can be done when humans recognise that the environment belongs not just to bipeds with language, but to all manner of creatures. The Eagle suffered considerable decline for a couple of centuries to the point where it was on the endangered species list. It had been affected not just by the humans’ fishing the same waters as the birds, but by DDT, and by Alaskan salmon fishermen who suspected the birds were eating the salmon (and destroyed the birds in their thousands).
The bird was put on the endangered species list in 1967, but remarkably, so effective has been the work on protecting the bird that as of June 28th 2007, it’s off the list again. Sometimes humans get things right!
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