Without a balancing predator, prey populations can go through huge number fluctuations and can cause an unpredictable chain reaction of events. Predators keep prey in balance at or near the carrying capacity of their habitat.
This is the habitat’s carrying capacity for rabbits. The habitat can support only a limited number of rabbits. This illustrates how prey species can “eat themselves out of house and home” and may cause population crashes. What happens if you try to squeeze another rabbit block into the prey level of the pyramid? The addition puts the pyramid out of balance – something will crash. But removing a predator could temporarily allow a higher survival of more young, old, or sick individuals. If you remove the predators at the top of the pyramid, will there be more room for prey in the middle? No. The middle of the pyramid is the prey species, ground squirrel, snake, rabbit.The top of the pyramid is the predator, the hawk.You can think of a food web as a balancing act in the shape of a pyramid. The resident nesting pairs clean house by chasing all other hawks out of their territories. They seem to be everywhere in the fall as young disperse and northern birds move in to take advantage of open hunting ground. Red-tailed hawks are the most regularly seen, large, sit-and-hunt, small mammal predator. Protected Predators Keep the Balance Birds of prey, also called raptors, help keep prey species in balance.