Is the Great Valley Doomed?

[pokeplayer984]

That sums up rather well to my own thesis of the Great Valley being (unlike the Mysterious Beyond) simply no hunting ground good enough for the sharpteeth to take the risks the place holds (a nutty bunch of all kinds of dinosaurs who actually stick together if they are threatened  ). Where did you find that article about the Great Valley? Who wrote it? Maybe there is another fan who would enjoy joining our discussions.

Well, it wasn't really an article, but what I interpreted from a fanfic at fanfiction.net.  I have known authors to hold their own opinion within a story they write. (Being an experienced writer myself, I should know. )

As far as I know, only the author's pen name can be found.

His/Her pen name is JFalcon.  He/She writes the fanfic series, Worlds Connected for LBT.  You can find the info in his/her first one, Littlefoot's New Friends. (It actually has the sharpteeth as the main charcters.  I'm sure that will interest you. )

[DarkHououmon]

Littlefoot's New Friends? I read that fanfic years ago. It was the first LBT fanfic I read that really interested me. I really enjoyed that fanfic. ^^

[WeirdRaptor]

Well, yes, logically, the GReat Valley should be doomed with no carnivores there to even out the ecosystem. That much is a given.    Fortunarely, in the world of the LBT, the Great Valley apparently has a magical ability to sustain itself, no matter how much is of eaten. No wonder its "The Great Valley".

[DarkHououmon]

I've been thinking about this for a long time, but I think I have come up with a solution that could make the Great Valley a realistic place to exist without upsetting the balance of nature.

As I think was mentioned earlier, there was the idea of disease raging the valley. Maybe most of the deaths were young dinosaurs, kids who were the most vulnerable. But then there is the topic of the bodies. Where do they go? Well if I remember correctly, some pterosaurs were scavengers, feasting on the bodies of the dead. If they were anything like vultures, they probably would strip a carcass clean no problem, which would help to eliminite the problem of where the bodies are.

But this alone may not explain the population control that is going on in Land Before Time. Now here's another idea to add on: Eggstealers. We see that it is easy for an eggstealer to take an egg, any egg it wanted, especially at night. Ozzy and Strut would have succeeded in each egg-theft attempt had it not been for Littlefoot and his pals. If they weren't involved, Ozzy would have stolen at least 3 eggs (one from a duckbill's nest, another from Ducky's nest, and a third from a pterosaur's nest).

The eggstealers also have an easier time getting into the valley, and they, being thieves, are expert at hiding and moving around without a sound. So I was thinking, what if there were a lot of eggstealers hiding away in the valley? They could all hunt at night, but with such a large number of herbivores, they would probably only be able to eat a small fraction of the eggs, perhaps just around 10%. But that 10%, combined with diseases, could be a way to allow the valley to remain the paradise it is but also be ecologically possible.

[action9000]

Much of what you said, Darkhououmon, seems very reasonable.  I like the idea of the egg stealers especially.  Adults in the great Valley didn't seem to be especially aware of the activity around their nests at night.  They were also very sound sleepers.

Good ideas, Darkhououmon!

[Malte279]

I agree about the eggeaters and I suppose that the Great Valley provides some more hideouts for their kind. I would go so far as to assume that, because of their function, the presence of some eggeaters is even tollerated by the inhabitants of the Great Valley. There is no way their presence couldn't be noticed when somebody dies and the corpse is disappearing in bits and pieces. It may be a kind of "Don't ask matter" to the inhabitants of the Great Valley :unsure:
Perhaps some flyers work as scavengers too and this is tolerated. I'm afraid though that they might easily end up as a kind of social outcast. However useful they may be to the Valley I suppose their eating of corpses would give other Valley inhabitants the creeps.
There is also the theory of dinosaurs who feel their death draw near leaving for the Mysterious Beyond to die there. It would explain the "dinosaur cemeteries" we've seen in LBT 2 and 3. Perhaps a combination of all these theories is what keeps the Great Valley healthy. It is a point I don't expect ever to be addressed in LBT movies, though it might make for an interesting story.

[NewOrder]

You're all forgeting something: LBT's timeline. How long has it been since the gang arrived at the great valley? 5 years? In some of the movies we can clearly see that a long time passes since the beginning og the action and its end. However some movies count only for a couple of days. Taking this into effect maybe the herds haven't been in the Great Valley long enough to eat it up dry.
I also believe the Valley as a great healling process, as we can see in lbt 5. Although this is all interesting, we can't forget it's a kid's movie, with no scientific accuracy. I gess this topic is more philosofical: Could thereever have been a place like the Great Valley? The answer: No one really knows

[Malte279]

My previous message was mainly concerned with the ecologic problem of getting rid of corpses in the Great Valley (sounds macabre), a problem which is independent from time. The sequels suggest that the Great Valley has been inhabited all along, or at least for much longer than Littlefoot's lifespan. Ancient Mr. Thicknose was born there. The legend of the lone dinosaur (which supposedly came into existance a very long time ago) also describes a densly populated Valley.
My own assumption about this problem is that the Great Valley is indeed great. I mean GREAT, I mean HUGE. Perhaps it would be more properly be named as the "Great Basin". One point to support the theory are the frequent additions of further landmarks in the Great Valley throughout the movies. Another point is the apparent presence of Sharpteeth on the outskirts of the Great Valley (LBT 6) which requires a broad stripe of nomansland (or should that be nodinosaursland?) to prevent a lasting influx of sharpteeth into the Valley. I suppose the Great Valley to be a kind of jumble of several Valleys, not bordered but loosly intersectioned by Rocky Walls (the idea behind this is, that the overviews of the Great Valley we got since the original movie never really showed all of it). Such a large Valley would allow a relatively large permanent population of dinosaurs, even such consumptive species as longnecks, provided that they lead a life as "short distance nomads" moving throughout the Great Valley, leaving the parts they leave to regrow. The theory explains several points one might wonder about, but it is by no means unimpeachable. LBT 3 is the strongest argument against this theory. A Valley as large and intersected as suggested above would undoubtedly have more than one watersupplies, so the end of Thundering Falls wouldn't be as fatal as presented in LBT 3. As a matter of fact however we DO see several water supplies throughout the movie. Littlefoot enters the Great Valley in the original movie above a waterfall. In LBT 3 we have the Thundering Falls. In LBT 4 Littlefoot's grandparents take a shower under a waterfall (all these waterfalls look rather different from each other), and in LBT 6 a dried up waterhole is mentioned and it is implied that it is just one of several. There is another point in LBT 3 interfering with the theory above. A Valley as intersected as described above could hardly be utterly devastated by fire. So the theory, while explaining several points which are difficult to explain in a different way, is still shaky. I would be very curious to hear other theories.