>In general you get the perfect ratio of predators to herbivores to plants.
This is just flat out wrong. Both predator and prey animals starve to death all the time, often due to the impact they have on their environment but also due to a myriad other natural events. It's known as the predator-prey cycle and is a series of population booms and busts caused by over consumption and over population. Here's a video that gives a very basic explanation.
My folks live out in the middle of the woods, and my dad has several times observed that there will be a bunch of rabbits and not very many coyotes running around for a year or two, then there will be a lot of coyotes and not very many rabbits for a year or two, then there will be a bunch of rabbits and not very many coyotes again.
This is just flat out wrong. Both predator and prey animals starve to death all the time, often due to the impact they have on their environment but also due to a myriad other natural events. It's known as the predator-prey cycle and is a series of population booms and busts caused by over consumption and over population. Here's a video that gives a very basic explanation.
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/high-school-biology/hs-e...