Watch a grey squirrel run in its rapid, skittish way; see it pause to dig the soil a bit; notice how it takes a nut between its front paws and nibbles it gone. This may take 45 seconds.Then observe the squirrel doing this for several hours. In between search and seizures, the squirrel may pause to flick its tail rapidly to express anxiety or concern about a development she's unsure of: the shadow of a large wing, an ominous shape creeping through the brush, an invasion by a food-competing squirrel.
If it hasn't been done already, the squirrel may have to spend 10-12 hours constructing a leaf nest, used for sleeping, for shelter from inclement weather, for raising young. Most squirrels construct three or more nests in different locations, and need to clean and maintain each routinely . . . in between finding and consuming food, some of which was gathered and stored in literally hundreds of locations in the squirrel's habitat range.
Black, brown and grizzly bears, however, have not evolved to be gatherers and hoarders; so what food they consume daily must be located and consumed daily. This means nonstop work, especially in autumn when bears need to put on as much weight as possible, ideally three pounds a day for 2-4 months for a grizzly, so winter denning is successful.
Bears are omnivores. They eat anything from dandelions to ants to bison, from winter carrion to bird eggs to gooseberries. The eclectic nature of their consumption habits may have evolved as a result of needing to eat so much to survive, and all of it is work.
Work, n. physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something.
I was viewing "Bears in Banff National Park," a short video attached to a CBC story from Alberta, Canada. In it, Andrew Evans, a Digital Nomad with National Geographic, paused at a "bear jam" or traffic jam outside Banff, caused by humans who pulled over to obverse bears along the side of the road. One of the grizzlies was eating gooseberries from a bush (while tourist cameras and smart phones clicked away).
After the bear ambled away, Digital Nomad Evans walked over and plucked some berries. His nose wrinkled as he swallowed their juices, then commented, "You respect wildlife more when you eat what they eat. Food is so easy for people, and when you come out here, you realize that being an animal is a lot of work."
Acknowledging this matters because it gives reason to respect those crows landing en masse in a cornfield, to respect the mouse chewing a hole through a garbage bag, to admire a hawk swooping down rapidly to clench a starling in its talons, to regard with awe the incredible work a single honey bee hive accomplishes. Being an animal is a lot of work. Let's respect them for it.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Some Good May Come from the Malaysian Plane Disappearance
Humans have a delightful penchant for committing resources to unraveling a mystery even if the associated costs are exorbitant, and even when the money would be better allocated to an established problem, not so dramatic and mysterious, whose solution is obvious. For example, cities could use allocated funds to set up tiny boxes in designated areas for the homeless to take shelter in in unfavorable weather. Or if a country is invested in transporting oil by rail, why not use available monies to upgrade rail infrastructure to avoid the kind of disaster Lac-Magantic, Quebec suffered last year?
Perhaps these suggestions seem trivial when an unexpected tragedy takes place, such as the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 and the certain death of 239 people. But, humans need to know: What happened? Where is the plane? Where are the bodies? Who is responsible? Where is the plane????
Right now, as I write, an international force of multiple aircraft and ships with sophisticated equipment are searching the turbulent waters in the southern Indian Ocean off the coast of Perth, Australia. So far, several million dollars have been spent and more is committed. In 2009 when Air France Flight 447 went down in the Atlantic off Brazil's northeast coast, the search and recovery effort cost $40 million; but there is no knowing now how much the Malaysia 370 search will cost--most agree there will be no recovery.
As reports from satellite images started to come in last week that debris was spotted, planes and ships were sent to locate, identify and investigate . . . all to no avail. The search area has narrowed to a zone now recognized as one of the five acknowledged ocean gyres or garbage patches. North America's garbage patch is the North Pacific Gyre, off the coast of California and about the size of Alaska, containing 3+ million tons of trash, much of it plastic.
The thing about plastic is, it doesn't biodegrade. It does, however, breakdown (as a result of sunburn and being endlessly tossed on waves). It breaks down into tinier and tinier pieces. At any stage in the process, it is consumed by ocean wildlife, who see it as food. The trash in our oceans has two primary impacts: entanglement and ingestion.
A fast google search will readily show you a monk seal strangled by a high tech fishing net or a turtle with a deformed shell, caused by a plastic ring that got lodged when it was young. The stories of seabirds, such as albatross, found dead with lighters and plastic bags filling their stomachs are almost commonplace. Small fish, big fish, sea mammals, seabirds--all marine species consume plastic. Millions and millions die every year as we continue to use our oceans as a trash system.
The beauty in my eyes of the search for Malaysia 370 is that the world is being made aware of ocean garbage. According to Captain Charles Moore, the founder of Algalita Marine Research Institute (in an NPR "Here & Now" interview by Robin Young, 1 Apr. 2014), the Indian Ocean Gyre has 100,000 discrete pieces of debris/sq. km., and that means billions and billions of tiny plastic chips that aren't going anywhere, except down a lot of hungry throats.
Captain Moore and others think we are beyond needing to simply take our own bags with us to the grocery store or recycling the hundreds of millions of plastic yogurt cups we buy and toss each year. We need to "completely change the throwaway society's ethos" (Moore, NPR). And Yale Environment 360's Carl Safina suggests we should develop a new generation of packaging materials, designed not to last millenia, but to decompose within weeks after an expiration date (The Guardian, 1 July 2013).
These are two small voices, seeing a tragedy much greater and with much more long range harm than one little plane nobody can find. Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, speaking yesterday on Perth Radio 6iX, said, "Look, it's one of the great mysteries of our time." He was referring, of course, to Malaysia 370; but I think his statement applies even more appropriately to the question, when will we stop treating Earth like a trash pail or an ashtray?
If the search for the missing plane has given us the opportunity to have our own garbage rubbed in our faces, then I say, this is good news. We have a chance to change. Let's do it.
Perhaps these suggestions seem trivial when an unexpected tragedy takes place, such as the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 and the certain death of 239 people. But, humans need to know: What happened? Where is the plane? Where are the bodies? Who is responsible? Where is the plane????
Right now, as I write, an international force of multiple aircraft and ships with sophisticated equipment are searching the turbulent waters in the southern Indian Ocean off the coast of Perth, Australia. So far, several million dollars have been spent and more is committed. In 2009 when Air France Flight 447 went down in the Atlantic off Brazil's northeast coast, the search and recovery effort cost $40 million; but there is no knowing now how much the Malaysia 370 search will cost--most agree there will be no recovery.
As reports from satellite images started to come in last week that debris was spotted, planes and ships were sent to locate, identify and investigate . . . all to no avail. The search area has narrowed to a zone now recognized as one of the five acknowledged ocean gyres or garbage patches. North America's garbage patch is the North Pacific Gyre, off the coast of California and about the size of Alaska, containing 3+ million tons of trash, much of it plastic.
The thing about plastic is, it doesn't biodegrade. It does, however, breakdown (as a result of sunburn and being endlessly tossed on waves). It breaks down into tinier and tinier pieces. At any stage in the process, it is consumed by ocean wildlife, who see it as food. The trash in our oceans has two primary impacts: entanglement and ingestion.
A fast google search will readily show you a monk seal strangled by a high tech fishing net or a turtle with a deformed shell, caused by a plastic ring that got lodged when it was young. The stories of seabirds, such as albatross, found dead with lighters and plastic bags filling their stomachs are almost commonplace. Small fish, big fish, sea mammals, seabirds--all marine species consume plastic. Millions and millions die every year as we continue to use our oceans as a trash system.
The beauty in my eyes of the search for Malaysia 370 is that the world is being made aware of ocean garbage. According to Captain Charles Moore, the founder of Algalita Marine Research Institute (in an NPR "Here & Now" interview by Robin Young, 1 Apr. 2014), the Indian Ocean Gyre has 100,000 discrete pieces of debris/sq. km., and that means billions and billions of tiny plastic chips that aren't going anywhere, except down a lot of hungry throats.
Captain Moore and others think we are beyond needing to simply take our own bags with us to the grocery store or recycling the hundreds of millions of plastic yogurt cups we buy and toss each year. We need to "completely change the throwaway society's ethos" (Moore, NPR). And Yale Environment 360's Carl Safina suggests we should develop a new generation of packaging materials, designed not to last millenia, but to decompose within weeks after an expiration date (The Guardian, 1 July 2013).
These are two small voices, seeing a tragedy much greater and with much more long range harm than one little plane nobody can find. Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, speaking yesterday on Perth Radio 6iX, said, "Look, it's one of the great mysteries of our time." He was referring, of course, to Malaysia 370; but I think his statement applies even more appropriately to the question, when will we stop treating Earth like a trash pail or an ashtray?
If the search for the missing plane has given us the opportunity to have our own garbage rubbed in our faces, then I say, this is good news. We have a chance to change. Let's do it.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
What would Lonesome George ask?
Lonesome George (1912-2012) was the Pinta Island tortoise, the last of his subspecies, who was found dead on June 24, 2012 by Fausto Llerana, his caretaker of 40 years. Tributes, memorials, obituaries were posted from all over the world for this "gentle giant," as he was fondly known.
At the time of his death, Harvard University Press invited Craig Stanford, USC Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology and author of The Last Tortoise: A Tale of Extinction in Our Lifetime, to post his thoughts. Professor Craig speculated, "If Lonesome George had been human, his obituary would have read:
George passed away peacefully on June 24, 2012, at the age of approximately 100. He was born on Pinta Island around 1912 and lived there until 1971, when he moved to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island, Ecuador. He served his country for decades as the greatest tourist attraction in the Galapagos Islands, and was visited by tens of thousands of tourists each year. He dies leaving no surviving descendants."
Rick Schwartz, San Diego Zoo ambassador commented that "George's passing is an opportunity to [show] humans our actions can have an impact on the future."
Beginning with whaling ships in the 18th century, the estimated tortoise populations of the Galapagos Islands were decimated for food and trade, their habitats wiped out by the pigs and goats brought by fishermen, sailors and pirates. Fifteen giant tortoise subspecies were reduced from 250,000 to 300,000 individuals to about 15,000 today in ten subspecies, most very rare.
I doubt the 18th, 19th and 20th century men who had reason to stop by the Galapagos Islands and carry off thousands of tortoises while dropping off domestic livestock had any idea what the impact of their actions would be. But we know better now.
Lonesome George became known as "the rarest creature on the planet" with no others of like kind and no offspring. He was a beloved conservation icon. His passing left us at a loss for someone to point to, so we could say, look at Lonesome George: he's the last and only one of his kind. Let's be kinder to the creatures we share this Earth with. Let's consider the impact of our actions.
We are now in the midst of what is being called The Sixth Mass Extinction, caused by human actions in the form of habitat destruction and as a result of global warming. Scientists estimate at least 10,000 species go extinct every year, dozens every day, and by mid-century 30-50% of species currently alive will be extinct.
In that context, the passing of a lone tortoise seems insignificant, trivial; but I suggest Lonesome George would not agree, not for selfish reasons, but for the greater good. I can imagine him asking us humans two simple questions, "Do you really want to do this? Do you really want to destroy most of the life around you?" Our actions say that we do.
At the time of his death, Harvard University Press invited Craig Stanford, USC Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology and author of The Last Tortoise: A Tale of Extinction in Our Lifetime, to post his thoughts. Professor Craig speculated, "If Lonesome George had been human, his obituary would have read:
George passed away peacefully on June 24, 2012, at the age of approximately 100. He was born on Pinta Island around 1912 and lived there until 1971, when he moved to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island, Ecuador. He served his country for decades as the greatest tourist attraction in the Galapagos Islands, and was visited by tens of thousands of tourists each year. He dies leaving no surviving descendants."
Rick Schwartz, San Diego Zoo ambassador commented that "George's passing is an opportunity to [show] humans our actions can have an impact on the future."
Beginning with whaling ships in the 18th century, the estimated tortoise populations of the Galapagos Islands were decimated for food and trade, their habitats wiped out by the pigs and goats brought by fishermen, sailors and pirates. Fifteen giant tortoise subspecies were reduced from 250,000 to 300,000 individuals to about 15,000 today in ten subspecies, most very rare.
I doubt the 18th, 19th and 20th century men who had reason to stop by the Galapagos Islands and carry off thousands of tortoises while dropping off domestic livestock had any idea what the impact of their actions would be. But we know better now.
Lonesome George became known as "the rarest creature on the planet" with no others of like kind and no offspring. He was a beloved conservation icon. His passing left us at a loss for someone to point to, so we could say, look at Lonesome George: he's the last and only one of his kind. Let's be kinder to the creatures we share this Earth with. Let's consider the impact of our actions.
We are now in the midst of what is being called The Sixth Mass Extinction, caused by human actions in the form of habitat destruction and as a result of global warming. Scientists estimate at least 10,000 species go extinct every year, dozens every day, and by mid-century 30-50% of species currently alive will be extinct.
In that context, the passing of a lone tortoise seems insignificant, trivial; but I suggest Lonesome George would not agree, not for selfish reasons, but for the greater good. I can imagine him asking us humans two simple questions, "Do you really want to do this? Do you really want to destroy most of the life around you?" Our actions say that we do.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Consider the System
Thirty-five years ago I was living in Brooklyn and teaching at LaGuardia Community College in Queens. Having a beer one day after work, I got taking to an old Jewish man, sitting on the stool next to me. He worked as a physicist at an electronics company nearby in the heavily industrial neighborhood of Long Island City. Harry Haines and I became friends and met for a drink after work from time to time. Our common ground was intellectual conversation, so we talked Marxism, Existentialism, Atheism, lots of isms.
One late afternoon, as we were parting at the subway, we got into a bit of an argument over vultures--the real ones, not a metaphor for capitalists. Maybe Harry had had too many martinis, but he almost frothed declaring, "They are disgusting. They should all be killed."
"They have a place in the eco-system," I countered.
"Idiotic," Harry said, "They're ugly. We can do without them...disgusting creatures, simply disgusting, repulsive. Kill them all."
Harry's attitude is a common one, even today. How prejudiced we are by appearances and ignorance. Unfortunately, our sour attitudes translate into environmental policy.
The noble (and very endangered) California Condor is, in my eyes, one of the most dignified creatures on Earth, playing a key role in the southwestern North American eco-system, but despised by many for what are to me incomprehensible reasons: they scavenge dead animals, and they have no feathers on their heads (so they can eat cleanly). Simple fact: they are part of the natural system, living vacuum cleaners, taking rotting flesh and recycling it. At some point bacteria and fungi finish the breakdown/cleanup job if other animals haven't moved in to do it first.
Is civilization as we know it going to end if the endangered California Condor goes extinct? If vultures everywhere go extinct? No. So, what difference does it make if we don't ban the lead bullets and shot, which are currently killing the fragile avian scavenger populations? It makes a lot of difference because standing by and watching something cease to exist because we think it's ugly and don't understand its value is just anthropogenically wrong.
I have a fantasy for roadways here on the East Coast: state and local governments set up what could be called Vulture Watching Stations. These stations would be built above power line heights at measured intervals, and trained vultures would harbor in them, watching for fresh roadkill. When you hit that skunk or woodchuck or deer or squirrel or whatever, the vultures can swoop in to feed, lifting the carcass to the edge of the road, if possible, but otherwise working quickly. Vulture Clean Up Squads: don't have to put them on a payroll. Ah, but this is just my fantasy.
In Tibet, condors are sacred animals, relied on for the millenia-old tradition of "Sky Burial": A human dies. His/her body is prayed over, then the limbs are chopped off, the torso chopped up, and all those body parts are tossed to the sky or otherwise piled for the condors to consume. The ritual is right; it is natural; it works with the greater system of which humans are a part.
But of course our modern, especially our industrialized world, will not turn to a practice like this. For one thing, there aren't enough vultures to eat all the dead human carcasses. And for another, that's not quite my point. Environmental policy needs to be generated from a big picture point-of-view. It needs to consider what is best for all life, not only human life. It needs to consider the greater eco-system.
One late afternoon, as we were parting at the subway, we got into a bit of an argument over vultures--the real ones, not a metaphor for capitalists. Maybe Harry had had too many martinis, but he almost frothed declaring, "They are disgusting. They should all be killed."
"They have a place in the eco-system," I countered.
"Idiotic," Harry said, "They're ugly. We can do without them...disgusting creatures, simply disgusting, repulsive. Kill them all."
Harry's attitude is a common one, even today. How prejudiced we are by appearances and ignorance. Unfortunately, our sour attitudes translate into environmental policy.
The noble (and very endangered) California Condor is, in my eyes, one of the most dignified creatures on Earth, playing a key role in the southwestern North American eco-system, but despised by many for what are to me incomprehensible reasons: they scavenge dead animals, and they have no feathers on their heads (so they can eat cleanly). Simple fact: they are part of the natural system, living vacuum cleaners, taking rotting flesh and recycling it. At some point bacteria and fungi finish the breakdown/cleanup job if other animals haven't moved in to do it first.
Is civilization as we know it going to end if the endangered California Condor goes extinct? If vultures everywhere go extinct? No. So, what difference does it make if we don't ban the lead bullets and shot, which are currently killing the fragile avian scavenger populations? It makes a lot of difference because standing by and watching something cease to exist because we think it's ugly and don't understand its value is just anthropogenically wrong.
I have a fantasy for roadways here on the East Coast: state and local governments set up what could be called Vulture Watching Stations. These stations would be built above power line heights at measured intervals, and trained vultures would harbor in them, watching for fresh roadkill. When you hit that skunk or woodchuck or deer or squirrel or whatever, the vultures can swoop in to feed, lifting the carcass to the edge of the road, if possible, but otherwise working quickly. Vulture Clean Up Squads: don't have to put them on a payroll. Ah, but this is just my fantasy.
In Tibet, condors are sacred animals, relied on for the millenia-old tradition of "Sky Burial": A human dies. His/her body is prayed over, then the limbs are chopped off, the torso chopped up, and all those body parts are tossed to the sky or otherwise piled for the condors to consume. The ritual is right; it is natural; it works with the greater system of which humans are a part.
But of course our modern, especially our industrialized world, will not turn to a practice like this. For one thing, there aren't enough vultures to eat all the dead human carcasses. And for another, that's not quite my point. Environmental policy needs to be generated from a big picture point-of-view. It needs to consider what is best for all life, not only human life. It needs to consider the greater eco-system.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Who Speaks for Wolf?
Who Speaks for Wolf?
"...the ancestors of the Oneida [Indians] once grew in population so much that some of them had to go look for a new
place to live. They found a
wonderful place, and the people moved there. After moving, they found that they had 'chosen the Center
Place for a great community of Wolf.'
But the people did not wish to leave. After a while, the people decided that there was not room
enough in this place for both them and Wolf. They held a council and decided that they could hunt all the
wolves down so there would be no more.
But when they thought of what kind of people they would then be, 'it did
not seem to them that they wanted to become such a people.'
So
the people devised a way of limiting their impact: In all of their decisions, they would ask, 'Who speaks for
Wolf?' and the interests of the nonhuman world would be considered."
(Reprinted from Confessions of an Eco-Warrior by Dave
Foreman. NY: Harmony Books, 1991:48-9. Originally recounted in Paula Underwood
Spencer’s Who Speaks for Wolf. Austin: Tribe of Two Press, 1983.)
The above excerpt from Dave Foreman's book identifies for me what I care most about at this time in Earth's history, more than two decades after Confessions of an Eco-Warrior was published: giving voice to life beyond only the human. My blogging here will give me an opportunity to figure out how to do that so others hear and begin to understand . . . more than just "understand," but change their relationship to the non-human world, which sustains all of us and, without which we could not survive.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)