Plants Need Animals, And Other Necessary Connections →
Heh. Volunteering with tree planting and cleaning up garbage from watersheds has given me plenty to write about.
One of the things I’ve been chewing on is the earthworms. Okay, not literally chewing on earthworms. But the soil southeast of Portland where I’ve been planting trees is healthy enough to have a really nice population of them (no Oregon giant earthworms this time). Every shovel full of dirt had several of the little pink critters squirming around in it, and I had to be really careful to dig around them as best as I could.
I also thought about Jason Woodrue, also known in DC Comics as the Floronic Man. This botanist went so far as to transform himself into a human/plant hybrid, and was perhaps even more tightly tied to the plant world than his better-known counterpart, Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy. During Alan Moore’s run of Swamp Thing in the 1980s, Woodrue tried to kill off humanity–and all animals–by making all the plants in the world increase their oxygen production to an excessive degree (there can be too much of a good thing). The Swamp Thing pointed out that, instead of creating a perfect plant planet, this would lead to the death of all plants because there would be no more animals to create carbon dioxide.
Read the rest here.
Yes, African wild dogs are predators.
So last week a two year old boy was killed by a pack of African wild dogs at the Pittsburgh Zoo after his mother dangled him over the safety barrier and accidentally dropped him into their enclosure. So far it looks like the dogs (other than one that was shot by a police officer) won’t be euthanized, and the zoo is reopening tomorrow.
This is a reminder that even animals in zoos still retain their wildness, wild dogs, in particular, stay wild when kept in a pack instead of in pairs or individually. Just because they may seem calm and safe in their enclosures doesn’t mean they can’t still do damage. This is why it *is* a big deal when an animal gets loose at a zoo; it’s not like someone’s pet cat got out of the yard.
And it’s good to respect that wildness, even when the animal is contained. Zoos are the result of the wilderness being reduced so drastically that some species only survive because some (or all) of their populations are in captivity. I am sad at zoos, even good ones like at Pittsburgh and Portland, because a large enclosure can never equal the huge territories many animals have in the wild. We have taken these animals out of their ancestral homes, but we can’t make them conform completely. It’s our responsibility to preserve that wildness and to restore it, and one of the requirements is keeping our respectful distance.
What happened to that child is a tragedy, and I feel for his family. I also feel for the workers and volunteers at the zoo, and everyone who has been affected by this. I also hope this reminds us that zoos are not the land of tame beasts for our entertainment, but a temporary containing of the wild until it can flourish again.
Remember that we are among the most privileged beings to ever live on this planet.
We as a species have the ability to choose what we eat, where we live, with whom we mate, and how we raise our young, to unprecedented levels. From the moment we learned how to use fire, through our ability to build ever stronger shelters, and into the increasingly abstract thought processes we communicate to each other, we have altered the world more than any other animal. And we have done this at a price, a price paid not only by our fellow human beings, but every other living being that shares this place with us.
This is not a prompt to lose yourself in guilt and despair, but simply to take note of the immense comforts that you enjoy and to realize how unique they are. Also, a gentle reminder that these comforts did not come out of nowhere, but are drawn from the interwoven webwork of animals, plants, and the Earth itself. We take and we take—what do we give back? There are so many ways we can give back, starting with not taking more than we need.
And even the smallest gifts are important.
My Latest Donation Recipient - the Xerces Society
Using some of the money made from art sales, I joined the Xerces Society, a nonprofit organization that for the last 40 years has been working to protect endangered invertebrates and the habitats they depend on. Without insects, arachnids, molluscs, plankton, and other invertebrate creatures, ecosystems would collapse. They form the smallest animal foundation of the food chain, and they perform countless tasks and roles that keep all life going. But they’re often ignored in favor of charismatic megafauna like wolves and tigers, and the Xerces Society is at the forefront of invertebrate conservation. Basic membership is very reasonably priced, though they have a variety of levels at which you can join; I highly recommend them as a worthy group to donate to.
Therioshamanism: A Thousand Invisible Cords That Cannot Be Broken
I’m back in my art studio again, which means it’s documentary time! While I do very much love being outdoors (as we established in my last post), and nothing compares to the experience of being out in the wilderness, I do enjoy books and documentaries on various natural and scientific topics. The documentaries are a nice thing to have on while I’m working on artwork; I sometimes revisit old favorites, swapped up with new finds on Netflix and YouTube. I love re-watching the “Walking With” series about various dinosaurs and other prehistoric critters, even in spite of the factual errors here and there. I also found a neat BBC series on the evolution of plants, and I spent a while being completely fascinated by the history of the kings of Britain (a bit of latter-day human hierarchical behavior in action).
Most recently I watched The Secret of the Savannah, one of a four-part BBC series highlighting just a tiny bit of the intricate webbing of several complex ecosystems. In this episode the interconnection among the animals, plants, and even base chemical components of grasslands in the Americas, Africa, and Australia were explored, often with surprising results. For example, we know it’s critical to keep the white rhinoceros from going extinct. One of the many reasons is because it’s one of the very few animals that can live on nitrogen-poor “sour” grass. The rhino can process it enough that more nitrogen fixes and leads to “sweeter” grass, which allows other animals, such as antelope, to then live there and create an even more vibrant ecosystem. Similarly, maned wolves, ants, and a particular kind of fruit form a strong triangle of food and fertilizer, benefiting all three as well as others. And so on.
We have made a great career of ignoring these existing relationships that have developed over millions of years. We as a species have done more than our fair share of meddling with existing ecosystems. Few places have not lost native species or had invasives introduced by our hand. And until recently we hadn’t even thought of the effects of those changes.
No Unsacred Place: The Risks and Benefits of Nature (by Lupa) →
I just finished reading Richard Louv’s The Nature Principle. It’s one of the most constructive and inspiring looks at our need for nature, not just as children (as in Last Child in the Woods) but every bit as much as adults, too. There’s a really wonderful quote about the risks vs. the benefits of being out in nature:
From the backyard to the backcountry, nature comes in many forms. The negative impacts of the risks that do occur in wilderness (from large predators, for example) should be balanced by the positive psychological benefits of that risk (humility, for one). And yes, most research on nature and human health has focused on pathology and natural disasters, but this preference by researchers has something to do with where the research funding comes from. Researchers looking at the health benefits of nature are, in fact, addressing a knowledge imbalance. (Louv, 2012, p. 52)
I am 33, and I am of the last generation of children who got to play outdoors unfettered, for the most part. Between helicopter parents, overzealous lawsuits, and stranger danger, kids these days are more and more discouraged from venturing outdoors–and this is in the safest, quietest neighborhoods
I just donated to help save this rare Iberian wolf sanctuary! →
The Iberian Wolf Recovery Centre is a well-established sanctuary that has been sheltering and promoting rare Iberian wolves for a quarter of a century. They may lose the lease on the land they’ve been using for years, which would mean they’d not only have to find a new spot but it would be very difficult to move the wolves as well.
They’ve made only $43,716 of the $250,000 they need to buy the land outright so they can be a permanent settlement, and they only have until Friday, September 28 to get the rest! Can you help, whether with a donation or a signal boost or both?
Just wanted to reblog - since I posted this yesterday they haven’t made quite $1,000 more, and there’s so much left! Can you help with a donation or a reblog or both?
I just donated to help save this rare Iberian wolf sanctuary! →
The Iberian Wolf Recovery Centre is a well-established sanctuary that has been sheltering and promoting rare Iberian wolves for a quarter of a century. They may lose the lease on the land they’ve been using for years, which would mean they’d not only have to find a new spot but it would be very difficult to move the wolves as well.
They’ve made only $43,716 of the $250,000 they need to buy the land outright so they can be a permanent settlement, and they only have until Friday, September 28 to get the rest! Can you help, whether with a donation or a signal boost or both?
Witchvox: More Than Animals: The Totemic Ecosystem (By Lupa) →
When I was a pagan newbie back in the 1990s, one of the very first things I gravitated toward was animal totemism. Like so many aspiring totemists, I picked up a copy of Ted Andrews’ Animal-Speak and went from there. Over the years I developed my own unique system for working with the animal totems, from what they were to how I could help them as much as they helped me. I have worked with countless totems in a variety of relationships, and it’s been an incredible experience.
One thing I noticed, though, was that the animal totems were often portrayed as being independent of any sort of environment other than occasional mentions of where they lived. The impression I got from a lot of books, exercises, and the like was that animal totems floated around in a vague “spirit world” where any plants and other beings were backdrops.
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