Some days ago I wrote about a sandhill crane in the southern part of our county that had become so aggressive in defending his mate's nest, that he started attacking cars. Wildlife officials then moved the nest, ...hoping the sandhill cranes would follow, but when they didn't, the nest was lost.
The tragedy continues. Today I read in the paper that the female crane was limping due to an infection and when the wildlife officials tried to capture her to give her treatment, she and the male panicked. The female was injured and died shortly after.
My heart is broken for these birds. Two eggs that will never hatch and the mother dead. I think again of whales dying from loneliness and I wonder what will become of the male sandhill crane, now alone.
I've become very protective of the hawks nesting at Hope, protective in the sense that I'm always looking for them, looking for signs that they're still there, still thriving. Today I found two hawk feathers, which I expected to find given the male's flight path as he scours the trees for nesting material.
I've become very protective of every animal at Hope. There have been fewer rabbits lately and I wonder if it's the change in seasons or if the bobcat is active again, or the hawks hungry. This morning I watched a field mouse dart from the brush, scurry across the grass, and disappear into more brush twenty feet later and again I thought of the hawks.
Life and death are inevitable in the natural world. That little mouse will probably become food to some larger predator and while that saddens me, it is the natural cycle of the world.
What isn't natural are the vast concrete plains we've allowed to grow and call highways. If you look at the pattern bacteria creates in a petri dish and compare it to how a city looks at night from above, you will see little difference.
Humanity is consuming the earth. We are consumers. We can't help ourselves and yet what we do, we do at a cost.
It seems wild to me that in the process of coming to Hope every day since August, I have somehow turned into this environmentalist, in the sense that the connection I have developed with the natural world has made me invested in what happens to it.
I don't think that's a radical belief. I don't think it's radical to care about the world and the giant, massive footprints that humanity is leaving on it. Because we're not on this world alone. And if the incident with the sandhill cranes tells me anything, it's that our tiniest interference in the lives of these animals can have profoundly negative effects. And that we should tread carefully.
The tragedy continues. Today I read in the paper that the female crane was limping due to an infection and when the wildlife officials tried to capture her to give her treatment, she and the male panicked. The female was injured and died shortly after.
My heart is broken for these birds. Two eggs that will never hatch and the mother dead. I think again of whales dying from loneliness and I wonder what will become of the male sandhill crane, now alone.
I've become very protective of the hawks nesting at Hope, protective in the sense that I'm always looking for them, looking for signs that they're still there, still thriving. Today I found two hawk feathers, which I expected to find given the male's flight path as he scours the trees for nesting material.
I've become very protective of every animal at Hope. There have been fewer rabbits lately and I wonder if it's the change in seasons or if the bobcat is active again, or the hawks hungry. This morning I watched a field mouse dart from the brush, scurry across the grass, and disappear into more brush twenty feet later and again I thought of the hawks.
Life and death are inevitable in the natural world. That little mouse will probably become food to some larger predator and while that saddens me, it is the natural cycle of the world.
What isn't natural are the vast concrete plains we've allowed to grow and call highways. If you look at the pattern bacteria creates in a petri dish and compare it to how a city looks at night from above, you will see little difference.
Humanity is consuming the earth. We are consumers. We can't help ourselves and yet what we do, we do at a cost.
It seems wild to me that in the process of coming to Hope every day since August, I have somehow turned into this environmentalist, in the sense that the connection I have developed with the natural world has made me invested in what happens to it.
I don't think that's a radical belief. I don't think it's radical to care about the world and the giant, massive footprints that humanity is leaving on it. Because we're not on this world alone. And if the incident with the sandhill cranes tells me anything, it's that our tiniest interference in the lives of these animals can have profoundly negative effects. And that we should tread carefully.
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