Jim Sterba -- Nature wars
===========================

"A good book to stimulate your musings"

Humans have transformed the landscape.  They have made much of the
land around them more suitable to some selected (few?) "wild"
creatures.  Now, as those animals (such as turkeys, deer, beavers,
geese, and more) move into these modified surroundings, humans will
need to learn how to live with the animals that have learned how to
live near them.

The story of how the landscape has changed is a story of phases and
of who has modified nature for what purposes.  Some of these phases
we can only speculate about: (1) before native Americans; (2) the
dominance of Native Americans; (3) the arrival of Europeans; (4) the
spread of modern humans and the build up of farms and farming; (5)
the reduction of farming and the spread of more and more housing
with its semi-wild margins around it.

This is also a story of modifying the landscape for whom and for
what purposes.  The modifications that Sterba talks about most were
predominantly done by humans for the purposes of building housing,
in particular single family dwellings that spread out from suburbia
and into forest, reclaimed farm land, etc.  During that process,
habitat is converted into a form that is suitable for a variety of
species.  The ones Sterba talks about are white tailed deer,
beavers, Canadian geese, and turkeys.  But, we should realize that
while these changes *created* habitat suitable for some animals, it
also destroyed habitat that is needed by others.  So, it's important
to remember that while, as Sterba says, a few species have
increased, many more have declined as human habitation and land use
encroaches open and destroys the habitat that was formerly used by
those species.

But, there is more in this book than just humorous stories about
humans attempting to deal with a few species of nuisance animals.
Several chapters in this book will encourage you to think about you
relationship to nature, to the landscape, and to the plants and
animals in it.  Even the chapter about bird seed and about the
increased feeding of wild birds in the last 50 years is a
provocation to think about how we've changed, what our (new) place
is in relation to nature, and so on.

I'd even like to read more about the subjects that Sterba discusses,
in particular the discussion and thoughts about our pets, our
feelings towards them, and the way we treat them.  These attitudes
have changed over time, especially in the last 50 years or so, and,
of course they vary across cultures.  Just this last week, I talked
with someone from far away who told me that in his culture pets are
usually not allowed indoors because, after they've touched you, you
are no longer considered clean for prayer.  That's a simple
statement about what I'm sure is a much more complex relationship
that this person has with animals, but it's enough to give some hint
about what variety there is across cultures.

One particular cross cultural topic is Sterba's claim that there are
different attitudes towards and about how we should manage natural
recreation areas in Europe and the U.S.  Sterba suggests that in
Europe they manage a wider range of landscape types and manage them
more intensely, where as in the U.S. we tend to manage only areas
that are "wild and scenic", leaving the rest for development and
commercial use.  I just spend several days in Yosemite National Park
in California where arguments over the next management plan involve
years of contention, many court cases, and huge amounts of paper.
So, Sterba's discussion here was especially poignant. And, our
management style for the wilderness in the U.S. is more of a "leave
it alone" and a "leave it natural" style compared to the more care
taking and even gardening style in some European countries. Here in
the U.S. where capitalism seems to be a religion, we need
"endangered species" acts and "wild and scenic rivers" acts before
we can have the leverage to protect something.  Yet surely we know
how valuable these areas are to our well-being.

And, there is more to this book than merely interesting or
entertaining reading.  These topics matter for our future.  For
example, more and more, we encourage our children to "get an
education" so they can "get a good job", which usually means work in
a city or urban area and working in an office sealed against the
outside, often with windows that do not open and with central
heating and air conditioning.  These same people feel the need to
"recreate" in nature on an infrequent weekend or perhaps a two week
camping trip in the summer.  In fact, the same children that we
encourage to get the education that will enable them to find that
style of employment, we also take camping, trying to teach them to
appreciate nature, in part because they are likely to see so little
of it during their lives.

After reading this book you can expect to have acquired a more
nuanced understanding about what is and is not wild, about different
grades and shades of the wildness and the natural, and about what we
mean when we talk about the wild and the domestic aspects of our
world. And, after reading this book, you are likely to have an
inclination, perhaps even a compulsion to put the words "nature" and
"wild" and phrases such as "the natural world" and "wild animals"
inside quasi-quotes.  I know that I do.

Anecdotal news item -- "Deer tie up Golden Gate Bridge" --
Authorities say a pair of deer on the Golden Gate Bridge snarled
traffic in and out of San Francisco during Friday's evening commute.
(See The Sacramento Bee; 9/7/2014, p. A4)

03/27/2013

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