The Canadian geese in Scarborough Pond were thick as Red Sox fans at a victory parade, and just as noisy. Ice had confined this flock to a small area of open water and perhaps in protest they were vociferating: lots of them honking at once, and somewhere always one rising halfway out of the water to spread and flap its wings. I'd seen flights of geese in magnificent chevrons flying overhead. Perhaps this was their destination. Now here, they wanted to register their protest.
A smaller number of ducks were much more discreet, simply swimming single file up and down the length of the ice-free water, then jumping out to walk on the ice while others plopped in.
These are 'wild' animals in the sense that we let them alone. But all this week I've been reading books with my grandson (ah, warm little body tucked into my lap) about farm animals and the noises they make. What a happy place the farm is. Sheep and cows and dogs and chickens are best friends of each other and the farmer. It's like the world with its many languages, forms and preferences but commitment to peaceful cohabitation.
Even when the books deal with wild animals, they are are stereotyped as this one sly and carnivorous, that playful and cheerful. The forests, seas, plains, all the animal kingdom consists of critters to which we attribute human-type emotions and reactions.
And the room for any animal to conduct its life without interference direct or indirect from human beings keeps getting smaller. Our presence is inescapable. The big wild animals are hemmed in, photographed, leered at on home videos. Domesticated animals are trained, tricked, mocked, and not just to satirize ourselves. See how funny monkeys are when we dress them like people...
The dignity of any creature is in its freedom to live its own life. None of the books I perused with my excited grandson ('Oink, moo, baa...') suggested that pigs, cows, sheep are more than just performers. Later one, he'll learn they are just producers. Perhaps the shepherd knows individual sheep; perhaps the hunter of feral pigs (a plague in places like Texas) can accord respect to his quarry. Our dogs and cats have personalities but in the context of our provision.
If the only way for you, fellow creatures, to be yourselves in your otherness is to be invisible and ignored, then your maneuver room is shrinking. We're moving quickly to label, dissect, and domesticate you. Bacteria, watch out! We're making you into little chemical factories for producing our medicines and materials.
Since our presence is not likely to shrink (barring catastrophe) perhaps another way is to set aside and protect where you can be yourselves. We can't be fully gone, and indeed may even hunt or fish there (I'm thinking of the Adirondacks) but you needn't run into us regularly and so have to adapt to the restrictions we impose. Perhaps, we can train ourselves to see and respect the wildness in you.
I don't much like, you Canadian geese, mostly for the way you befoul wherever you graze, but this evening on my run, I was happy to hear you honking, loud and brash, for whatever reasons you had because you are geese.
A smaller number of ducks were much more discreet, simply swimming single file up and down the length of the ice-free water, then jumping out to walk on the ice while others plopped in.
These are 'wild' animals in the sense that we let them alone. But all this week I've been reading books with my grandson (ah, warm little body tucked into my lap) about farm animals and the noises they make. What a happy place the farm is. Sheep and cows and dogs and chickens are best friends of each other and the farmer. It's like the world with its many languages, forms and preferences but commitment to peaceful cohabitation.
Even when the books deal with wild animals, they are are stereotyped as this one sly and carnivorous, that playful and cheerful. The forests, seas, plains, all the animal kingdom consists of critters to which we attribute human-type emotions and reactions.
And the room for any animal to conduct its life without interference direct or indirect from human beings keeps getting smaller. Our presence is inescapable. The big wild animals are hemmed in, photographed, leered at on home videos. Domesticated animals are trained, tricked, mocked, and not just to satirize ourselves. See how funny monkeys are when we dress them like people...
The dignity of any creature is in its freedom to live its own life. None of the books I perused with my excited grandson ('Oink, moo, baa...') suggested that pigs, cows, sheep are more than just performers. Later one, he'll learn they are just producers. Perhaps the shepherd knows individual sheep; perhaps the hunter of feral pigs (a plague in places like Texas) can accord respect to his quarry. Our dogs and cats have personalities but in the context of our provision.
If the only way for you, fellow creatures, to be yourselves in your otherness is to be invisible and ignored, then your maneuver room is shrinking. We're moving quickly to label, dissect, and domesticate you. Bacteria, watch out! We're making you into little chemical factories for producing our medicines and materials.
Since our presence is not likely to shrink (barring catastrophe) perhaps another way is to set aside and protect where you can be yourselves. We can't be fully gone, and indeed may even hunt or fish there (I'm thinking of the Adirondacks) but you needn't run into us regularly and so have to adapt to the restrictions we impose. Perhaps, we can train ourselves to see and respect the wildness in you.
I don't much like, you Canadian geese, mostly for the way you befoul wherever you graze, but this evening on my run, I was happy to hear you honking, loud and brash, for whatever reasons you had because you are geese.
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