Nature: Tooth, Claw, and Otherwise

We’ve been watching an endless series of DVD’s from the BBC called “Planet Earth.” It’s the wonders of nature, but particularly (at least in this set) of things you are never going to see except in this format. Last night’s run was on caves, including the deepest cave in the U.S., discovered only about 20 years ago in the area of Carlsbad Caverns, and called ‘Lechuguilla.’ I’d never heard of it, even though I've been to the Caverns, but that doesn’t mean anything because caves are not my strong point. Scary as it would be for me to be in it, it’s certainly a pleasure, though, to watch it through the eyes of these cameramen (and they all seem to be men). A nice feature of this set of ‘Blue Planet’ is that it includes a segment about how they actually manage to do the photography.

So this comes as a strong recommendation for the sights of this DVD series, except: there’s always an ‘except,’ I suppose. Alas, what it also has is a truly tedious ‘concept’ and script emoted by the actor David Attenborough. It is very, very strong on ‘the little birdies/baby seals/ whatevers are so cute and now (cue the scary music) here come the vicious hawks/polar bears/large carnivores of some kind to make everything sad.’ I imagine Mr. Attenborough and the producers of the series reading/writing this crap while eating a nice roast beef sandwich. And not noticing the irony.

But, in light of the ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ that seems to animate their thinking, I am contemplating, of course, the same nature in my nature/garden, although not so red usually. Yesterday, we discovered the limp/waxy body of an Oregon Salamander caught in the pump of the small pond that Ed has constructed on our B.C. property. I’m sorry this happened, of course, but I am also reminded that this all flows in two directions: the bear breaks up the compost barrel, the slugs eat all the seedlings, the raccoons keep us up in the night, and we are the indirect cause of salamander deaths. I don’t know how to calculate equivalences here, but, unlike the BBC, I think I understand that this mostly happens without intentionality and doesn’t call for high drama or high drama music or even careful ethical analysis. Just awareness that we don’t live together easily and need to develop behaviors/habits/responses that acknowledge this and try to minimize the damage to both parties.

On the other hand, perhaps the move of humans to the city has so removed them from this natural two-way flow that they no longer really believe in it, no longer contemplate that, e.g., when your government conducts a war somewhere, people and animals of other kinds are all likely to be truly, deeply injured. For us, though, perhaps it is time to get some kind of fine wire-mesh cage to put around the pond pump? And a bank vault for the compost; ought to be one those on E-Bay nowadays.