In early October I read a story that made me angry. And I am still angry in mid-October. A woman in Fort De Soto Park in Pinellas,
Florida, was seen and photographed riding a manatee, one of the country’s
largest, most gentle, and sensitive mammals.
The endangered sea giants are threatened by habitat pollution and destruction
as well as by injury and death from jets skis and boat propellers. The Florida Manatee Sanctuary Acts are strict
and specific: the woman committed a
second-degree misdemeanor by jumping on the manatee and enacting her own ride-with-the-dolphins
fantasy. She has since turned herself
in, claiming ignorance of the law.
I have recently re-read Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac with my ecocriticism students at the
university. Leopold argues that as humans
we cannot help ourselves: we have to
“cherish and fondle” wilderness in order to know about it. In the process, we ruin it. Leopold insists, however, that we must start
helping ourselves. That was in
1948. People desire closeness to and
possession of animals, and then the problems begin. To cherish and fondle is too often to harm or eradicate. We fondle some species right
into extinction. If the animals we wish
to “cherish and fondle” turn the tables and initiate contact with us, or dare
to lay a hoof, paw, or wing on us, eager citizens and authoritative entities
line up to poison, slaughter, and otherwise eliminate them. The largest animals (and birds), especially
the apex predators, get the rawest deal of all.
I pursue animals, and I always question what I do. I have tagged along with pheasant hunters in
a desire to learn about both dog and bird, but my solo hunting is done strictly
with a camera and my five senses and always within reason. I try, as Barry Lopez suggests in Arctic Dreams, to hunt by “hav[ing] the
land around [me] like clothing.” More often
than not the camera dangles by my side while I strain my eyes for a close-up
that will never end up on a data card.
The shots I do take have resulted in an impressive gallery of animals,
birds, amphibians, and insects running away from me. My desire to understand and get close to
nature has netted me the best portfolio of nature’s butts in the area.
Often animal fear is palpable. Ever since I read Jon Silkin’s 1975 volume of
poetry The Peaceable Kingdom, the
words from his “Prologue” ring in my head.
In Silkin’s interpretation, humans had a choice of two paths to follow. When the flood came and everyone went pouring
into the ark, the humans chose “the bad dark” path, and the animals took refuge
with the knowledge “that human beings will hate them wherever they go.” Silkin’s argument requires that the reader
accept a number of challenging claims about Christianity, animal consciousness,
and the uses to which humans have put the natural world, but it is a persuasive reading
nonetheless.
The words ring in my ears when I see baby rabbits paralyzed
with fear and deer bounding away as if the Hound of the Baskervilles was on
their trail. Then there are the snapping
turtles too heavy to run but rearing up, jaws agape, facing young children
whose parents have taught them that it is alright to harass the turtle because
it is inherently vicious and hungry for human flesh. And then there was the porcupine frozen in
fright, looking over its shoulder at me and uttering a small cry that I could not
interpret accurately. At that, I felt
mortified, backed away, and walked away.
Barry Lopez’s insistence that animals are inherently mysterious and
deserve to be granted their privacy told me to let the porcupine be.
Animals act according to ages-old survival lessons that are both instinctual and passed down from generation to generation. However, I wonder if Silkin isn’t right,
if there isn’t some special regard in their dark eyes for the human species. Silkin imagines another path for humans, but it
is clear that we haven’t found that way yet.
The woman riding the manatee is certainly one human who has little
regard for animals and no awareness of their need for privacy and freedom. That an animal is there for her exclusive
amusement is the height of condescension, arrogance, contempt, and disrespect even while grounded in profound ignorance. Perhaps she indeed has too many “ride with the
dolphins” or “use-it-or-lose-it” fantasies operating in her underdeveloped
understanding of other species. Unfortunately,
she is not unique.
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