habitat loss | The Casual Blog

December 20, 2022

Some local birds, visiting Old Salem, off-roading in Uwharrie, and a few thoughts on biodiversity

I’ve been getting up early to photograph the birds at local lakes in Raleigh. The Canada Geese start flying right after sunrise, and most have gone elsewhere or settled back down for breakfast within 45 minutes. It’s fun to hear their discussions and to see them gathering and taking off.

After the birds have flown, I take a run around the lake, which is about 2 miles. Later I check the photos to see if any seem to say something non-obvious about the birds, and experiment with processing to see if that unusual element can speak any clearer. Here are a few that I liked.

Last weekend, Sally and I took a short holiday trip to Winston-Salem to see old friends and have a look through Old Salem, the restored Moravian town founded in the 17th century. We enjoyed seeing the town and learning a bit about colonial life there. A brass band played traditional carols in the square.

Although the dominant narrative of Old Salem depicts a harmonious and innovative religious community, I figured there must be some dissonant notes that were worth hearing about. We had a chats with a couple of the docents about difficult subjects, including slavery and subjugation of women. They were friendly and knowledgeable, and readily acknowledged that not everything was sweetness and light in the early days.

We were fortunate to get into the Candle Tea at the Single Brothers House without a reservation. There we had a nice time singing some Christmas carols, which were a happy part of our childhood, and hearing once again the Biblical account of Jesus’ birth. I’m not a believer any more, but I like that part of the Bible, in which all agree that a new baby is a miracle.

On a different note, a couple of days later I did an adventure driving trip to Uwharrie National Forest. It’s a large (50 thousand acre), mountainous (well, small mountains), green place in piedmont North Carolina. The Forest Service maintains trails there for hiking, horseback riding, and off-road driving. I wanted to test out my new Subaru Forester Wilderness, which claimed to be able to run off road with rugged 4X4s, at least to a certain point.

I stuck to the trails marked easy or moderate, which were a lot more challenging than I expected. There were various spots where big rocks, mud, and trees had to be negotiated while moving forward, sideways, and up or down, sometimes all at once. It reminded me of skiing black diamond trails — a lot slower, but similarly demanding and absorbing.

I used my Subaru’s special off-road gearing system, called X Drive, and made it back to the paved road with no substantial damage. I was proud of my Wilderness! The Uwharrie trails were closed for the winter on December 15, but we’re looking forward to more adventures in the spring.

It was good to see the NY Times prominently featuring a piece on biodiversity. As you may know, but many don’t, human civilization has caused enormous damage to other species. Per the Times, “a million species are threatened with extinction, many within decades.” Biodiversity is declining at the fastest rate in human history.

The Times piece made the case that humans should be concerned about the loss of other species, because it is likely to harm humans, including affecting food and water supplies. While that’s true, there’s more to it than that. Ruthlessly exploiting and destroying the non-human world is horrific and wrong under any definition of morality.

The threats to many species are caused by loss of habitat. This problem is separate from, but in places connected to, climate change. Humans have been gradually taking over huge areas where animals and plants once lived. One of the big problems is destruction of forests to create more areas of agriculture, with much of that agriculture related to feeding farm animals that are then slaughtered for food.

The Times piece noted that 200 nations have been holding a large meeting in Montreal with a view to addressing the biodiversity crisis. Just this past weekend, the gathering (uncharmingly nicknamed COP15) came to an agreement on the 30 by 30 solution: saving 30 percent of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030. This sounds like progress, certainly, though it doesn’t seem quite fair that one species (us) among millions would consider itself entitled to 70 percent of the planet.

Almost all of us have been taught that humans are a unique species that is superior to all others, and that we’re entitled to dominate and exploit other species in whatever way we like. This idea is so deeply embedded that it seems like part of nature, rather than just an idea. But some are starting to see that it’s a poisonous idea, almost impossible to defend in terms of reason or ethics.

Alternative conceptions of human life are possible. Life can be approached in terms of ecological systems, with the multitude of life forms having many interconnections with their environments and each other. Our human lives are connected in many ways to the lives of other species, and those connections are key to survival and happiness both for us and others.

For example, humans and other animals could not survive without plants that capture energy from the sun, and many plants could not survive without the insects and other creatures that pollinate them. The principle is simple, though the details are endless. The starting point is becoming aware of the diversity of life and the need for that diversity. That should make us less heedless. As we realize that our human wants and needs are not the only thing that matters, we become less miserable, and cause less misery.

Our current political problems, including extreme polarization, are closely related to our hierarchical view of the natural world. We put humans at the top of the pecking order, and rank animals and plants at the bottom. Most of us are taught that non-human life forms are worth thinking about only if they can be exploited or pose a danger to us. Thus we don’t know very much about the rest of nature, or even see the point of knowing more. This ignorance is part of the source of our biodiversity crisis.

This kind of hierarchical thinking also separates human groups, with the same result. That is, in our culture, we normally rank males over females, white over non-white, native over non-native, and so on, in an unwritten but intricate caste system, with privileges accruing in the top-most ranks and getting scarce in the bottom ones. The more privileged castes are taught to keep separate from those less privileged, and they come to fear those considered lower. The fear is understandable, as extreme inequality can make the less privileged angry and resentful.

Adopting an ecological approach to animals and plants could help us begin to overcome the worst of our human hierarchies. Under an ecological approach, we’d notice more of our interconnections, and the value of considering differing customs and viewpoints. Our polarized politics would be less polarized, because we wouldn’t be so fearful of our differences in appearance and culture. We’d likely find that, just as with the different ethnic foods we enjoy, our physical and cultural differences can be something to relish.

February 27, 2021

The worst idea in history: animals and us

Canada geese at Shelley Lake near sunrise

I’m recovering just fine from my neck surgery, and the weather turned nicer, too. For a couple of days, it felt like spring, though after that, it cooled off. In the pleasant interval, I took my camera out to see the birds at Jordan Lake, and also stopped in to check on the bald eagles nesting at Shelley Lake. These are some of the pictures I took.

Spending some time with the animals, or even just standing by the water hoping they’ll show up, is very therapeutic. Walt Whitman got it right in his famous poem; being with them is moving and soothing. When I get out around sunrise or sunset, I’m always a little surprised when there are few or no other people looking at them, but not sorry.

Great blue herons at Jordan Lake near sunset

Apropos, there was a lively short essay in the NY Times this week on something I’ve hoped others were thinking about: the disconnect between what we know about animals and how we treat animals. Crispin Sartwell, a philosophy professor at Dickinson College, wrote that western philosophy has labored mightily to establish that humans are different from and superior to animals, and failed. Perhaps this is starting to be noticed.

Everyone who stayed awake through high-school biology learned that homo sapiens are animals, with close physical similarities to many other animals. But most of us still think of ourselves as not actually animals, but rather, better than animals.

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As Sartwell notes, we’ve also been taught to regard humans as distinctive and superior on account of their consciousness, reasoning abilities, and moral systems. Comparisons of humans and other animals generally focused on the things humans did best, such as human language, rather than areas where animals outperformed us, such as sight, hearing, smell, strength, speed, endurance, and memory. Where animals showed sophistication in their communications and culture, we learned to avoid thinking about it.

The essential lesson pounded into all of us was that human intellectual qualities justified treating other animals as mere objects to be dominated and exploited. This idea is so familiar and deeply entrenched that it is hard to see it clearly as an idea subject to discussion.

In my student days at Oberlin College, we used to debate the extent to which ideas could affect human history. We were thinking about whether the philosophies of canonic thinkers like Aristotle, Locke, or Marx were primary drivers of cultural change.

We didn’t even think to consider the effects of the idea that humans are separate from, and far superior to, animals. The idea has no known author and no supporting reasoning. If examined with any seriousness, it falls apart as nonsense. Yet, as Sartwell suggests, it is almost certainly the most important idea in human history.

Sartwell raises the issue of how thinking of humans as fundamentally superior to other animals relates to other hierarchies. To justify slavery, colonialism, or other violent oppression, the groups to be dominated are characterized as beastly, wild, savage, brutal, fierce, primitive, uncivilized, inhuman, and so on — in short, “like animals.”

Even today, discrimination follows this same basic pattern in addressing people with African ancesters, other disfavored nationalties, women, religious minorities, and LGBTQ people. That is, these groups are defined as something less than fully human, and therefore not entitled to the highest degree of privilege.

The hierarchies that stem from treating animals as inferior have caused enormous harm to the humans who are denied full human status. Slavery is a dramatic example from our past, but there are many others that are very much still with us, like suppressing the votes of minorities, lower pay for women, and violence against LBGTQ people.

As Sartwell notes, this hierarchical, exploitative way of thinking divides us both from each other and from nature. Indeed, it has led to an existential crisis for nature. A couple of articles this week highlighted aspects of this.

According to a new study, about one third of freshwater fish species are threatened with extinction. Climate change, habitat loss, and pollution caused by humans accounts for much of this dire threat. Meanwhile due to these same factors, the populations of large animals (mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish) have fallen by 68 percent since 1970. More than two-thirds of these animals. Gone. Since 1970. Holy camoly!

Part of our unfolding catastrophe has to do with our view that animals are so inferior that they can properly be treated as food. A new piece by Jenny Splitter in Vox sums up some of what’s happening. Meat production through factory farming — that is, raising and slaughtering billions of animals each year — accounts for more than 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and also for vast losses of habitat for wild animals. This food system is raising the threat of extinction for thousands of species.

Our meat-based food system is not only deeply immoral, but unsustainable. To continue along this path likely means ecological and human disaster. Splitter’s piece notes that we may get help from technology, like lab grown meat, and from requiring more responsible farming practices. But cutting back on eating meat and moving toward a plant-based diet is something we as a species will have to do eventually. And we as individuals can do it now.

If you are either on board with plant-based eating or interested in experimenting, or even if not, I recommend trying Guasaca Arepa on Hillsborough Street. They have some outdoor picnic tables, where I ate my first ever arepa this week. It’s a Columbian speciality that involves putting various fillings in a sort of cornmeal cake. Guasaca has many fillings on offer, but I tried the vegan. Though a bit messy, it was delicious!

Pied-billed grebe at Shelley Lake near sunrise

October 7, 2019

Beautiful birds

Great blue heron at Shelley Lake

It took me a long time, but I finally faced a tough fact: if you really want to see wildlife around here, you have to get up when it’s still dark. I adjusted my routine recently, and instead of starting the day with a gym work out, I’ve been grabbing my camera bag and tripod and pushing up to one of Raleigh’s parks.

Canada geese coming in low

Shelley Lake has been my primary target these last couple of weeks. I’ve been watching squadrons of Canada geese and mallards practicing their flying, while I try to figure out how to catch them in the early light. From time to time, a great blue heron or great egret scoots by. I heard a report of a bald eagle there last week, but haven’t yet seen it.

Great egret

There are a lot of smaller birds, which I know mostly from listening rather than seeing, since they are masters at concealing themselves in the leaves. A few years back I put some effort into learning some birds’ songs, and with the fall migration coming soon, I’ve been refreshing on that skill. There are several apps I’ve found helpful, including ones from Audubon, Cornell, and Merlin.

The more I listen, the more I realize: the birds are communicating. That is, they aren’t mechanically repeating a programmed sequence; they’re sending out messages. Ornithologists have ideas about some of the messages, like alarm calls, but we’ve still got a lot to learn about their systems.

Being a bird cannot be easy. There’s always competition from other birds, and killer predators, like hawks and cats, can come out of nowhere. And then there’s the problem of human activity.

Killdeer

I was saddened, but not really surprised, at the report last month that bird populations had dropped precipitously in the last 50 years. In North America, there are 29 percent fewer birds, or almost 3 billion less than there were. That’s a lot of dead birds! The reasons are complex, but ultimately they have to do with us — our destruction of habitats, our use of pesticides, and of course, the environmental changes related to our irresponsible use of fossil fuels. All this bird destruction is terrible for the birds, obviously, but also for us and other creatures. Birds are important parts of ecosystems, spreading seeds, controlling pests, and pollinating plants. And of course, they’re beautiful. So, another wake up call to change course.

Young deer