Humans can be an animal’s best friend
The notion that the presence of people means the absence of
wildlife is deeply infused into our collective understanding of the
world around us.
In some cases, it’s also wrong.
Humans can be an animal’s best friend
The notion that the presence of people means the absence of wildlife is deeply infused into our collective understanding of the world around us.
In some cases, it’s also wrong.
There are some animals that thrive in the presence of people, profiting from their close association with us.
The notion of how commonplace that is came up during a brief conversation with a co-worker before we began work one morning.
Dogs are the first to occur. The animal that may be sleeping at your feet is the descendant of wild dogs. My guess is that it was the dogs that made the first overture, not man.
Our domesticated dogs are still often opportunists, as likely to steal food as a 5 year old sitting next to a box of chocolates. Is it such a stretch to think that once upon a time, dogs were drawn first to our trash heaps and then, slowly, into the circle of light around the fire?
One of the sights any visitor to Death Valley is likely to encounter is one of a coyote sitting by the roadside, or loping through a campground. Although it is forbidden and punishable by fines, people are inclined to feed the cute little guys.
When they don’t, the coyotes are so accustomed to the presence of people that they often help themselves to people’s food, their trash and – occasionally – to the family pet.
But dogs are not the only ones who have come to depend on the kindness of human strangers.
The European starlings that fill our towns and countryside even have us to thank for the free ride to North America they received. A few dozen were released in New York’s Central Park in the 1880s, and the hundreds of millions spanning the continent today are their progeny.
In addition to our crops, our landscaping and our litter – all food sources – we manufacture lots of nooks and crannies that make great nest sites for these cavity nesters. We’ve watched them emerging from bird houses, tree hollows, attics, utility poles, bridge structures and barns – just about anyplace offering a dry den.
Ever watch clouds of gulls following a tractor as a farmer disks his fields? They’re using the farmer’s work to snatch up worms brought to the surface.
Barn owls do not need barns to nest in. One pair raised several broods from the crotch of a Monterey pine tree outside the county Agricultural Commissioner’s office. But they do tend to favor steeples, barns and the rest of our structures.
Common ravens are living up to their name, becoming common sights in our towns. They’ve even grown comfortable in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where they once were never found. Our trash and our road kill sustain them.
California voters pass a law to provide additional funds to acquire parklands, and almost incidentally to stop nearly all killing of mountain lions. The result, some believe, is more mountain lions and fewer deer.
House sparrows are another European native that has us to thank for its presence here. The perky little birds that some British wags refer to as “slum weavers” (they are actually a weaver finch, not a sparrow) are sometimes called burger kinglets over on this side of the pond.
I’d rather not go into the area of cockroaches, head lice, bed bugs or the tiny mites living in your eyebrows and mine, thank you.
I guess the lesson in this ramble is that our presence influences the world around us – for better or worse. And I hope that if we practice common sense and mindfulness, the equation balances in the end.
