Dan Peak

SCARCITY OR ABUNDANCE. Ants are lauded for their purposefulness and ability to move mountains but I think they have nothing on human beings.

Maybe Edward Abbey says it best, “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.” Look around us, way around us, way, way around us. Look how effective we’ve been at changing our landscape in such a relatively short period of time. When we turn our eye to a particular task like harvesting the passenger pigeon or clear cutting our Wisconsin forests we are unrivaled, we’re at the top of the food chain, so much so that ‘sustainable’ is a trend. Another Edward Abbey quote sums it up, “One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.” At least we built a memorial monument to the passenger pigeon; you can see it at Wyalusing State Park on the bluff over the Mississippi.

As a species we seem to think we can fix things. We can import beetles to combat loosestrife which ‘escaped’ from gardens. We can keep the Asian carp from making its way to the Great Lakes or if it gets there we can somehow fix it. Our fear with Asian carp is that it will out-compete game fish and hurt sport fishing, game fish that are raised in fisheries and released.

Why can’t we leave things alone? We are prone to throw rocks in the water without anticipating what the ripples set in motion, we consider the risk after the accident. We think we can pick and choose the value of a species – spend a fortune to save the whooping crane but the less elegant species go unnoticed. In Wisconsin we are still fortunate enough to have prairie chickens whereas by comparison they are gone from Michigan, extirpated in only the last twenty years. What do prairie chickens most need to remain as a viable species? Habitat. Large extents of contiguous proper habitat. The whooping crane is a fabulously beautiful bird but I wonder, do we preserve Necedah Natural Wildlife Refuge to benefit the whooping crane or is the relationship that preserving the crane means we continue to have Necedah as a Refuge? I like either outcome.

Again, Abbey, “What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse.” We have a few percentage points of the original extent of the range of these trees remaining and yet we fight over how many of these we can continue to cut.

If we leave things alone we don’t have to fix them later.

I appreciate each flowering milkweed plant. Check and you’ll find monarch eggs and caterpillars. I appreciate the wildflowers coming up in the fields. I appreciate the birds singing as they prepare for migration. Have you noticed bluejays and goldfinches flocking? Some birds are already moving south. By the way, leave your hummingbird feeders out for as long as you want, you won’t cause a hummingbird to stay any longer than they are otherwise inclined.

How better to close than a final Abbey quote, "One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am-a reluctant enthusiast... a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards.”

Daniel Peak is a bird, butterfly and dragonfly enthusiast sometimes seen in and around the Viroqua area. He encourages you to read ‘The Monkeywrench Gang’, he finds that it’s like Kerouac for an environmental activist.

He welcomes questions and can be contacted at d_peak@hotmail.com.