Nature's Voice:

A Polemic

Shall I speak to you of nature? I shall, but I must give a warning. Kali, the patron goddess of Kolkata, is a nature goddess. She personifies the destructive forces of nature. Kali rules the typhoon, the earthquake, and the tidal wave. She wears a necklace of human skulls. Her destruction makes way for new life but is not a pretty sight.

Aerial photographs of an area hit by a typhoon may reveal hundreds of human bodies floating in an ocean. Some may be alive and waving hands, summoning an unlikely rescue. Kali is sometimes depicted with her foot on her husband’s chest, his heart in her upraised hand.

Shall I speak to you of nature? I give another warning. Life is always making more life. Gray whales en route to Scammon’s Lagoon on the Baja peninsula are bound for an ancient ritual. Every gray whale calf born was conceived in those mystic waters of this Pacific inlet. Imagine a pair of forty-ton leviathans mating in water.  A male whale supports them on his back lest they sink and drown. This ancient ritual of Magdalena Bay is an orgy often involving multiple partners.

Shall I speak to you of nature? Are you certain? The cleansing fresh smell of high tide gives way to the reek of exposed mud flats. Plovers and sandpipers gather for a feast of marine worms and other creatures exposed by the receding tide. A stranded skate or bluefish flops to an untimely death as crows and gulls gather and peck. The not-quite-dead fish feels the stabbing beaks.

In a freshwater pond, the frogs which filled last night's air with melodious chirps of courtship fall victim to the heron’s beak in the harsh morning light.

Shall I speak to you of nature? I shall tell you how predation is not merely a fact of life but a necessity. When wolves returned to Yellowstone after a substantial absence, they happily set about killing deer and elk. Trees browsed to anemic decline recovered, and the forest regained its health.  With more seeds produced, the populations of birds and small mammals rebounded.

Beavers returned and dammed the streams. Rivers slowed, and marshes grew.  Fish populations thrived.

Small mammals thrived as wolves killed coyotes.  Deer, elk, and coyotes remained, for they perform essential jobs too, but the herds became robust under the predators’ watchful eye.

I will speak of nature and its losses and recovery, but it is not a picture of steady progress. The Colorado River, which flows through that tourist paradise, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, is a legal battleground. Each western state battles the others for “their fair share” of the water. For years, it was a dry stream bed where it historically entered the Sea of Cortez.

Two conservation groups bought some water rights a few years ago and left water in the river. The marshes of Baja rebounded, and fish populations returned to abundance. Western cities were not happy. Residents of Los Vegas blamed the conservationists for their lack of water. I have heard their cause advanced as evidence of a need to change our water policies here in Tennessee.

No one wants to admit that these western cities are in trouble because they were built in a desert, unable to sustain such a large population. They should not have been allowed to grow so big. Perhaps they should never have been built at all.

I know the beauty of canyons and waterfalls and nature’s healing power, and I suspect this is what you mean when you say nature. I will speak of those things as well. Speak to us of nature, you say, and I will not leave out:

• the rhythmic pulse of waves breaking on the shore. 
• the clean smell of the receding tide. 
• the nightly calls of katydids. 
• the grandeur of Alabama’s Little River Canyon. 
• the waterfalls and vistas of Georgia’s Cloudland Canyon. 
• the playfulness of otters. 
• the grace of cranes in flight.
• the speed of a fox in pursuit or escape.
• the majesty of right whales swimming on Cape Cod Bay.

Yes, I will speak of nature, but you may get more than you bargained for.