natural resistance
BY MARY O’BRIEN
A Postcard World
The naturalist sees the wounds
Y
ears ago, Australian Sen. Bob Brown was
driving me to a speaking engagement
when I spotted a wombat about 25
yards from the road. Wow. I had read books
with wombat characters to my children. I
loved the name “wombat,” their teddy bear
shape; and their slowness (they take 14
days to digest their food). Bob stopped the
car as I exclaimed about how lucky I was to
see one.
“Well, you’re seeing one because it’s got
mange,” Bob said. “They aren’t usually out in
the open on a sunny day. It’s probably blind.”
Uh-oh.
I remembered that moment as I listened last week to a radio interview
with Alun Anderson, author of After the Ice: Life, Death, and Geopolitics
in the New Arctic. He was visiting the Arctic for the fi rst time when he saw
a polar bear walking along the ice. He recalled thinking how confi dent the
bear looked as it ignored the ship and concentrated on its travels; how
comfortable it was in its world of ice; how much larger and longer it was
than he had imagined.
Just then a naturalist on the ship walked up to him saying that the
bear was starving; that she’d never make it through the winter, because
the summer ice didn’t extend far out enough to sea for her to catch seals.
Through his binoculars now, Alun could see how the bear’s skin was
sagging. He was about to learn that scientists agree that Arctic summer
ice (and the polar bear on that ice) inevitably will be gone by the end of
the century, if not by 2050. (The polar bear may eventually hybridize with
the land-bound brown bear from which it once evolved.).
Another memory was jogged. I was sitting on the fl oor of a large room
one evening years ago, enjoying a music group after a long day of meetings
on pesticides. The music was a relief. A nearby tall poster prepared by
Patagonia showed a black-and-white photograph of a young, fl uffy inland
shorebird from the cotton-growing central valley of California. I stared
at the photo, again taking relief from the day’s meeting. But I suddenly
realized why that shorebird was in that poster. Among its baby fl uffi ness,
it had no eyes. That’s one of the wildlife birth defects that can be caused
by certain pesticides. That one small shorebird is burned into my memory.
Over the years a Forest Service hydrologist in Eastern Oregon has
bought picture postcards as she travels through the West. The postcards
she chooses are those of idyllic streambank scenes. Their most common
feature is a large, old riparian tree (for instance, a cottonwood) and an
open, green, grassy slope down to the water. It makes you want to take a
nap or a book or a fi shing pole there. Their other common feature is that
these idyllic scenes are of highly damaged streams. The grassy slopes
are open because young cottonwood now have trouble rooting above the
incised stream or sprouting amid a dense lawn of Kentucky bluegrass or
other exotic grass.
A healthy riparian area, truth be told, is generally heck to try to travel
through: tangled thickets of all size willows and trees and downed wood;
soggy meadows; branches that grab your hat or your hair or poke you in
the face. The birds and the bees love it, though.
Ecological knowledge can be disheartening. As wildlife and lands
conservation researcher and writer Aldo Leopold wrote in A Sand County
Almanac:
One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives
alone in a world of wounds …. An ecologist must either harden his
shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of
his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death
in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told
otherwise.
No one wants to listen to a voice calling from a world of wounds.
Anyone agreeing to help must bring hope along with the bad news;
a way forward along with a report of dire consequences of past
choices; a motivation to care that is larger than the motivation to deny.
Daunting. Essential.
Mary O’Brien has worked as a public interest scientist since 1981. She is currently dividing her time
between Eugene and Castle Valley, Utah.
4 JANUARY 13, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
letters
TO THE EDITOR
KILLER DOGS
As a dog lover who has had companion
dogs for the last 25 years, I am thrilled that
the pit bulls in the Jan. 6 EW found good
homes. As a pedestrian and parent, I’m
terrifi ed.
On two occasions in the last several
years, I’ve been threatened by pit bulls in
my suburban driveway. The fi rst time, a
guest of a neighbor let his dog out of his car
and the dog decided that my driveway was
its territory. The second, two pit bulls were
on an early morning journey of exploration
through my neighborhood. In both cases,
thanks to a small bit of knowledge about
dog behavior, I was able to safely retreat
from the threat. My child would probably
not have been as fortunate. The majority
of dog attacks are perpetrated by pit bulls,
and many children have been mauled and
killed by this breed of dog.
Victims of serious dog attacks often
suffer acute damage, which may require
$250,000 to $1 million in specialized
medical care. Reconstructive surgery, such
as skin grafting, tissue expansion and scar
diminishment, often requires multiple
procedures over a period of years. As the
dog owner, are you prepared to help pay
these expenses? Loving and providing for
them is wonderful, but before you consider
getting one of these dogs, please ask yourself
if you are capable of controlling the animal
100 percent of the time. Anything less, even
99.999 percent control, can be devastating
(source www.dogsbite.org).
Steven Shapiro
Eugene
ATTACKED BY PITS
There are two sides to all stories,
and your recent cover story (1/6) about
pit bulls certainly portrays the breed in
a different light than I have witnessed.
Please ask yourself why this breed of dog
has been outlawed in certain jurisdictions.
Please ask my dead pet llama and rough-
castrated other llama if they see the
breed as your article portrays. They were
attacked by pit bulls in the early morning
while they slept.
There certainly are other breeds
who will meet your readers’ need for
companions without putting others at risk.
I trust that lady expecting a child whom
you interviewed will be careful with her
newborn around her pit bull.
Fred Hamlin
Eugene
HATE SPEECH
Last year, Nevada Senate candidate
Sharon Angle suggested “Second
Amendment solutions” to the political
situation. Sarah Palin put a map on her
website showing rifl e-scope cross-hairs
to indicate Congress members she wanted
to unseat (I don’t buy her lame excuse
that they were just a graphic). An insane
follower of Glen Beck was stopped in
California before he could murder people
working for the Tides Foundation. This
week, the Republicans and their PR outlet,
Fox News, are spinning madly to defl ect
blame for the tragic events in Arizona this
weekend.
The left is being accused of “politicizing”
the discussion. Well it should be. I heard
one pundit over the weekend say that “both
sides need to tone down their rhetoric.”
That’s wrong. During eight years of the Bush
administration, no credible spokesman for
the left advocated violence. In the last two
years, you could fi ll a book with examples
of disrespect, bigotry and incitement from
a broad spectrum of politicians and media
personalities on the right.
Now that a “Second Amendment
solution” has been tried, we see the
Republicans scrambling to repudiate
their hate speech. I won’t accept that. I
believe they share responsibility for what
happened, but they lack the courage and
the moral conviction to admit it.
Brook Adams
Eugene
BRAINLESS BAKE SALE
To the Oregon Department of Forestry:
The idea to consolidate and organize a
better budget program for our school
system is valid and years overdue. The
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