Back to StoriesCan We be Better ‘Masters of the Household?’
Backcountry recreation doesn’t rearrange the landscape the way a ski resort or other large facility does, but trails aren’t neutral as far as the animals are concerned. The trail itself isn’t the problem; it’s us—our noise, our off-leash dogs, our failure to remember that a moose, bear, or other critter could turn up right around the bend. Research has shown that we disturb wildlife at far greater distances than we imagine. Web cams along forest trails record the number and diversity of animals that use them—at night, when we have gone home.
July 19, 2024
Can We be Better ‘Masters of the Household?’As residents and visitors in Greater Yellowstone, Susan Marsh writes that we must consider other species and give them the respect—and space—they deserve
Column and photos by
Susan Marsh
I recently watched a documentary
about residents of villages in Namibia who are learning to live peacefully with
elephants. How? After numerous attempts to haze or fence them out of cropland
and keep them away from dwellings, a nonprofit provided the elephants with a
large concrete water tank well away from human settlements.
The film impressed me for its
reporting on an elegant way of dealing with a formerly intractable conflict, with
equal interest given to the villagers and the elephants. It reminded me of the
ongoing efforts in the Madison Valley, and other parts of the Greater
Yellowstone region, to find ways for livestock and native predators to coexist
without constant conflict.
Seeking to meet multiple objectives
seems far superior to solving conflicts that result in a win for one party and
a loss for the others. When it comes to meeting the needs of wildlife and the
increasing demand for more backcountry recreation, I believe
we have room for improvement.
Visitors
to Yellowstone are subject to much ridicule for their ignorance of—or disregard
for—how to behave around wild animals. Yet locals, while knowing better than to
take selfies with bison standing right behind us, aren’t always willing to give
wildlife the space they need.
There’s
no doubt that roadside critters in the national parks are used to having people
nearby. They tolerate us, as long as we are polite and keep our distance. But
that doesn’t necessarily hold for the backcountry where our presence is more
dispersed and less predictable. We want to believe that we aren’t displacing
wildlife. But we don’t always see the bighorns or deer or coyotes taking off to
avoid us, often because they have done so long before we detect their presence.
Backcountry recreation doesn’t rearrange the landscape the way a ski resort or other large facility does, but trails aren’t neutral as far as the animals are concerned. The trail itself isn’t the problem; it’s us—our noise, our off-leash dogs, our failure to remember that a moose, bear, or other critter could turn up right around the bend. Research has shown that we disturb wildlife at far greater distances than we imagine. Web cams along forest trails record the number and diversity of animals that use them—at night, when we have gone home.
Defying research that demonstrates otherwise, some people still express the belief that animals don’t have their own lives that they value as much as we do ours.
Wildlife
winter range closures within the Bridger-Teton National Forest have been in
effect for going on 40 years. Most—not all—people respect the closures, which
were put in place in coordination with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to
protect big game. At the time, it was a reasonably easy sell: the animals that
fill our freezers need to make it through the stressful winter months without
unnecessary disturbance from us.
Human demographics
have changed. Big game hunters are now joined by people who want access to the
public land for year-round activities of many kinds. The reasons for restricting
human presence in winter range are a bit opaque to some folks. When the closures
take effect in December and the signs go up, the volume of complaining shoots
up along with them. I’ve heard everything from “We don’t cause any harm” to “Can’t the deer go somewhere else?”
The
national forests and parks in Greater Yellowstone include a combined total of over
10,000 miles of trails. I don’t mean to suggest that we should stop enjoying
these trails, only that we ought to be considerate and mindful of the
disturbance we might cause. There is a delicate balance between wanting to be
quiet in order to avoid bothering wildlife, and wanting to make enough noise to
warn them in advance that we are coming. I find myself wanting to do both,
which is pretty hard to accomplish. I do think we need to recognize that some
areas should remain trail-free so other creatures can live in relative peace.
If people
aren’t willing to give a little to the species we tend to like: elk, moose,
deer, et cetera, how can we expect lose our ingrained medieval thinking when it
comes to predators? It’s been a quarter-century since I worked to implement a
decision made by the Greater Yellowstone Coordinating Committee—made up of the area's forest supervisors, refuge managers and park superintendents—to require
bear-proof storage of food and other attractants everywhere within the national
forests, not just in officially designated grizzly bear habitat.
The
public blowback was intense. People filled meeting rooms to yell at Forest
Service employees—not the ones who made the decision, but the underlings who
had to deliver the news. As part of the uproar, two Wyoming counties passed resolutions
declaring that grizzly bears (and—why not throw them in too? wolves—were “unacceptable
species.”
We’re
still treating some forms of native wildlife as unacceptable. Why else would it
be legal to run down predators with snowmobiles?
This sends
me to a question I’ve been asking myself for a long time: did God, however one
might imagine Him/Her/It, go on a Cunard Cruise and delegate authority to us? For
longer than I have been on this Earth, a significant amount of Western philosophy
doesn’t ask that question, but answers it: God is dead. We have replaced the
divine with ourselves.
When it comes to meeting the needs of wildlife and the increasing demand for more backcountry recreation, I believe we have room for improvement.
William
Blake, in his poem “The Tyger,” addressed the mighty beast with a question: “Did he who made the lamb make thee?” According
to the Book of Genesis, for those familiar with that text, the answer
is yes. The tiger is not only God-made but also “very good.” The same must also
apply to those “unacceptable” wolves and grizzly bears.
I am
aware that Genesis also says that humanity has been given dominion over the
earth and all its creatures. But dominion is not the same as tyranny, cruelty
or torture. The proto-Indo-European root of the word dominion is dom, as in
domicile. So to have dominion means that we might, in this context, consider
ourselves “masters of the household.” What responsible master would fail to
provide for all of the members of a household? What parents would coddle one
child and boot out the other?
I want to believe that in this age
of expanding scientific knowledge we have learned something about other living beings
and our kinship with them. They are not only sentient, able to feel fear, pain
and affection, but have their own forms of consciousness, senses and languages.
The more we investigate, the more we learn about what we share with other
beings, from a considerable percentage of our genes to a capacity for joy and
sorrow.
Yet, defying research that
demonstrates otherwise, some people still express the belief that animals don’t
have their own lives that they value as much as we do ours. It’s a form of
wishful thinking on our part, perhaps intended to reduce our guilt and shame.
Yank the hook out of the trout’s mouth before releasing it into the water,
after its gills have been starved for oxygen while it has its picture taken? No
problem—fish don’t feel. I’ve even heard a fisheries biologist make that
statement. If it’s true, one has to wonder why their nervous systems look and function
so much like ours. Maybe they don’t feel the hook because the water is too
cold? Climate change is taking care of that.
Large and impressive creatures,
whether carnivores or grazers, seem to be valued by our culture primarily as subjects
for phone photography or as symbols of our proud history. As an example, Wyoming’s
state flag includes a white silhouette upon which the state seal is printed. The
seal used on the flag features two men, one of whom stands with a lead rope in
his hand (the stockman) and has a distinct resemblance to George Armstrong
Custer. Facing him is a miner in high-top boots, leaning on a pick. Four
banners announce enterprises the state is known for: livestock, mines, grain
and oil. (Yes, there is also a toga-clad female figure with a furled scroll,
“Equal Rights.” Wyoming was the first state to allow women the right to vote,
while it was still a territory, in 1869.)
The ghost-white silhouette on which
the seal is superimposed is that of an American buffalo. Symbol of our state—the
Wyoming state mammal since 1985. Yet I can’t help pondering how the enterprises
featured on the seal have contributed to the buffalo itself nearly becoming a
ghost.
We have begun to make amends to
this particular creature. Since 1872, when Yellowstone became a national park,
the population of bison in Wyoming has grown from 25 (all of them in the Lamar
Valley) to around 10,000 (including both wild and captive/managed herds). Yellowstone
and Grand Teton national parks are home to about half of that total.
I don’t mean to suggest that we should stop enjoying these trails, only that we ought to be considerate and mindful of the disturbance we might cause.
Other large and impressive
creatures like bears and wolves are featured in “predator art” seen in nearly
every gallery from Jackson Hole to Big Sky—larger than life specimens created
from paint on canvas, bronze, stone, rebar, wire, and spray-painted sheet
metal. Meanwhile the real ones are being persecuted, displaced, declared
unacceptable, or, at the very least, disturbed by locals and “tourons” alike. Celebrity
grizzly bears making the rounds on social media are often photographed while
looking directly at the camera (indicating disturbance) or hustling away in
another direction. Visitors to Yellowstone are captured on video as they stride
across closed meadows to get closer views of wolf packs and their pups near the
den.
We want, in addition to getting
that photo, to remember what we have seen—sometimes from way too close: wild
animals in their natural habitat. These are reminders, in some ways, of who we
are—the masters of the household who have preserved and honored our wildlife,
however inconsistently.
People in the Greater Yellowstone region
claim the bear, the bison, the wolf, as part of our heroic heritage. So, let’s
not eliminate
the embodiment of those symbols. Without them, we will have nothing more than a
picture or statue of an extirpated species as the symbol of our states, like
California’s golden bear.
In spite of the legacy of western
European history ingrained in our culture, predators aren’t some kind of
incarnation of the devil. Remember Genesis? All good. Getting over this
inheritance and improving in the compassion department would help us become
better masters of the household. Otherwise, we may continue to perpetuate the
kind of dominion that will someday bring us shame.
WRITER'S NOTE: Some good reads on related
topics:
- Ed Yong, An Immense World
- Susan
Eirich, Whispers from the Wild: An Invitation. Stories
of the Rescued Wild Animals of the Earthfire Institute
- Marc
Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A
Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy—and Why They Matter
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