Ecosia: The eco-friendly search engine from in60seconds on Vimeo.

What should you do if you find a baby deer? Nothing!

I recently visited a famous New Hampshire tourist destination and was surprised to see several large signs saying “The fox families in this area are wild animals. Please do not approach them.” I am amazed that people have to be told things like this. Is the average person really so divorced from nature that we now approach the entire planet as though it were a zoo, stocked with not-quite-wild animals on display just for our viewing pleasure?

My drive to work takes me past a riverside soccer field where a flock of Canada made their home. Every morning I would watch their family progress, as the eggs hatched and the fuzzy goslings grew into awkward teenaged geese. Then one morning they were all gone. I read in the newspaper that they had been “culled”, which is wildlife management speak for rounded up and killed. Why? For daring to poop on private property! The land owners had tried to discourage the geese, but other folks were feeding them, and the desire for food won out over the deterrent measures; eventually the geese were officially deemed a nuisance and removed. I’m sure that the folks feeding the geese meant no harm, but they really were to blame.

There’s an old saying in the North Country: “A fed bear is a dead bear”.  People who feed bears, either accidentally by leaving bird feeders in easy reach, or on purpose, do the bears a terrible disservice. Bears are intelligent and they have good memories; once they have gotten used to easy handout meals they tend to stay around and give up the tedious work of foraging naturally. They also lose their natural fear of humans, coming closer and staying around the food source more and more. Eventually they move on to helping themselves, in some cases entering cars or buildings in search of even more of that delicious human food. At that point the bear, having done property damage, is officially deemed a nuisance, and is done away with.

Every spring my local Fish and Game officials are faced with well-meaning people who found what they thought was an abandoned baby deer. They do not understand that deer will leave their fawns to nap in a safe spot while mom goes to eat. The fawn’s only defense is to stay still and wait for its mother to come back to get it. When a person approaches, the fawn will follow its instincts and lie still; if the person removes the fawn, the chances of ever reuniting it with its mother are slim, and most are euthanized. 

People need to understand that wildlife is just that, wild. If animals’ lives sometimes intersect with ours, that should be a pleasure and a privilege. Humans need to learn to enjoy wildlife without interfering with it; our attempts to be “helpful “go astray far too often, and the animal usually loses. In most cases the animals were there first, and it is up to the humans to educate ourselves to do the right thing, which, 99% of the time, is to quietly watch from a respectful distance, and nothing more. Appreciation is not the same as manipulation. Humans are supposed to be the most intelligent animal species – let’s prove it.

I recently attended a showing of Flow: For the Love of Water in Columbus, Ohio, and I was immediately brought back to my days of living in Australia under a ‘drought’, taking bucket showers in India and turning on the tap in Costa Rica and not hearing the slightest trickle of water.

Upon seeing the film my mind raced to the ‘purified’ city water I drink when in the States and the other, not-so-purified water I consume abroad. Water doesn’t only enter into your body through the mouth; showering in bacteria or heavy metal-laden water is just as toxic to the system. Nonetheless, the reality of the matter is that THE AMOUNT OF FRESH WATER ON THIS PLANET IS DWINDLING, and H2O is surely in our top three needs for survival.

To quote a Boston news review of the movie, “Who knew that our drinking water was tainted with rocket fuel, or that between 500,000 and seven million people in this country [USA] suffer from water-bourne diseases every year?” The film centers in on privatization of water among other issues, as we are not only losing the minute amount of fresh water remaining on the planet, but that which exists is being readily bought and sold as a commodity. Capitalism has a way of commodifying basic human needs and rights. Health-care and food have already become numbers in the money mill, and water is just too elemental to the human body to Capitalize.

The film also touches upon contamination of the few large freshwater resources on the planet as well as the true quality and regulation of bottled water. A reviewer of the film took a step further in analysis. “The overarching theme here is that the Earth’s freshwater supply is being contaminated, sucked dry and ‘privatized’ for the benefit of huge corporations that are establishing themselves as the heirs to the oil cartels.”

The polemic nature of the film comes on strong and moves the viewer to worry a bit, but if this leads to critical thought, then I’m a happy camper. This post is not meant to strike a note of panic but rather to ring an alarm, a wake-up call to the factors at play in the world of today. I encourage all readers everywhere to make an effort to catch the film, either rent it, buy it or check it out from your nearest library. Just be aware of the issue and think ahead a few generations to your living and potential offspring. What will their life be like on dry land? What can we do today to make sure the waterfall of life keeps on flowing?

“Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change – this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.” -Bruce Barton

Electric bug zappers can be seen in many yards; these devices attract insects with an ultraviolet light and then “zap” them with electrical current. Numerous research studies have now shown that bug zappers primarily kill moths and other harmless or beneficial insects, waste electricity, and do virtually nothing positive. More recent to the market are propane powered mosquito traps, which use up a lot of resources and actually attract more mosquitoes into your yard from the neighbor’s!

What to do? Lowering the overall mosquito population in your yard may be as simple as draining small pools of standing water. Remove or overturn any container that catches and holds rainwater, and change the water in birdbaths and animal drinking bowls daily. Natural oils can be very effective repellents – oils of citronella, cinnamon, rosemary, and geranium have all been shown to be effective if regularly applied to the skin, or you can use reed diffusers to spread these wonderful smelling oils in the air.  Citronella candles are an environmentally healthy alternative to a propane mosquito trap. For future insect control, put up a bat house. (You can find more information at www.batconservation.org)

Summer also brings flies, ants, fleas, and other six legged visitors into the home. Repairing window screens is the best first line of defense; natural repellent oils can be misted onto screens to add an extra layer of deterrence for tiny insects. Keeping foods covered and put away makes your home less attractive to insects. You can wash cats and dogs with dish soap or human shampoo to remove fleas without resorting to toxins.

Once of the best indoor insect fighters is borax. It’s inexpensive, nontoxic, and can be found in the laundry section of most supermarkets. A sprinkle of borax along their path of entry will eliminate ants within a few days; if there are a lot of ants, a line of borax on the ground around the foundation may be in order. Sprinkle borax over a floor, carpet, or upholstered furniture and let it sit overnight before vacuuming to eliminate fleas and flea larvae. Afterward, place a few shallow dishes of dry borax on the floor beneath furniture to deter future insect visits.

And don’t concentrate on fighting insects so hard that you forget to appreciate their wonders! Catch a firefly, admire a ladybug, or plant some flowers to attract butterflies to your garden.

Accidents can happen, as we all know, but how many can be prevented?  Mistakes happen as well, but aren’t we supposed to learn from them?  These are the questions oil companies, such as BP, the company responsible for this spill, should be seriously considering.  The last several years has seen many oil spills, environmentally degraded oil fields and other areas, and oil has also played major roles in wars and governments.  Therefore, mistakes and accidents are obviously magnified given the front stage position oil companies have. 

Royal Dutch Shell is another major oil company that is guilty of heavy pollution.  Since the early 90’s this company has been polluting the Niger delta in Nigeria, and done nothing about it.  In 1993, there was a two-month long oil spill in the Southeastern part of the Niger Delta that Shell did nothing to stop.  According to Greenpeace, “Shell pays the fines, then continues to do so.”

Another oil spill most everyone is familiar with was the Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska in 1989.  Again, this was another sensitive and complex ecosystem that was dramatically harmed by the oil tanker running aground a spilling its contents.   What came of this could be considered a success story, so to speak.  In the book by Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, he talks of a moment he was visiting an oil field under the Chevron oil company.  He was out bird watching, walking along one of the roads when he was called into the office of a safety representative.  “I had been noticed stepping several feet out into the roadway to observe a bird.  That posed the hazard that a vehicle might hit me, or that in swerving to avoid hitting me it might crash into an oil pipeline at the side of the road and cause an oil spill,” says Diamond.

Now, we have BP, a company who almost merged with Shell not long ago, despite Shell’s reputation.  The oil rig that exploded, the Deepwater Horizon, represents this paradigm.  BP apparently has a history of safety violations and other serious accidents that they have been fined for.  According to an article by the World Sentinel BP, “could have utilized backup safety equipment (i.e., a remote switch that might have stopped the flow of oil at its source) some 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean.  While the device is not mandated under U.S. law, it is often used in the industry and required in other parts of the world where BP drills.”

An old saying, “history repeats itself” comes to mind.  However, this should not be the case with catastrophic events.  These accidents could have been prevented, and when that failed, the mistakes should have been rectified.  When are oil companies going to take responsibility for their actions, or start taking the necessary precautions?    We have the technology, we have the ability.  It is time for a change.