Throughout the first few years of
my life in Michigan, I frequented the surrounding natural world. Lucky enough
to have a small, but private, woods behind my house and several pine forests
within bike distance, I got to enjoy many short walks through the woods. I
would frequently observe the local flora and fauna, climb trees, and discover
what other travelers had left behind.
As these woods were surrounded by
settlements, trash and various other human remains marked the territory. The
occasional tree house, discarded lumber and nails, and bottles were left by
careless people without a second thought. These people failed to consider that
this trash would continue to sit and slowly decompose for many hundreds to
thousands of years.
In addition, with “progress,” the
surrounding blight continued to grow. In the neighborhood I lived in for around
ten years, house after house was built, with any forest previously in a house’s
place destroyed; a few more square acres of the natural world was gone. It may never return to how it was, even
if mankind were to suddenly vanish.
One such formerly natural lot I
enjoyed was thick with pine trees. Salamanders were easily found under every
other rock and fallen branch. This world was lost. I don’t remember seeing a
single salamander within a few years following the construction of a house.
This was just the beginning.
In the early years I explored my
neighborhood, I also used to enjoy a small pond in the woods, just off a small
side road. It was full of frogs, hopping away with haste on my approach, and
their tadpole spawn within every few square inch. Taking in more, I could
easily spotted small fish, dragonflies, grasshoppers, as well as an abundance
of Michigan wildflowers and lily-pads. I would often try to catch a frog,
rarely succeeding, and settle for a few grasshoppers instead. Just being a part
of such activity was great. But, alas, as human development furthered, the land
was privatized, cordoned off, and developed into yet another house in front of
my beloved pond. I was never able to visit it again. It is likely drained and
gone.
Within the first few years of my
time in Michigan in the newly constructed neighborhood, proximal wildlife was
common. Every summer I would see turtles crossing the street, birds, bats, and
squirrels all over, and thousands of caterpillars crossing the walk paths and
streets. In human’s collision with this natural world, which has existed long
before man, thousands of caterpillars never became butterflies and instead were
crushed under passing tires. In addition, many turtles never reached their
destinations, blocked by what must appear to them to be mysterious and very
large square growths and drained swampland. Untold numbers of potential insect
and reptile progeny were lost. Worse yet, this neighborhood of mine was just
one medium-sized development of a few hundred people. Extrapolated to the
entire human population, it is clear why one of the greatest extinction events
in history is ongoing. To end this destruction, a balance must be found and
executed. We must learn to live in harmony with other life.
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