Wednesday, July 18, 2018

In Defense of Nature

On Monday, I committed a cardinal California sin.

I allowed Blue to keep a lizard in captivity, inside of a plastic bin with flowers, grass, fresh water and the lid wide open, for 8 hours. Actually, when we arrived home from Vacation Bible School, the lizard had blown that popsicle stand so it may have been closer to 5 hours. It is not a lizard on the endangered list. In fact, some other kid had already "tagged" this particular lizard with blue marker on his belly and throat. I did not let Blue color his lizard. He examined his body, made notes about distinguishing features, examined how it moved about the enclosure and was extremely gentle when handling it.

Yet, when I asked on our local Facebook page if anyone had a wardrobe box leftover from a move, one that I could have to cut up and use as a home for this lizard for the next 24 hours, you would think I had just shot a Bald Eagle out of the sky and was going to use it to bludgeon a California Brown Pelican to death while the newly hatched sea turtles looked on. And then use a plastic, grocery store bag to bury the bodies.

No, we will not be retiring in California.

But this is not really about a boy and his lizard or even about the passion for animals that radiates from Blue's every pore, every day. This doesn't even have anything to do with the fact that shows like Wild Kratts and Jack Hanna are specifically scripted to help children learn to care about all animals, not just the ones who get top billing at the biggest zoos. Blue knows what a Banded Archer Fish is, the difference between a Sloth Bear and a Sun Bear, and he can do a spot-on imitation of a capuchin. Thanks to PBS and the many hours we've spent in zoos all over the country, watching animals, talking with zookeepers and supplementing all of that with a library of animal books, Blue loves animals. He refers to our cat as his sister and I can drag him to the most boring event in the world, as long as there's at least a squirrel or a bird that stops by so he can study it for a few minutes. I don't doubt that he will grow up to be someone who rescues injured pets from the side of the road and keeps the bird feeder filled, even during the abundance of summer. But I fully expect him to go further; to become a zookeeper or a veterinarian or work with a wildlife rescue agency. That is the intensity of the flame that burns inside of him at this young age. And it shows no sign of flickering out.

So, yes...when he finally caught a lizard after 8 weeks of trying, we called my friend in San Diego to ask her what it likes to eat, what kind of environment it likes to live in and then we did our best to re-create it, even though we both understood this to be a temporary arrangement. But I wanted his home to be bigger, hence my request for the wardrobe box. Those things are huge and unwieldy. I thought I would be doing someone a favor. Instead, I was told that what I was doing was illegal (but by all means, go on down to Pacific Coast Highway and score a dime bag because, hey, it's California!!) and I believe I may have been loosely compared to Hitler. I don't know. The guy made some comment about how humanity had killed more than one thing within 24 hours so my time frame was unreasonable. Apparently, anything longer than 24 seconds was going to give the lizard PTSD.

OK, look...I get it. We are all hyper-sensitive these days...about a lot of things. We don't force the tigers to jump through rings of fire. Elephants no longer have to dance on hind legs just to prove they can do it. Zoos continue to catch flack everyday, for everything from the size of their enclosures to their breeding programs. I worked at a nature preserve in Lexington one summer and more than once we had people threaten to break into our visitor's center so they could free the red-eared slider turtle and the box turtle that had been happily crawling around in their huge tanks for years. No one wants to see an animal in captivity but we are more than happy to breed Labradors with Poodles so we can get a dog that is hypo-allergenic, doesn't shed and looks cute in a bow. I don't care about your Labradoodle. I would love to have one myself. But get off my ass about going to the zoo and catching a lizard. If you aren't biking to work, wearing the same cotton toga everyday and living in a bush by the river, you are probably contributing to the downfall of an animal's habitat in some way. But maybe you recycle, use cloth grocery bags, plant flowers for the butterflies, preach about saving the bees' hives and encourage your children to engage with nature in a way that makes them care about what happens to it as they grow up. And that is what matters.

To be fair, I used to not feel this way. I scolded Blue every time he picked a leaf from a tree to study its edges or wandered off the path and trampled the wildflowers as he excitedly searched for the Chickadee, whose call he recognized. Nature is fragile and we mustn't touch it. Just look at it from afar. We may damage it and then we'll lose it forever. Sort of an "if everyone picked just one flower there wouldn't be any left" kind of mentality.

But then I read THIS amazing article on Slate about kids and nature and it changed everything for me. I wanted to raise a child who engaged so much with nature that he became territorial of it, rushing to protect it when he saw others abusing it. And there is only one way to engage with nature. Pick the leaf, turn over the rock, climb the tree, temporarily re-home the lizard. Not every lizard in Southern California. Just one. They evolved from the dinosaurs. They can take it.

And y'know what? On the way home from Vacation Bible School that night we started talking about how the lizard's family felt when he didn't return home that evening. Yes, I may have equated Blue's captivity of his new reptile friend to kidnapping, but it got his attention. We talked about how Blue would feel if someone just ripped him away from us one day and took him to a new home; how scared he would be, regardless of how nice that new home was. We talked about what it would be like to not know where he was, who he was with, when he would see us again, if he was safe, if he would be fed or cared for. And then Blue said, "If I free the lizard tonight, will you put me to bed for the rest of the week?" He needed an out. He wanted to be Jack Hanna without being Ted Bundy. I looked in the mirror and said, "Of course."

When we got home, the lizard had made his escape, but Blue didn't cry the way he would have if we hadn't talked on the way home. He said, "I loved that lizard. I wish I had gotten his picture. I hope he got home OK." He's going to make a great animal caretaker someday.

I should also mention that I didn't write this so someone will comment about how wrong I am to take this opinion. You can quote your PETA facts but it isn't going to change my mind. This is for all the parents out there who worry that they will be ostracized for allowing their children to catch a minnow or tickle a sea anemone in the tide pools. Don't hold your breath and hope that no one noticed. We are carefully crafting great humans who will protect this earth with unwavering dedication. Don't ever apologize for that.

1 comment:

  1. You failed to mention what you did to bother the condors... Blue is a great kid and will be an awesome adult 'cause he's got good raisin'. (Grandmother would say "rearing".) Ignore the haters. Just don't let him collect any snakes.

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