Boy, have we adapted to change during these 81 years of mine!

The animals that have adapted to the city, got it made – like in the community I live in in Florida and on the Island I live on in Michigan.

The falcon sitting on our church steeple can swoop down on prey (food). His food is those little animals and birds that also adapted to the way of the city. For that falcon, I think it is easier than sitting on a remote high cliff where food is scarce.

White-tailed deer, which I seldom saw on the Pa. farm when I was a teenager, now number in the millions.  They thrive in an environment of green lawns fertilized with Scotts Weed and Feed, flower gardens, vegetable gardens, and the absence of predators. – and the sportsmen feed them hay in extreme weather and my neighbors feeds them bagged food in the summer. They adapted and flourished.

The deer should get the same pay as movie stars get – why? cause they entertain us. You see, we humans benefit as much as the semi-tame (semi-domestaced) wildlife do.  Local wildlife is our TV for 6 months of the year – (We have no TV on Drummond) – we watch wildlife and did not even have to travel – we watch  coyotes, bear, mink, beaver, otters, deer, even a moose, ……..

And that contact is good. Stephen Kellert, professor of social ecology at Yale University wrote:  “All of our senses and capabilities, even our spiritual capacities, are based on ongoing contact with the natural world. Contact with nature is essential to our health and physical well-being.”

How did it happen that we have all this on-going contact with nature? Here is how:

The ability for all creatures to adapt is what shapes the world – Adaptation and domestication is the word. If we did not learn to adapt to controlling animals (to domesticating them) and if animals did not adapt to being controlled (domesticated) where would we be.

Domestication shaped us more than the invention of the steam engine or the rocket engine. If we did not train animals to adapt – train the horse to let us ride as fast as the buffalo ran so that we could kill it for food, feed/pen the cow, the feed/coop the chicken, create little dogs and big dogs from the wolf, teaching them to fetch (hunt and bring back) – no wolf would understand fetching – where would we be. We would all be hunters and gathers roaming the earth on foot, looking for food! – no cities – gotta keep moving to find food.

So, the ability of animals to adapt to our cities (be semi-domesticated) does shape our world. This ability shaped the world back when humans first rode horses and it is doing it now that cities are the new wildlife habitat.

Oh, well – ‘nough of that – go to the web sites of your local nature museum – see how your neighbors are photographing and enjoying nature!

It is amazing how much my body had adapted – Well I did resist changing to “day-light-saving” time – but no longer do I resist sunshine, bike rides, and shorts – This photo from Morristown, NJ today 3/14/2017