The Animal Dialogues
Uncommon Encounters in the Wild
by Craig Childs
Childs is a naturalist, adventurerer and author of several other well-respected books. He encourages the reader to select his stories by their interest in the specific animals, birds, or insects, then put the book down and go out into the natural world for your own adventure!
Childs personal encounter stories cover a wide range of his life and the geographic areas he has traveled. So in addition to the species he so passionately describes, the reader is invited to consider traveling to some of the locations--discerning that some areas only trained hikers like himself can safely navigate. He has selected thirty-four encounters which range from common species like a dog he met in the wilderness to species like the Northern Spotted Owl which is rarely seen by humans.
This writer’s gift supports a uniques blend of personal encounter experiences in “off the beaten trail” locations with amazing facts about the species’ behavior, habitat, breeding, and life span. He has the ability to capture the essence of a wild creature, a habitat that seems impossible to sustain life, and add hiis own personal reflections about the animal kingdom and life. For example, as he describes the treck in the Olympic Peninsula for the illusive Northern Spotted Owl, he writes, "No matter what is said, regardless of propaganda coming from any side of any issue, an old-growth forest is different. It has become a body. It has developed organs and arteries.”(p. 116).
Childs includes such facts as an eagle can see something at one hundred and eighty feet which we could only see at twenty feet (nine times our visual acuity) , and that researchers have documented that when something catastropic occurs in a nesting area of a raven, no ravens ever again return. (In contrast, most birds come back no matter how many nests they lose within the space of several generations.) He concludes that ravens have memory and history.
In another encounter you fear for his life as he stands off with a mountain lion near the Black Mesa landmark in Arizona. Some of his encounters are recorded in a journal, while he was living in a tipi in the winter, with such vivid detail that you can almost hear the breathing of the elk and feel the cold as he wakes up with frost on his beard!
Childs has a breadth of understanding about the peril our earth is in and a personal passion to encourage us to connect with her remaining species so we will want to sustain our planet. He writes,“We are now experiencing the earth’s sixth major extinction, the loss of species ramping up year by year. Of those still alive, populations are decreasing rapidly...Every continent is experienceing unprecedented loss.... The earth will, of course, fill up behind us. A thousand unexpected species will appear as suddenly as weeds in a lot. You would have to split this planet into pieces to rid it of life.... The rapacious advance of organisms and evolution will not slow down at the removal of a Northwest rain forest. But part of the memory may be erased here. The complex genetic pieces, whose value and purpose we could not come close to understanding, would be nullified." (p. 122)
This book is an excellent one to read to be filled with awe at the courage Childs exhibits as he takes the time to engage with, observe and honor a species he is sharing with us. His personal reflections invite the reader to simultaneously enjoy life forms through his sometimes humrous descriptions, add to our education and challenge us choose to explore ways to have our own first hand experiences of the natural world around us.
He writes: "Anthropomorphism is generally frowned upon. It is said to be improper to see animals the same way as we see ourselves. We are asked to temper our language when speaking of animal traits, lest we call them by a name that is not theirs, forming words in our mouths that do not sound like a snake’s whisper, a grasshopper’s clicking. It seems just odd, though, to sequester ourselves in a cheerless vault of sentience, sole proprietors of smarts and charm. Bees form a group mind of a hive, don’t they? Doesn’t the bear dream when it sleeps, and don’t grasses stretch with all their might toward the sun? Every living thing has the same wish to flourish again and again. Beyond that, our differences are quibbles." (p. 138).
I, for one, want to read his other books!
Allie
The Animal Dialogues
Uncommon Encounters in the Wild Little, Brown and Company, 1997
ISBN 0-316-06632-X/978-0-316-06632-7
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