Contact Me
Friday, November 28, 2008
Finding Beauty in a Broken World
Oh, there is so much that can be written about all of the beauty in this broken world. Or is the world truly broken? I'm not going down that road right now because I just want to write about Terry Tempest Williams' latest book, Finding Beauty in a Broken World. In particular, I want to share a little about what she has to say about
Prairie Dogs
Prairie dogs are native to North America. In the U.S., they primarily reside in the western states. Recently I have heard that they are being sent to Japan as pets. Oy. Not a good idea.
I love seeing prairie dogs in fields around here. But some people don't.
These furry little creatures live in tunnels under the ground. Developers and people with livestock fail to see the beauty and importance of prairie dogs and are known to throw poison or fire into the tunnels, then close them off, causing the creatures to die a horrible death.
But the loss of prairie dogs is the beginning of a ripple effect, because it's true that all life is dependent on other life. Species that can disappear - or almost disappear - when the prairie dog is removed include: the black-footed ferret, many types of birds (including owls, hawks and golden eagles), some types of mice, and swift foxes.
And these animals are not only important for the survival of other species, but they also work the land in ways that help the plant life around them.
But this is what I wanted most of all to tell you:
A man, biologist Constantine Slobodchikoff, has studied the communication patterns of prairie dogs and has proven that they have the most sophisticated animal language that has ever been decoded. The sentinel prairie dog warns the rest of the colony of impending danger by - get this - using different calls depending on the species of the predator.
From the book:
I wonder what prairie dogs are saying about humans as we destroy them...
Of his work, this biologist says, "I am hoping that this work will help show that prairie dogs, and all animals, are not just mindless robots that can be disposed of as vermin or property but are sentient beings that should be treated with empathy and respect."
Prairie DogsPrairie dogs are native to North America. In the U.S., they primarily reside in the western states. Recently I have heard that they are being sent to Japan as pets. Oy. Not a good idea.
I love seeing prairie dogs in fields around here. But some people don't.
These furry little creatures live in tunnels under the ground. Developers and people with livestock fail to see the beauty and importance of prairie dogs and are known to throw poison or fire into the tunnels, then close them off, causing the creatures to die a horrible death.
But the loss of prairie dogs is the beginning of a ripple effect, because it's true that all life is dependent on other life. Species that can disappear - or almost disappear - when the prairie dog is removed include: the black-footed ferret, many types of birds (including owls, hawks and golden eagles), some types of mice, and swift foxes.
And these animals are not only important for the survival of other species, but they also work the land in ways that help the plant life around them.
But this is what I wanted most of all to tell you:
A man, biologist Constantine Slobodchikoff, has studied the communication patterns of prairie dogs and has proven that they have the most sophisticated animal language that has ever been decoded. The sentinel prairie dog warns the rest of the colony of impending danger by - get this - using different calls depending on the species of the predator.
From the book:
Focusing primarily on Gunnison's prairie dogs near Flagstaff, Arizona, he [Slobodchikoff] has also found variations within prairie dog speech - call them dialects - that differ from region to region. But studies have shown that they do understand one another. Their use of "language" includes not only nouns, but modifiers, and the ability to coin new words. To date, one hundred words have been identified among Gunnison's prairie dogs. And now, with the use of advanced technology, Dr. Slobodchikoff is in the process of deconstructing prairie dog grammar. "A short chirp, about a tenth of a second is analogous to a sentence or paragraph... If we dissect the chirp into a bunch of different time slices, each slice has some specific information on it."
Time slices become words and the assemblage of an idea appears.
But perhaps, most remarkably, Dr. Slobodchikoff has witnessed something he may never be able to explain. During a set of observations involving widely separated Gunnison's prairie dogs from different colonies, he showed each village a European ferret, an animal they have never seen before, and the isolated prairie dogs came up with the same word. [Emphasis mine]
I wonder what prairie dogs are saying about humans as we destroy them...
Of his work, this biologist says, "I am hoping that this work will help show that prairie dogs, and all animals, are not just mindless robots that can be disposed of as vermin or property but are sentient beings that should be treated with empathy and respect."
May it be so!
(If you have never read Terry Tempest Williams, I highly recommend her book, Refuge - An Unnatural History of Family and Place.)
Labels: Terry Tempest Williams
posted by Carol at 4:03 PM
13 Comments:
We're on the same page as far as this kind of thing goes. (I remember the prairie dogs.) It would be interesting to hear the sound they make when the predators are human.
~*
Do you not have prairie dogs where you live, Chani?
Yes, I bet their sound with regards to humans is much nicer than the sound of bulldozers running over prairie dog colonies...
This information is stunning.
And what a tremendous book title...and concept.
If cattle are breaking legs stepping in prairie dog holes, then the obvious answer should be "Don't graze cattle there."
I wish people would get past the idea that any land that's not making money is land that is wasted.
I was interested to read about the prairie dog communication and it reminded me of the discovery that cows in the UK "moo" with regional accents!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5277090.stm
The prairie dogs were there before the developers.
I wonder whether you in the US have any protected species? For example, here, crested newts and bats (probably other species) are protected by law
http://www.bats.org.uk/pages/bats_and_the_law.html
B.E.,
A nice thought to have each day, huh? To look for beauty among the broken-ness.
Thomas,
Agreed!
Dancing,
Yes, we have protected species, but that doesn't always mean that much. In this book, she writes about a protected type of prairie dog. People can kill 8, but are highly fined for the 9th. I would think it would be easy to get around that.
And then our lame-duck prez has been really good at taking threatened species off of the protected list. Money is way more important than life in this country.
Very cool that cows can have different accents!
Prairie dogs –and meerkats—amaze me. Their communities are so together and supportive of the creatures; they seem to communicate better than us humans. As I have watched both prairie dogs and meekats on TV, I have thought that I really would like to be one!
They ARE amazing, Nick.
I think that I would have maybe liked to be a meerkat or prairie dog about 200 years ago or more - before human development began to sprawl all over their territory.
WOW. This knowledge is inspiring.
Around here there's a movement to save the prairie dogs.
San,
I hope the movement is successful. The prairie dogs seem to be losing the battle for space.
Post a Comment
<< Home