WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER
Rex Burress
Imagine me, a defender of birds against cats, starting out this story with a cat! That shows you I love cats in general.
When I retrieved my M-R news at 5:30 A.M. punctual, sitting under my car, quite upright and neat, was an attractive whitish calico cat. It was from my neighbor on the right, and it's not on the bird-prowl like the yellow cat from the neighbor on the left, and I show more favoritism toward Calico. It watches me nevertheless, because it knows to avoid my backyard after a few hosings. I said a few good morning words to the silent response of Mr. Independent, but I really wish cats were housed at night. There are very few lizards left in the neighborhood and birds have no peace.
My thought taken away from the paper recovery was that “we're all in this together.” Initially, I was thinking of the torrid smoky air filling CA skies from the August wildfires, and the scorching heat of climate change all creatures endure. But the cat, all the animal life, all the plant life—every living thing that has developed on Planet Earth over a long span of time, and all creatures great and small, experience the same extremes of the planet's life-supplying system . We're all in this together. Everything's hitched to everything in the universe.
Especially tragic for the wildlife, as well as for any human that falls into the flames, are the intense wildfires burning in the forests. It is astounding what a two-thousand degree fire will do to matter! It will melt rocks and steel, sending them back to a primordial magma state, and organic tissue doesn't have a chance to hungry fire. Look at Hawaii's magma rivers. I was saddened to see a picture of a snake struck dead and left in a striking pose during one of those flame-outs, and the skeleton was stiffened there in mid air like corpses caught in the eruption at Pompeii.
The heat penetrates the ground, baking ants and other creatures taking refuge there. Sufficient fire can indeed bring about the end of the world. There is a bird-feast of insects at the edge of those infernos. You hope animals can run fast enough and birds fly fast enough to escape.
Wildlife restoration is as great a challenge as putting out the fire. Replanting is a central concern too, although many plants have clever ways of regenerating growth from roots and fire-resistant seeds. The breath of life is built around oxygen-generating foliage.
The rejuvenation of flood plains along the Sacramento River and the Hamilton City levees is the most encouraging environmental improvement I've seen in a long time. Planting 192,000 plants on dedicated acreage will give the river space to spread out during floods and lessen water velocity. New wildlife habitat will be reestablished. Two dozen native species, including valley oaks, sycamores, and mugwort will be included in seven different plant communities, which will each attract a different mix of wildlife on the 1,480 acres. There is hope for natural communities.
“No matter into what depths of degradation humanity may sink, I will never despair while some of the lowest can love the pure and the beautiful and know it when they see it.” --John Muir
“Nature is ever at work building up and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.” --John Muir