sixth sense

It amazes me at how far removed most humans have become from nature. My friends – and the few that read this rant - are different than the general public, but in general humans are disconnected from the natural world. Most of us would die without prepackaged food and warm clothing if we were suddenly left out in the woods for more than a day or two. We are pretty fragile creatures compared to the wild animals out in the woods that have no need for clothing or money to go buy food with. Animals wear the same outfit every day of every year and find their food themselves. There are too many humans for us to “go back” to that type of hunting and gathering system. We’d quickly deplete the deer, elk, rabbits, antelope, etc. pretty fast with 6 billion of us.

I’m reading the journals of Lewis and Clark right now. The abundance of buffalo, antelope, elk, deer, wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, cougars, and every other life form that was present when they passed is astounding. They describe seeing buffalo herds for as far the eye can see. They certainly hunted a lot of these animals, but didn’t put a dent in the number that was present back in 1804. Truly amazing and saddening at how much the US has lost in that respect…the wildness lost. We may have more “wilderness” than some countries, but we’ve done a great job at reducing it to a relative zero. Alaska is the only US state that even comes close to what Lewis and Clark experienced.

In the loss of wildness over the last 200 years, wildness is also vanishing from within most of us. Our ancestors no doubt needed to read the signs that indicated what type of weather was coming. They had to in order to survive while out on a hunting/gathering trip away from shelter. You can still see what I’m talking about in wild animals today. When the weather channel tells me that rain or snow is coming I almost always see more wildlife outside during daylight hours…animals that are usually nocturnal. How many of us “read the weather” instead of reading it online or in the newspaper? Timmy not too long ago saw several coyotes on his morning ride in around 8am when they are usually away from roads and other places of human habitation. That afternoon or night it snowed. Those coyotes had to get enough food to allow them to survive the storm that night when they may not be able to hunt because of the weather and cold. It’s better to wait out the storm by bedding down and not hunt than take the risk of getting caught in it and expending too much energy and not finding any food. It’s a fierce energy expenditure battle for wild animals, especially in the winter. Deer and elk also bed down under trees in storms and wait it out…I see them out more during daylight hours the day before a storm. This is especially noticeable in cities where you’ll see more raccoons, and other urban wildlife out the day before a storm.

Why is this? They’re out in the wild every hour of every day so they need to know these things…or sense these upcoming events. It must be an evolutionary response….those that read nature better survive better…simple! Don’t believe me? Check out this article in CNN (from Reuters) yesterday about how no wild animals have been found killed by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/12/30/quake.animals.reut/index.html

I hope to get out enough to earn this type of sixth sense myself…but it’s going to take a lot of work.