As a strong supporter of organizations that protect wild animals and their habitats, I spend hours this time of year sorting through requests for dues and donations for special projects calling for my support.
I learned long ago that no species can survive without appropriate space to breed and raise its young. For most wild animals, this means wild lands, free from human development, intrusion and pollution.
Every year, I send checks, meager though they may be, to Defenders of Wildlife, National Wildlife Federation, World Wildlife Fund, National Audubon Society and the like. In return, or to solicit my next contribution, they send me address labels with pictures of mostly large mammals: elephants (my favorite since childhood), wolves, bears and cougars. Audubon, of course, is primarily interested in birds, but in protecting them, they also protect waterways and forests necessary for the survival of many earth bound creatures.
I also respond to letters from Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward for the Environmental Defense Action Fund, fighting to pass the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act, and Robert Redford for the Natural Resources Defense Council, in court to stop the Bush Administration’s assault on Arctic wildlife and the Alaskan rainforest.
Having lived most of my adult life on sparsely settled land adjacent to a national forest, I’ve had the privilege of watching many species seldom seen by human eyes. Nine mountain lion sightings, something of a record among wildlife photographers and naturalists, have given me great respect for this elusive predator that has all but disappeared from its native digs in the Santa Monica Mountains. Again, loss of habitat is a key element of its precarious life here. As humans move into its territory, pave over its trails, build housing developments that cut off the last remaining links with other populations of cougars, the strength born of genetic diversity ebbs. Territorial disputes become more desperate with a dwindling food supply. Encounters with humans turn out badly for both.
With the race for space on this planet becoming tighter every year, other organizations, The Nature Conservancy and the Wilderness Society, are trying in different ways to save untrammeled lands for coming generations of people and animals.
And then, of course, there’s the National Geographic Society, which brings enlightenment to people who otherwise might never see undomesticated animals or know about their needs. And public television stations which air such programs in prime time-KCET and Montana Public Television-get my support, too.
So it was Sunday night I tuned to “Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History,” on the PBS series “Nature.” Now, I admit to having no particular fondness for primates, and never could understand people keeping them, or other wild creatures, as pets. My daughter, who trained animals for film, once brought home an orphaned baby chimp who wore a diaper, drank from a bottle and generally behaved like a loving, if unfortunately hirsute, infant. One with Clark Gable ears. But of course it wasn’t an infant and soon went to work in Hollywood where its career was successful but short. Even chimps raised in captivity become difficult and often dangerous as they mature.
The “Nature” film focused on pet chimps, grown too large and unruly, that wound up abused as test subjects of medical research and the space race. When one infamous facility was finally closed after many regulatory breaches, the animals were rescued and eventually placed in two East Coast island refuges and one facility near Montreal.
Captives of science run amok, the chimps had been isolated in cells where they never saw each other, never saw the sun or climbed a tree. Several had been injected with HIV but never developed symptoms of AIDS.
The film chronicled the difficulties in opening these refuges, with many people fearful the chimps could escape or spread diseases.
But eventually, the survivors were relocated to buildings located behind high fences. The enclosures had doors to the outside and one by one these doors were opened. Each chimp decided on its own when it felt safe to leave confinement. Some bolted, heading for the nearest tree. Some loped around and rolled in the grass. One was too fearful to venture off the concrete. It was all he’d ever known.
Eventually they formed groups, families of sorts, able at last to groom each other, and play in the trees. The picture of one who refused to go back inside, remaining out all night in the moonlight, is with me still.
It makes me wonder where we went wrong. Did we raise children to think it was okay to imprison wild animals. That as long as they were fed and sheltered they’d be just fine. Did we fail to explain the intrinsic difference between domestic farm animals and their wild cousins? Those should never be confined, except for their own protection after serious injuries.
There are more than enough rehabilitated raptors and mammals no longer fit for the wild to populate ethically operated zoos and to serve as ambassadors for rescue organizations. Access to educational shows featuring these wonderful creatures and intelligently made nature films could tip the balance in favor of defending our wild places and their inhabitants.