Back from the Brink

I was just skimming over my nature notes from this time last year and recalled an amazing week. It was a busy week, and I couldn’t have spent more than 40 minutes total walking outside. But in those 40 minutes walking up and down my country road, I saw three amazing things: a bald eagle, a mink, and an eight-point white-tailed buck deer. Why is that so amazing? Because all three species have been pulled back from the brink of extinction thanks to concerted human effort.

"Bald Eagle Head 2" by Tony Hisgett CC BY 2.0.

The sight of a bald eagle is still a thrill for me because I remember a time when it was such a rare sight. Now the bald eagle is listed as “least concern” and “population increasing” and has been taken off the endangered species list, with over 6,000 breeding pairs in the lower 48 states. Their endangerment was caused by a whole host of factors: habitat encroachment; poisoning by DDT, lead shot, mercury, and other toxins in the prey eagles consumed; and shooting by ranchers and others who considered them a pest. Some of these explanations are considered controversial, as are all claims by environmentalists that threaten an industry or way of life, but what is clear is that a combination of efforts taken over the last decades has worked well. Federal and state agencies and individuals have worked hard to protect habitat, outlaw the shooting of eagles, and reduce use of toxins, and will continue to do so in order to ensure the bald eagle survives.

"An American Mink in Capisic Pond, Portland,
ME" by Chuck Hemler CC BY-SA 3.0

By the early part of the 20^th century, wild mink were in trouble because of the demand for their fur. This conservation story is a mixed-happiness one: the wild population was saved because of the increase in mink farming. Mink farming is not a nice industry, and the animals are subject to a great deal of cruelty. Mink were farmed in the U.S. and then exported to Europe, what was then the U.S.S.R., and South America to fill the high demand worldwide for mink fur coats. Escapees from mink farms outside the US are now an invasive species, out-competing other native small mammals and reducing bird populations through egg predation. In the U.S., mink farm escapees, bred to be smaller and have thicker pelts, are changing the genetics of the wild population, which may have important long-term effects. But for now, this story shows that, when we stop over-hunting a wild population of animals for whatever reason, the population has the potential to rebound quickly and stabilize.

"Whitetail Deer" by Garett Gabriel CC BY-SA 3.0

And the white-tailed deer. It is hard to believe today, but that population was in severe decline by the end of the 19^th century due to hunting for meat and buckskin by Native Americans and settlers of what was then a relatively small population, as well as the removal of food sources through heavy logging in forests. There is historical evidence of concern for deer populations; one New York locale had deer laws as early as 1788 that established a season for deer hunting! Throughout the first half of the 20^th century, feeding of deer combined with limits on both season and numbers brought the population back. The clearing of forests ultimately aided the deer, as it provided edge habitat - the meeting of forest and field - that deer prefer. Now, of course, the white-tailed deer population is too big, and they have become pests: harming agriculture and private gardens, destroying new growth in forests, and decimating the habitat of birds and other animals, not to mention causing car accidents. Now many forest and wildlife conservation efforts include the hunting of white-tailed deer.

"American Bald Eagle" by rightclicks
CC BY-SA 3.0

What seems to me to be the most important common denominator in these stories is a change in culture. Conservation efforts are the nuts and bolts of the rebounding of endangered populations, but most important of all, they change our mentality about the importance of animals. Eagle poaching began to decline in part because of stiff financial penalties, but today I’m certain it is kept in check because people have come to see the bald eagle as a somewhat sacred symbol of our national identity. Trapping of minks, beavers, and other animals have declined as the demand for furs and pelts have declined; even mink farming is on a downward trend. And hunters have become some of the best conservationists over the course of the 20^th century, realizing that animal populations and their habitats must be managed carefully in order to ensure that the sport of hunting can continue. (In fact, I would argue that we need to encourage more of a hunting culture in this country.) Now we must turn this concerted human effort toward other species facing extinction, and that will be the subject of my next blog.

Mowing Up with the Joneses Part I

Yesterday was like many days: the grass in the yard was getting a bit high but not yet too high, and my husband Chris had to face an ongoing existential crisis: to mow or not to mow.

One day last fall, I remember, he had decided not to mow, that it could wait a couple of days. He saw our neighbor Charlie mowing his yard, thought about it some more, and still decided not to mow. Then Brian across the street was seen riding his lawn mower around his yard. In the midst of still more indecision, we heard a lawn mower starting down the street, and suddenly Chris just couldn’t stand it anymore. He had to mow the yard.

Is this the result of some good old-fashioned masculine competition? I’m sure it is, but that’s an analysis for another day. What interests me most is the mowing itself as an American cultural phenomenon. I drive down a country road and see acres upon acres of mowed yards, especially where there are new housing developments. Why all the mowing? When did it start? Is it peculiarly American? At some point will we realize the benefits of keeping even a little bit of that space wild?

Fortunately, believe it or not, there is a book that covers the social history of lawn mowing in the United States: Ted Steinberg’s An American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 2006). The history of mowed lawns began as an issue of prestige. Wealthy people in Britain had nice big lawns because they could afford the laborers or slaves to cut the grass with a scythe. Those in the United States who were newly well off thanks to the industrial age wanted to look aristocratic, too, so they aspired to nice, green lawns - considerably more difficult in American than in British climates, requiring lots more equipment and management time. Prestige requirements always trickle down, so in the early 20th century it became a matter of pride for just about every homeowner to have a “neat” yard, an ethic that spread with the development of suburbs and the expansion of the dream of home ownership beginning in the 1940s.

Today keeping a nice lawn is codified by homeowners associations and county and town councils. Steinberg describes lots of contentious processes whereby cities and associations have required increasingly ridiculous grass length maximums, even three inches in some towns! As with many things, a generalized social pressure that once gently guided Americans to keep their lawns neat has now turned into a set of strict regulations, accompanied by fines from the government and lawsuits between neighbors. Americans now grow and maintain lawns - and in many cases are forced to grow and maintain them - in drought-stricken areas where grassy lawns were never intended to be, such as in Arizona and other southwestern states. Yet, because of gas-guzzling lawn maintenance equipment, water requirements, and herbicide and pesticide use, lawns generally cause a great deal of environmental and human destruction that most of us don’t even consider:

• Around 75,000 people are killed or wounded by lawn mowers each year
• Much more gasoline is spilled on lawns each year by people trying to refuel their lawn care equipment than was spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster
• Approximately seven million birds die each year due to pesticides used on lawns
• Those who care for lawns use more herbicides per acre than most farmers
• Using a gas-powered leaf blower for thirty minutes is equivalent in terms of hydrocarbon emissions to driving a car 7,700 miles at 30 miles per hour.

The more I study humans as an anthropologist, the more I seem to run into “prestige” as the answer to many questions that began with “Why do people ...?” Many of these behaviors are ultimately harmful to individuals and societies, including mowing. So what do we get out of it? The chance to look like one of the Joneses to outsiders who drive by our houses? Or maybe even the chance to look a little better than the Joneses? Prestige is an important factor in human behavior, and Steinberg uses this explanation convincingly.

However, according to Steinberg, now the prestige issue has turned on its head. What used to be a way for lower middle and middle class Americans to tap into the prestige of home ownership and lawn maintenance now strangles people financially. Two-income couples, long commutes, and little extra money to spend on lawn equipment mean that more and more people are letting their lawns go a bit - and then suffering from the fines they are forced to pay or the stigma of being “bad neighbors." Lawns comprising non-native grass species, as an alternative to native wildflowers and weeds, may be contributing to the terrible allergy problem in the United States, leading to increased medical expenses. Herbicides are tracked into the home and ground into the carpet, where they can be harmful to children and pets. And, of course, the runoff of herbicides and lawn chemicals into our waterways causes endless destruction, economically and otherwise. It turns out that prestige costs a lot of money, perhaps more money than it is worth.

I think there is another reason as well: the cultural emphasis on taming nature and forcing nature to be “neat”. And that is the topic for my next blog in this series.