The Studying Ecology and the Behaviors of Wild Animals - Essay Example

Media essay Name Institution Executive summary Animals are important creatures just as human beings are. An author named Charles Foster developed the interest in learning more about animals and involving himself in ecocritism whereby he studies the ecology, culture and how these wild animals relate to its environment. He goes with his son and an eight-year cub named Tom to study ecology and the behaviors of wild animals in the woodland. During their stay in the woodlands, they made a sett so that they could use it for resting at night and they hate earthworm, ants, and squirrels. Burt met with Charles and his son in Abergavenny station. Charles and his son and the cub boards Burt’s Land Rover and Burt drove it to the farm. On the farm, they made another sett down a hill and used tree branches and bracken to cover the roof of the tunnel. Burt leaves them and goes away because he is ecophobic, he fears the environment especially the sett set for accommodation and the kind of food eaten. Later on he sympathizes with Charles for eating earthworms he brings other food but Charles refuses. At night Charles and the son crawls into the river and leeches waves on their leeches and they again crawl back to their tunnel and they sleep side by side and head to toe positions. The next day the badger crawls down the dense vegetation and lies down until darkness falls. Tom moves the entire night and so it sleeps during the day. Badgers mark their territories using the scent of their feces. Each badger’s feces have the different scent for identification. Badgers hide on wood during storm and rainy seasons and the wood should be of a specific tree because even if trees are close together they will have a different scent. These animals also feed on ants and earthworms. Theoretical approach There are approaches used to analyze Charles Foster’s book. such approaches include the anthropocentric approach, culture binary and ecocritism. In the anthrocentrism approach there are a theoretical background which states that labor has no important advantage and value to the growth, evolution and the development of planet earth but environmental controls the productions. Natural resources play an important role on the development of the earth because of its economic value. In ecocentric approach there is moral concern for the environment, the legal rights for the environment such as protection against pollution. In this case everyone should have responsibility for the nature so that that there will be a greater stability of the environment. Such modern ways of improving the nature include acquisitions of new ethics to preserve integrity, stabilization, and the outer and inner beauty of the biota. Charles Forster’s a worm fell into my mouth Charles foster was interested in the life of wild animals and he wants to know what it feels to be an animal. One day he and his son went to woodland to do a research about different animals. They looked at the habits of animals, how they cope with different environmental conditions and other factors, their food and survival mechanisms. Charles is interested with a badger. He has his eight-year-old cub called Tom which he took along with it to compare its behavior with that of a badger. According to the anthropocentrism theoretical approaches it is not necessary to destroy the wildlife which are not harmful to human life and the public health in general. Charles takes the risk and studies the life of a badger in order to ensure the safety of badgers hence bringing to light the value of natural resources and its economic value (Foster, 2016).  Environment influences the growth and the development of culture that is why it is important to protect the natural environment of pollution and destruction. A badger is an animal with thick hair which covers the inner thin layer. Earthworms and ants are the major foods of a badger. Charles and his son make a sett which they will be using during the nights and they eat earthworms as food. Badger is a very interesting animal because they live in groups and they make their territories using their feces because the feces of each badger have a different scent. These scents are used for identification of colors, size, shape and personality of each badger. Badgers are also social and less complex animals they easily learn new thing, that human being can do for example when Charles and his son crawled down the pool the badger saw and it also crawled into a dense vegetation and stayed until night when nobody or morning dogs cannot see so that it will get out of the vegetation. Unlike a badger, tom Charles and his son sneezes when they inhale dust from the earth walls this is because a badger has a muscular sphincter which prevents dust from entering the nostril. Animals are creatures like human beings but they have special features that humans don’t have and these features are quite interesting and that is why Charles Foster together with his son decided to head to the woody lands to get the proper understanding of animal lives and behaviors. They ate worms, used smell to identify different animals which are new to them. Charles had his eight years old cub named Tom when Burt met them at a station called Abergavenny. From his observation, Charles considers Badgers as social creatures that stay in groups such as families and unthinkable while his cub extremely slow in learning and capturing things. Charles with his son board into Burt’s Land Rover and Burt drop it to the farm where they examined other creatures. These people were got by the police so Charles’ idea was to expand the sett which has been disused but he was not confident enough to face the police and to persuade them since he was a digger of Barger (Simon Estok 2009). The narrator is allergic to inhaling the drugs for curing tuberculosis he says’ I did not like the idea of inhaling, along with the good earth of mid-Wales, a huge dose of TB bacilli’. The narrator and his son covered their sett with branches and bracken on the roof since Burt did not give them a tunnel. Burt later leaves the narrator and his son on a deep trench on the hill to make the sett. They had also carried beach spade which they used to shape the sett. On the other hand Tom the Cub also helped in making the sett by pulling the bracken beddings. In this scenario, Tom tries to be like a badger. Apart from Badger the narrator, his son and tom began to sneeze continuously and at a constant rate due to the dust from digging the walls of the earth, this is because badgers have a muscular sphincter unlike the other three. This sphincter closes and prevents dust from entering the nostrils. When badgers go for hunting, they never use sphincter instead they smell the host. During the night Charles and his son could sleep like badgers that are sleeping side by side and head to toe positions while Tom keeps moving the whole night (Scott Hess 2010). Before they fall asleep they had gone down the river where leeches move from side to side of their lips then went they went back to their resting chambers and fall asleep. The following they are being woken up by the sound of Burt’s Land Rover. Burt had a fish pie but the badger did not turn its nose on the fish pie also. During the day they remove nests outside the sett. Badgers are very good at observing what people do this is proved when the badger also crawled into very vegetation and waited until darkness came also the narrator and his son had earlier crawled down the river where leeches came into their lips. The narrator is not sure why badgers lie in dense vegetation until darkness comes but he thinks that badgers also have fear to be seen by animals such as dogs in the morning just like other human beings. Tom usually walked at night but now he wants to sleep, Charles too felt sleepy but he could not sleep because he wanted to sleep after the badger has woken up from the dense vegetation. Charles tells how the sett became too threatening when a worm had fallen into his mouth, he said, ‘A worm fell into my mouth. I gagged quietly and went back to sleep’. The observation Charles Foster made was that a whitewashed wall was better compared to the earth wall because the earth walls contain worms which include the ones which fall into Charles Foster’s mouth. Another observation he made was that badgers were easy to be trained because they are not complex and have good memories this is seen where the badger crawls like the narrator crawling down the river, the badger also crawls into the vegetations and lies there until darkness falls. Badgers unlike dogs are less complex and they adjust quickly to new ways of life even without actually going through training (Peter Barry 2009). Charles is a great environmental activist he never kills or has the fear of the dangerous animals who might eat him his passion is to protect the natural environment. From the observations, badgers are also obedient compared to the cub. The narrator is now able to appreciate everything including the place he spends the nights. He no longer fears dangerous animals that might eat him, his son, Burt, and Tom. Like a dog the narrator learned how to pant with a lot of effort when crawling up and down of the earth walls, also he learns how to identify the smell of different things and animals either for food or security purposes (Helman & Wolfe, 2009).  It is difficult to be like an animal but Charles Foster lived in sett, swam and bins because he really was interested in wild animal life so he went further to try what it feels to be a wild animal such as a badger and a fox (Helman & Wolfe, 2009).  Human beings differ a lot from a badger in different ways: the use of scent, the face of badgers has different kind of scent these feces are used to mark the badger territory. Through smelling, badgers can know the form, color and personality of a badger and for a deft or a blind badger the instinct are more modified to meet other requirements. On the other hand Charles tries to behave like another wild animal he pretends to be blind and smells the clothes of his children’s and he tries to identify every child’s cloth, again he snips different leaves and puts them under his bed and tries if he can remember the smell of every leaf without looking at it or directly snipping the leaf again (Farrar, 2009).  Like some animals do Charles also wants to know how scent keeps changing throughout the day, within a given distance and change in different seasons. In this case Charles shows a great appreciation of the nature he wants to be natural just like the badger and use the special senses for identification. He tends to believe that nature is more powerful compared to the way human beings think (Farrar, (2009).  Burt comes back with news that there are a storm and figures on a national balance sheet. Charles only cares about the storm just like any other person worries when there is storm but for the wild animals it is okay with them (Farrar, 2009).  Burt tells him that he his naked because human culture requires people to put on cloths and heavy one during the rainy season, but he replies him that badgers have thick fur which covers the inner thin layer, therefore, cannot feel cold since hair traps hair keeping the body warm. Since Charles acts like a badger he does not want to put not clothes though he feels cold like any other human being, this virtue shows how important the nature is important to Charles. He waits for Burt to go then he went to sleep immediately Burt left. Although Charles and his team did not stay in the woodland for a long period of time they adapted so quickly to the environment. The behaviors of badgers also become their habit and they also hate worms like the badgers and the narrator found the life of a badger so interesting the normal human life and this motivated him to go to six inches and six feet more and he found it more interesting than other levels. During the rainy seasons, earthworms make a hill and they come out. The narrator with his son could put their noses downwards so that they can smell the scent of the earthworms as well as the scent of the summer (Simon, 2009) Being a badger is not an easy task because you have to allow everything that happens to a badger to happen to you as well. For example, the wood is there to protect the badgers from rain by keeping badgers hour and letting bluebells brush your face instead of your boots. It was now raining and they are inside the sett it was totally dark and you can see outside only if lightning comes by making lines in the sky (Lieland, 2009).  The wood bends towards the wind and serves as a windbreak. Animals such as a mouse that have been displaced by floods also were hiding in the same wood and it assures the author that with the wood everything is okay as the woods were the most hiding places for the wild animals during rainy season and times of storm. ‘Photograph: Felicity McCabe for the Guardian During times of storm dogs usually sleeps so should a badger. However, there was heavy storm their sett was not badly damaged and everyone was okay nobody got injured and they were happy for that. The sett is later on reinforced and new features are included and a new chamber was created (Scott, 2010). Tom also made his own earthworks from the observation he made from what the humans are doing. Charles further makes another conclusion that trees on the same side and is close to each other don’t smell the same as we usually thought this is because wild animals such as badger use a specific wood and not any wood to hide from rain and storm. Burt later comes when the storm stops (Lieland, 2009).  The food was a problem in the woodland but since they wanted to have a taste the life of wild animals they hate earthworms which are cooked and also hate row earthworms (Lieland, 2009).  Other animals they could eat are squirrel meat mixed with wood sorrel and wild garlic. Although Burt could bring them other decent food such as tuna, sardines, and beans they could refuse because they wanted to achieve exactly what brought them to the woodlands (Lieland, 2009).  Burt his a disappointment to Charles because Charles is determined to understand the life of a badger but Burt keeps on discouraging him and telling him even that he will never know about badgers like he does. Everything a badger does so do Charles. Conclusion Animals have some features that differ from human beings in so many ways such as scent, animals like badgers use scent for so many things. They know the scent of the season change, changes through the day and other scents another different is that badgers have thick fur which prevents cold in the summer, unlike human beings. It is good for humans to understand the life of wild animals so that we can be able to interact well with them. Since animals are a source of foreign income they should be protected from predators and diseases. Their habitats such as forests should be protected by planting more trees and discouraging deforestations. Wild animals are important also because they attract tourists. Protection of wildlife wife will create job opportunities for the citizens. Protecting wildlife is an appreciation of nature. It is the responsibility of everyone to protect wildlife. Laws and legislations have to be put in place for proper environmental conservations. Animals could be put in parks and orphanages for the entertainment of the general public. Reference Farrar, M. (2009). Line in the snow: the battle for anwr the arctic national wildlife refuge. iUniverse Inc. Foster, C. (2016). Being a beast. London, Profile Books. https://www.overdrive.com/search?q=08406FCF-963B-405A-AAC3- 72C1EE562746. Helman, A., & Wolfe, A. (2009). Caribou crossing: animals of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Seattle, WA, Sasquatch Books. Lieland, B. T. (2009). Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: a review. New York, Nova Science. Peter Barry (2009) from Ecocriticism, Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literacy and Cultural Theory. Scott Hess (2010). Imagining an Every Day Nature, Interdisciplinary Studes In Literature and theEnvironment. Simon Estok (2009) Theorising in a Space of Ambivalent Openness: Ecocritism and Ecophobia. Va; Plumwood (2009) Nature in the Active Voice, Australian Humanities Review. Read More