Battlegrounds

Nature is not all wildflowers and birdsong

I love to spend time outdoors, but it’s not all wildflowers and birdsong: sometimes it’s a battleground.  The battle often reaches our backyard, slotted into the foothills a half mile from the border of the Angeles National Forest.

Some of the battles are small.  Small hummingbirds tussling over a tiny birdfeeder.  One Anna’s Hummingbird with a bright green back hovers near one of the perches; another with a red gorget buzzes in, chirping meanly, dive-bombing, scaring the first away.  This goes on for a few minutes, ebbs, then starts up again.  Daily.  Our dinnertime often seems to be a call for battle, and when we eat on the patio we sometimes flinch as hummingbirds zoom by, inches from our heads.

At other times, a pond next to the patio is a battleground for larger birds.  All sorts of birds are drawn to the water:  goldfinches, wrens, and towhees; tanagers, doves, and juncos.  Often they politely take turns, flitting to a nearby redwood or ivy then back to the water.  But not always.  Pigeons or crows arrive, and every other bird scatters.  Recently, a grosbeak pushed smaller birds away, hogging the pool until it had its fill.

Once, a battle played out in an oak tree towering over the pond and the big avian guns came out.  A red-tailed hawk defended his perch from crows who insisted the tree was their territory.  The crows harassed the hawk for several minutes until the raptor had had enough, bared his talons, and drove the crows away.  A few minutes later, I could still hear the hawk screaming in the distance, as if to say “And stay away!” 

Ravens took the field a few weeks later.  One afternoon, I glanced out a window and saw a large raven on the ground about thirty feet away from the oak tree.  It acted strange – striking its head at the ground, at something on the ground.  I grabbed my field glasses and saw that the something was a ground squirrel trying to escape the raven’s claws.  The squirrel did not succeed.  The raven, soon joined by another, feasted.  They eventually flew away, leaving the squirrel’s remains on the lawn for some other scavenger, and the next morning the remains were gone.

And now we come to Bear 162, as I call her due to the numbered green tag on her ear.  Others gave her a more colloquial human or pet name, but I think it best not to anthropomorphize wild animals.  Bear 162 first visited our yard several months ago to rest in the oak tree.  She lay cradled in a crook of the oak for about an hour.  This was no battle; we and our neighbors photographed her from a safe distance before she clambered down and wandered off. 

Her next visit was a little more contentious. About two weeks after Bear 162’s first visit, I was reading on our patio, shaded by the oak tree, accompanied by the gentle sound of the waterfall tumbling into the pond.  I glanced up and saw Bear 162 plodding my direction on a path at the back of our yard, just 45 feet away.  We locked eyes for a few moments, then I stood up slowly, backed up to our house and slipped inside the door.  With my heart still racing, I pulled out my phone and got the picture below.   Satisfied I would not bother her, Bear 162 walked to the pond, drank for a few seconds, then walked up to and past the door to the house, and finally headed out into the neighborhood, where neighbors spotted her later in the day.  For several weeks afterward, I was more alert while on the back patio; I had no interest in waking from a snooze to find Bear 162 exploring the yard—or me!—again.

I saw Bear 162 a few weeks later as I was hiking in the national forest several miles from our house.  Once again, we faced off for a few moments before I backed down the trail.  From several hundred yards away I waited for her to move along, then continued my hike.

Though I did not see her in our yard again, Bear 162 did return to other yards in our community, and she became bold in search of food.  When she started to break into houses, rummaging in trash cans and even opening refrigerators, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife decided she was growing too dangerous.  DFW had tried to relocate her in the past and they decided now that she would neither stay away nor survive if located far from easy food in the suburbs.  They put her down. 

Some battles in nature are minor skirmishes – the weaker combatants quickly back away in the face of greater power.  Others are a matter of life and death, the weaker succumbing to the more powerful.  One on one, I was no match for Bear 162 and I backed away.  But among Earth’s species humans can cooperate in unique ways.  That gives us great power over other species.  When Bear 162 threatened the community, the community worked together and easily overcame her.

I want to believe that as a species we acted wisely and with restraint in the battle with Bear 162.  We tolerated her and even delighted in her as long as she was not dangerous.  I myself was happy to have her visit our yard occasionally, even if I had to be a bit more watchful as I enjoyed our back yard.  DFW initially responded with minimal force; they euthanized her only when she presented a growing danger to the community, a danger they felt could be avoided no other way.

But reflecting on the battles I had seen in my back yard, and realizing the great power we hold as a species, I am mindful that we must use our power responsibly.  It is a battleground out there, and every battle has consequences – for the combatants, for their respective species, and for the ecosystem.  We have the power to effect great change on a complex system with consequences that we often understand only dimly.  On the battlegrounds of nature, we do well to pay attention to which battles we choose to fight, to pay attention to how we fight them, and – whenever possible – to let other species survive to fight another day.