Nature offers many lessons, some hard to accept
Studies show cats caused or contributed to 14% of modern extinctions on islands of birds, mammals and reptiles. Credit: AP / Bob Child
The drama unfolded suddenly as I was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes. It was early morning a few days ago and one of the neighborhood cats was in the backyard, seeming to be on stealth patrol. I was familiar with the cat with its black and white markings, having chased it out of the yard many times as it prepared to go after the birds at our two feeders.
Before I could move, another familiar cat, this one jet black, came into view from the right and I watched the pair close in on a little rabbit I had not noticed before. It was a youngster, clearly terrified, and it darted into our raspberry patch. The cats continued to track it on either side of the long and narrow stand of berries.
I ran outside to scare off the cats. One slithered under the fence into our neighbor's yard, but I didn't see where the other one went. I scouted around for any sign of the bunny or the jet black cat but found nothing. I went back inside, hoping I had short-circuited the hunt.
The following morning, we discovered the little rabbit. It was dead, laying on its side between the trellises where we plant our peas, about 30 feet from the raspberries. But I couldn't attend to it right away because my wife, who had gone to the other side of the garden, came across a small bird hopelessly entangled in the netted cage that protects our blueberries.
The bird shrieked and thrashed every time we approached, expending tremendous amounts of energy. Time clearly was wasting. I got a pair of scissors and quickly but carefully began cutting away bits of net until finally the exhausted creature dropped onto the ground. It stood there, seemingly dazed, neither moving nor chirping. I went to find an implement with which I could pick it up and move it to a more sheltered location to give it time to recover. But by the time I returned it was gone, apparently able to fly off under its own power.
So our scorecard for the day was: Win one, lose one.
The natural world offers many lessons. Some are welcome, some hard to accept. Most immediately, it constantly reminds us that life is indeed a survival of the fittest. But it also shows that timely interventions can influence the equation. That places great responsibility on the intervener to get it right and not make things worse — like the probably well-meaning humans who brought with them and let loose domestic cats as they settled various places around the world, cats that studies show caused or contributed to 14% of modern extinctions on islands of birds, mammals and reptiles, and to the extinction of 63 species overall.
The natural world, like our human one, is a complex mesh of competition and cooperation. The Italian wall lizards that dart around our yard eat insects that are destructive to gardens. But small lizards are prey for praying mantises, like the one I saw recently climbing the stalks and branches of our coneflower patch. And mantises are prey for birds and larger lizards — and even cats, an apex predator in this environment.
Earlier this year, I spotted a black, green and yellow caterpillar in our pollinator garden. It was the kind of caterpillar that turns into a black swallowtail butterfly. Within a day, though, I lost track of it so I couldn't be sure it had formed a chrysalis. Caterpillars, after all, are prey for birds, praying mantises and Italian wall lizards.
I wondered whether we should have shielded the caterpillar with some netting. But a few weeks later, a gorgeous swallowtail was flitting among those same flowers. We told ourselves it had to be the evolution of that caterpillar.
Maybe, maybe not. But whichever, it was nature's way.
Columnist Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.
Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.
