Henry Abbott

Have we lost touch with our natural world? The obvious answer is yes, but just how extreme has our disconnect become?

Our disconnect is obvious; we spend most of our time walled off from the outdoors, immersed in devices that transport us to a world, or a million worlds, each wholly removed from the natural and physical one around us. We fill our living rooms with exotic plants that wilt in barrels, gasping for the watering can and grasping onto window-filtered light. For the most part, we despise the animals that make their way into our homes, our walls, our drains. Mice, ants, spiders and other critters seek refuge from nature’s unpredictable elements in our homes, and in doing so, they remind us we aren’t alone. But, of course, these animals are dangerous to us! Set up traps! Call the exterminator! Honestly, give me a break.

We live in fear of the diseases carried by mice and their poop. If you can name one, it is probably the Hantavirus. Between 1993 and 2022, there were a whopping 864 reported cases of Hantavirus across the United States, of which only one was in Maine and seven in all of New England. Mice are also associated with a virus called Lymphocytic choriomeningitis, but past outbreaks in the United States have been minor and were actually caused by pet hamsters, not wild mice.

We fear ants for no good reason. Ants have never caused a death in Maine. And across the United States, it seems that the only ant-related deaths have been caused by  anaphylactic reactions to stings from imported fire ants. Carpenter ants are feared for the damage they can cause to houses when nesting in wood, but they rarely ever compromise the structural integrity of a building. Ironically, it’s the animals we introduce, like fire ants, or those we domesticate, like hamsters, that pose the real threats. In fact, our beloved dogs are responsible for 99 percent of the 70,000 annual worldwide deaths caused by rabies. If you’re truly worried about poop, germs and disease, look no further than your phone screen, cash or doorknob.

Our relationship with the natural world is exploitative and rooted in fear. When we encounter a species, we first wonder whether it is dangerous to us, and we then wonder how we might control it to use for our benefit. These reactions aren’t inherently evil. They are evolutionarily beneficial. We should be wary of unfamiliar creatures, as most animals are, otherwise we’d mindlessly eat poison berries, touch poison frogs and pet grizzly bears. We are also inherently selfish, as evolution insists most beings are, and so it only makes sense that we would work out ways to use other organisms for our benefit. We’ve come to admire many of the things we believe we control. We love our domesticated dogs and cats. We take pride in our homogeneous grass lawns and exotic collections of garden plants. We crave the meat from cattle, the apples from trees and the beans from coffee plants.

But we can’t control everything, so we tend to close ourselves off from the natural world. We let fear and hostility define many of our relationships with other species rather than awe. I urge you to embrace awe. The second line in Bowdoin’s Offer of the College states, “To count Nature a familiar acquaintance.” We must allow nature to become familiar to us if we are to combat the compounding cycles of climate change and land use change that are driving our fellow species to extinction all around the world.

Going for a hike or reading a book under a tree might acquaint you with the outdoors in a general sense, but to truly acquaint yourself with nature, you have to dissect it and admire the many species that create the whole. You have to be proactive. You’ve got to fill yourself with knowledge about the unique species around you and immerse yourself in their habitats. As you become familiar with a species, you quickly appreciate their individual magnificence, their relationships with the living and nonliving elements around them and how humans are impeding these relationships. Entering a forest or a mudflat or a prairie becomes an entirely new experience when you are acquainted with some of the magical species around you. Slowly, admiration replaces fear. You discover that not only are all spiders in Maine harmless, but they are excellent mothers. You understand that, not only are all Maine snakes free of venom, but they also hear through their jaws and smell with their tongues. You realize that life thrives in the soil beneath your feet, and plants communicate with chemicals in the air.

We can’t necessarily escape the confines of our modern society, but we can be proactive and passionate about connecting with and conserving the natural world from which our society distances us. Go outside, take your time and be observant, especially of the places you usually ignore—under rocks, in the knots of trees and on every side of leaves to start. You’ll be amazed by what you see and what you never knew you were missing. Allow the bee to check out the sweat on your arm; it’s scary, but it’s harmless. It’s probably just trying to find an underground home for the summer. Look out for frogs and salamanders full of eggs crossing the road on rainy nights. Leave the spider in the corner of your basement alone. It’s the best pest control there is; plus, it’s free. Put out some food for the birds who are starving as they return from their thousand-mile migrations. Try not to bother the squirrels who visit your feeders; they’ve had a long winter too. Be gentle and gracious with all the creatures around you. The natural world will pay you back, I promise.