Sometimes we have to clear a space so something else can take its place. I have written monthly
articles for this blog since 2011. Writing seems an anachronism—an ancient form of
communication seldom used by flesh and blood people in today’s text-messaging society. While
most might find writing to be drudgery, I have been delighted to sit down at the computer and
construct a new story each month. Like all of you, I have a keen interest in Great Nature. I find
it endless in its variety and deeply provocative in the wisdom it contains.
When I was a Master Naturalist-in-Training, I remember our publicity chairwoman lamenting
that she would love it if someone would write short articles about other Texas state parks—ones
she had never visited or likely never would. I wasn’t able to satisfy her wish immediately—as
you know, there’s a lot going on in a trainee’s life—but later I made it my objective to visit a
different state park and write about it once a quarter. I had no idea how much that would open
my eyes to the scope and breadth of TPWD. I have traveled extensively, and I can tell you that
Texas ranks right up there with California for the best and most numerous state parks anywhere
in the western United States! Go see as many of them as possible—they were built for you!
When I first began writing the blog, it was a simple matter to select this animal or that plant and
do the research to bring the story to you. Nature is, after all, everywhere around us. But as time
went by I pursued more obscure subjects. Thus, stories soon appeared about stink bugs, six-lined
race runners, quicksand and mycelium, to mention a few of the stranger ones. Who knew that
plants could communicate with one another, or that mold is capable of learning, or that birds are
the modern day dinosaurs?
Of course, no one can discover these little factoids and just stop there. There’s an addictive
pollen that gets on you and it makes you want more. And guess what? You’ve got it on you too!
It’s that intense curiosity about the natural world that drove you to sign up for TMN in the first
place. So, subjects gradually became more and more weird as I descended into the rabbit hole. I
stumbled onto enigmas like the composition of light, plants that return from the dead, honeybee
politics, and more.
Take, for example, octopus and squid on the Texas coast that could perfectly conform to their
surroundings—in both color and texture. They could alter their skin surface into different 3-
dimensional patterns depending on the background. And they did this in just over 2 seconds!
Next I discovered that right here in the waters of Texas’ Caddo Lake exists the oldest surviving
animal species in North America—the paddlefish. It has existed since the Paleozoic Period. That
was the time when amphibians began to evolve into reptiles and, in just mere tens of millions of
years later, brought on the rise of the all-dominant dinosaurs. My most surprising epiphany was
learning about experiments in which imported red fire ant bodies were “possessed” by a
miniscule South American bug, the phorid fly. This is a genuine zombie apocalypse. The fly’s
eggs are laid in the host ant and, as the larva grows, it “takes over” the movements and behavior
of the ant, controlling all aspects of the ant’s life. In the end the ant dies a most grotesque and
horrifying death!
Bizarre animal behavior like that led me to wonder about similarities with human behavior—we
are, after all, part of the Animal Kingdom. Indeed, animals have emotions, exhibit intelligence,
and act out of instincts—just like us. In a curious sort of way all this circled back around and I
found myself writing about man’s first appearance on earth and how we evolved into what we
are today—an unimaginable odyssey of natural selection.
The rise of mankind, in geologic time, was not linear; it was a geometric progression. We
developed language, learned agriculture, invented math, writing and books, and from there, went
on to turn the world on its head. Mankind has changed the world on many orders of magnitude
greater than all other species. We built homesteads, railroads and great sprawling networks of
cities as our population grew. We parlayed the discovery of electricity into radio, television,
computers, and the Worldwide Web. Our knowledge of the Universe matured from fear of
falling off the edge of our planet to putting men on the moon and exploring the planets beyond.
After theorizing the relationships between space and time, string theory and quantum mechanics
now drive our push for a unifying model of the cosmos. As our consciousness expands, so does
our Universe. And it’s a BIG universe.
Despite our amazing achievements, unlike other species, our behavior contains the seeds of our
own destruction. We make war on each other and on our environment. We don’t just use what
we need, we are consumed by greed and grasping. Our ecosystem and its inhabitants were once
whole, balanced, and vital. Then came the Christian Europeans. Within a few decades of their
arrival anywhere on the continent, they decimated the landscape and nearly everything that lived
there, individual by individual by individual. This is tough for some to hear. While visiting Ft.
Davis State Park once, a stranger noticed my dragonfly pin and asked about it. When I explained
that I was a Texas Master Naturalist, he said he didn’t much like the few TMN’s he’d met
because they criticized the behavior of his immigrant grandparents. “They did the best they
could,” he protested. The point he missed was that, on a global basis, it’s not just his
grandparents who screwed up.
The release of greenhouse gases, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, is causing global
warming and altering weather patterns. Air, water, and land are polluted by industrial waste,
agricultural runoff, and other human activities, harming ecosystems and human
health. Overconsumption of resources like water, minerals, and fossil fuels leads to depletion
and potential shortages. Clearing forests for agriculture, urbanization, and logging destroys
habitats and reduces biodiversity. Habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change contribute
to the extinction of plant and animal species. Human activities disrupt natural processes like
the water cycle and nutrient cycles, damaging ecosystems. The bottom line: we have become
the most invasive species of all! These are human caused threats to all life on this planet. The
planet may be degraded, but it will survive. The planet existed before man, and it certainly can
exist after us. People, on the other hand, are a question mark. We are no less vulnerable from
extinction than any other species.
But there may be larger forces at work. Notwithstanding man’s complicity, could extreme
changes in our planet be normal? New resources come; old resources go. Famine and droughts are historical. Would our climate have changed anyway? Earth’s history has seen swings from
habitable to uninhabitable before—what’s to say it won’t again? What greater creation of habitat
could there have been than the prehistoric receding of oceans across the globe? As topsoil
moves, does it not create arable land somewhere else? Think of the southern coast of Texas, the
Mississippi River Valley, the great heartland breadbasket. Isn’t evolution and change inevitable?
How did our native plants and animals come to be here in the first place? Weren’t we all once
introduced (invasive) species from somewhere—never before seen on earth?
I doubt we will ever completely understand our Universe. Perhaps we are experiencing a sort of
cosmic wheel that’s turning on a much more fundamental level. Perhaps we’re only a very small
(and temporary) part of our galaxy. We’ve had six major extinction events on Earth. What’s to
say there won’t be another, or many others for that matter? The problem is, we can’t know for
sure. We do know our Universe has been expanding since the day of its birth, and Earth is
moving away from the sun at approximately 3 feet per year. Already we have left behind 70% of
our sun’s habitable zone. You’d have to have been living under a rock to not notice that our
environment is becoming less habitable each year. So far, there is no planet B. Would the last
Homo Sapien please turn out the lights?
Clearly, this line of questioning is highly uncomfortable. It gets to the crux of our very existence:
who are we, where did we come from, how do we relate to the whole, and where do we go after
we die? I have followed the trail of breadcrumbs of Great Nature and it has led to this. What
started out as a simple blog. . .has ended here. It’s time to quit. Someone else can pick up the
reins and start anew. One cycle finishes, and hopefully another begins. Thank you for indulging.
I enjoyed it thoroughly, and wish you all well.
By Larry Gfeller