A Little Ecological Story: Trying to Write Ourselves into the Scene

This morning my husband told me one of many charming tales he uses to illustrate his point when teaching the biological principle: you cannot do one thing. The Army Corp of Engineers built a couple bridges along the Mississippi River near where we live in Minnesota a human generation or two ago. The purpose was to manipulate the channel and river's current to assist the human endeavor of large container shipping up and down its course. A side effect of these changes was the accumulation of silt in one slew in particular (particular to this story). Muddy, marshy land developed where before there had been water.

A community of turtles, long-time inhabitants in this ecological community, found the new property quite appealing. As the rest of us would, the turtles settled into their new home and grew their families. Currently, this is one of the most robust turtle populations known to local scientists and turtle enthusiasts. My husband was working in the area yesterday, and noted with delight the time he spent watching the little faces of the turtles pop up through the thin membrane of the water's surface.

There is talk by the Army Corp of "rehabilitating" the slew to its "original" state by means of a dredge to remove the accumulated silt. An interested turtle enthusiast and local biologists involved in this stretch of river front are questioning the utility of "rehabilitation" in light of the clever group of turtles enjoying the sloppy interzone between dry land and water where they prosper.

Here's the trick in imagining our environment, imagining ourselves in it. My husband noted the irony of humans, while engaged in their own business of survival, unintentionally helping a few turtles out to the point where trying to undo what was done would harm our new friends. You cannot do one thing.

Humans have phenomenal imaginations and I would argue this alone truly distinguishes us from any other known species. But imagining ourselves in our environments is extremely difficult. Seeing ourselves in our mind's eye, then evaluating and anticipating how we interact with our physical and relational environment is something akin to cognitive yoga- stretching in all manner of directions we're not entirely sure we were meant to go.

Despite the brain discomfort, I argue we need to develop the cognitive skills (and make sure our children do as well!) to be able to stretch and manipulate our minds into significantly more sophisticated poses than generations previous have needed to manage. We must be farther seeing than our human ancestors and turtle cousins. Finding a nice little mud slew to hole up in and raise a family without worries beyond this season will not do. To survive and survive well, we need to be able to deeply imagine our species in ecological systems.

Those turtles were opportunistic in an altered ecological system. If that land had been drained and paved over, not even our crafty reptilian neighbors would have managed to survive. There are man-made changes to ecological systems that complex life forms (like us) cannot adapt.