Chester's sister visited the deck today. (i) She didn't even try to go up the slender shepherd's crook to get to the bird feeder, but was content to eat the seeds that the birds had dropped. People say that birds are dirty and messy. Actually their dirtiness could be argued but they do tend to be messy. Do you think you would be any less messy if you couldn't eat with your hands? The thing about the bird's mess is that there is always some other animal quite ready and willing to clean it up, like Chester's sister. Humans seem to think that such mess must be swept up, thrown in a trash can, tied up in plastic and taken to the landfill. What a bloody waste! Other animals may be messy, but the homo sapiens is by far the most wasteful of all animals. Sadly we equate messiness with wastefulness. Obviously that's not true. Even if humans are the neat-freaks of the animal kingdom, which I very seriously doubt, we are still by far the most wasteful.
- In 2013 alone homo sapiens sapiens (that's us) in the USA put 167 million tons of trash into landfills. On an average each of us will wrap up 2.89 pounds of trash (ii) each day in a plastic bag that will take around 1,000 years to decompose and send it to a landfill. The way I see it, that's not only messy but unbelievably wasteful, and we haven't even mentioned the damage we do to the environment by this behavior. Here in our Hopkinsville woods a number of varieties of birds - black-capped chickadees, purple finches, house finches, nuthatches, titmouse and woodpeckers among others - come to our feeder and drop some seed and lots of shells on the ground as they feed. Those who can not directly access the seeds - squirrels like Chester, his family and friends - feed on the seeds and shells that are dropped. How fortuitous. What they don't eat goes into the soil to either rot and provide nutrition for other plants or start a new plant that will grow and provide food. This isn't wasteful. This is the way nature works. We still haven't figured out that we're not smarter than nature.
In the wilderness a predator kills another animal for food. Each species of predator consumes, saves and protects its kill slightly differently, but there's no doubt that it's pretty messy. The animal that made the kill is the first to feed and may protect the carcass for some time. Scavengers and others will feed on whatever is left. The only thing they might leave will be things like bones which are too hard for most animals. The bones will fairly quickly decompose providing nutrients to the soil. Some years ago a visitor to Glacier asked me about a kill site they had witnessed. They told me that nothing was left but some hair and blood that had soaked into the ground. That, I told them, meant that a Wolverine was involved. Either the Wolverine made the original kill or finished the carcass. A Wolverine will eat everything including the bones. This is nature's way. Messy, but definitely not wasteful.
Let's compare that to a human hunter killing a deer. Of a 160 pound deer the hunter will harvest only 35-70 pounds of meat. (iii) The rest will either be left in the woods or bagged and sent to a landfill. Using a plethora of data and information, (iii) I'm estimating 50-60 pounds of entrails will be left in the woods. That's actually good since that will feed other animals. What isn't particularly good is that, staying with the example of a 160 pound deer, this leaves 30 pounds of deer parts that will be bagged and sent to a landfill. (160-(70# meat+60# entrails)) Now we have to consider that 6,000,000 deer (iv) are reported killed by hunters in the US each year. That means 180 million pounds (90,000 tons) of deer parts are wasted and thrown into landfills.
When I left Ireland in 1974, every part of an animal was used. We had black and white pudding (blood and brains), tongue, kidney pie, and a wide variety of foods not frequently seen in the US today. There isn't a lot to chickens feet but my Grandfather, from County Donegal, Ireland, ate what was there. "Waste not. Want not." Even bone marrow was harvested. Bone was about all that was thrown away. I have no statistical proof, but I have the distinct feeling that most Americans today are too squeamish to eat anything but ground meat and prime cuts.
We may not be as messy as our fellow animals but we're definitely the most wasteful. In the US the Department of Agriculture (v) calculates that we waste 31% of our food or about 133 billion pounds. In May 2017 Feeding America, a hunger advocacy group, reported that 72 billion pounds of food is wasted in production, manufacturing and distribution and 54 billion pounds wasted at home. (vi) They didn't even guess at restaurant waste! You and I have seen that, haven't we? Researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that the wasted food in the US would actually provide a daily diet of 2,000 calories to 84% of the adults in the country. (vi)
Well, Chester and his family have cleaned up after the birds and I cleaned my plate at lunch. As my Grandmother loved to say, "I ate everything off my plate but the posies." How did you do? How we avoid waste is vital whether it is not wasting food so that we can feed millions of hungry people or avoiding sending stuff to the landfill that is polluting our water and killing our environment. The next time you go to a store and they put your purchase in a plastic bag, the next time you start to buy a disposable item, or the next time you start to throw away food, think about Chester's sister and how you might behave differently and make the world a better place.
FOOTNOTES: -----
(i) Chester is the slightly pudgy squirrel whom many of you have seen in my posts.
(ii) https://archive.epa.gov Municipal Solid Waste
(iii) Data from PA.gov, KY.gov and m.state-journal (KY)
No comments:
Post a Comment