Nature Connection: Facing Our Fears Of Nature

Ever since humans took to walking upright, differentiating themselves from their other animal relatives, they’ve responded to their fear of the unknown by killing anything they felt was threatening. This included large predators dangerous to their own survival, but also anything that ate what they wanted to eat or anything they deemed weird or ugly. Sometimes they just killed something else for simply being different or unknown. 

It’s not a pretty or proud heritage. Whole populations of creatures and plants have been eradicated by humans over the centuries just because. Remember the passenger pigeon? Millions and millions of them, and yet they were made extinct in a very short time by hunters that shot them just for fun.

As a naturalist educator in local schools for many years, I heard all sorts of scary stories. The stories weren’t about scary animals as much as they were about scary humans. Children told tales of dads and uncles cutting snakes in half and then laughing while watching them writhe. They told of brothers and cousins killing squirrels and birds with slingshots and BB guns. They shared stories of moms and aunties poisoning mice and bugs and weeds. Some told us about friends running over turtles and rabbits on purpose and some shared stories of all kinds of awful-sounding traps.

In the case of the children and their families, it was often a matter of education. Fear of snakes and spiders is real and in many areas for good reason. Some snakes and spiders can kill us. Mosquitoes carry diseases. So do ticks, mice, even rabbits. It’s a natural thing to want to stay safe and keep our families safe. Wolves and deer both do it, though differently.

For those of us who grew up running amok in the woods and fields, learning to navigate safely and not get bitten, scratched, stung or otherwise injured by wildlife was part of that. We learned how to pick up snakes or at least how to avoid them. We learned what spiders were good for the garden and what ones we might want to stay away from. We figured out where the yellow jackets and white-faced wasps nested and made wide berths around them. We gave big snapping turtles plenty of room, and at dusk thrilled at the sight of bats zipping through the air above us.

We also learned to identify poison ivy and not to eat wild mushrooms without being absolutely sure of their identities. We could recognize the poisonous amanitas, and we knew which berries would make us sick even if they didn’t kill us. My grandmother once told me all red berries in the wild were poisonous, but as I got older I would bring wild strawberries and raspberries to her to prove otherwise. “Smarty pants,” she would mumble, but I got to eat them and so did she.

Bugs get a bad rap, and if the ads on TV are to be believed, people’s homes are so overrun with insects they must plug in insect attractors to kill them all. I always think if people have that many bugs in the house there might just be a reason to be looked at before plugging in a poison vapor dispenser.

To be fair, none of us are fond of ants in the kitchen or moths that go after grains or wool, but they are easy enough to deal with without poisons. In fact, most of the things we are afraid of or simply don’t like can be dealt with in ways that don’t involve poisons or death. If you don’t like snakes, read about them and see what habitats they do and don’t prefer and plan accordingly. The same goes with most wildlife, including plants and trees.

Some fears are easy to overcome, but some fears are more primal and more difficult to deal with. My youngest daughter was deathly afraid of wolves and sharks when she was young. She learned everything she could about them and then became a champion of both species as a result of what she learned.

Over the next few weeks, the 17-year cicadas will be in the news everywhere as they emerge from the ground to meet, mate and lay eggs before they die. These insects are harmless but a bit on the large and scary side for many. They are slow and sluggish with big red eyes, giving some the feeling that noisy aliens have invaded. They provide food for many birds and wildlife and have an important role to play in the woodlands as well. Please don’t kill them.

It’s hard to remember sometimes that we share the earth, the ocean and even our backyards with nature of all kinds. Not all of it is warm and cuddly. Some of it is scary. Heck, some of us are scary, too. 

The more we learn about the things we are afraid of, the better off we all are. Educating ourselves about the wildlife and plants we live with, the people we meet that may not look or act like we do, and the ways we are all similar helps us understand and even celebrate our differences.

I’m not suggesting you run right out in your yard to embrace a big black racer snake or cuddle up with a spider and your book, but learning about their habits may help you avoid uncomfortable confrontations in which one of you may get hurt. It’s good to remember we share this place, this time, with all these different creatures, plants and people. We may have different ideas about many things, but in the end, it’s not really difficult to find the things we all have in common, including the most common of all, the will to live.