Is there something wrong with me?

Sometimes I wonder how desensitized I really am to American culture.  After reading half way Eating Animals, I still find myself stopping off at Chick-file-a to get some chicken nuggets.  I can't help but wonder if that means there is something wrong with me.  Normally I am pretty empathetic, especially when is concerns animals.  So why then am I so unaffected by this book?  Part of me thinks that isn't because the way I was raised.  My entire diet, as a child, revolved around meat.  If a dish didn't have any kind of meat in it, it wasn't considered to be a proper meal.  For a long time, I couldn't fathom why anyone would want to become vegetarian when there was plenty of chicken, beef, pork, and other delicious meats to go around.  Of course, as I grew older, I understood what it meant to be vegetarian and the many reasons why a person would give up meat.  As much as I agree with and admire the values that vegetarians and vegans stand by, I could never see myself giving up meat.  I love it too much, and it just tastes too good.  So, maybe I've become desensitized to works of literature such as Eating Animals because my love of meat.  Maybe my brain is blocking out any thoughts that may cause me to finally give it all up.  I guess that is a better explanation than saying that I just don't care (which is entirely not true.)  If anything, I can only hope that I'll be able to find other carnivorous alternatives, like organically farmed meat, that works within my budget so that I can least help out with these animal slaughtering catastrophes a little bit.

Matanzas Pass Field Trip

Another field trip has come and gone.  I have to say that this field trip wasn't nearly as exciting as the other ones were.  The trial itself was kind of boring, we just walked down a path and stared at plants all the way up to when we stopped at that mini-dock.  Though, once we got to the dock, things got slightly more interesting.  We were able to see (or, rather, vaguely see) the marine life swimming just below the water's surface.  Dr. Otto even got us playing a game on how many pieces of litter we could find floating along the water.  If anything, I learned first hand how damaging pollution can really be.

However, the visit to the cabin before the trail was a whole lot of fun.  The woman whom gave a presentation there (I forgot her name) gave an enlightening lesson on Fort Myers's history and the environment here.  Though I haven't been in Fort Myers long, I could see from the way she spoke about it that she really loved this place and was passionate about it's history.  All of the displays in the cabin were wonderful and beautifully made, and I even took a picture of one of the displays and made it my phone background for a while.  But, most of all, I absolutely adored the sea-grape jelly she had made for us to try.  Every single rumor about it's delicious taste was true, and I couldn't help but eat a whole bunch of the jelly topped snacks she put out for us.  I only wish I could have brought money with me so that I could have bought some and brought it home with me. It would have been a great treat for my little sister, who loves sweet foods.

The Squirrels Too?

I know that I have been on a lot of random animal tangents lately, but I honestly can't help it.  Animals have always intrigued me, and I find them far more interesting then flora when it come to nature and the environment.  So, please bare with my fauna related rambles; I would appreciated if you could.

Anyway, back on topic.

In my last entry I discussed the an particularly peculiar event involving birds.  For this entry, I'll be discussing another animal related event that I found extremely strange: the extremely odd habits of squirrels.  You see, my friend Kristina and I were taking a stroll around our old college one weekend.  She goes to USF, so it was a miracle in itself that we happened to be home on the same weekend.  So, we decided the best place to hang out after all this time was back at Broward College, where we both attended College Academy for our last two years of high school.  After we had lunch on campus, Kristina discovered that she had accidentally left her bag at one of the benches we had been sitting at previously, so we went back to fetch it.  To our surprised, when we finally found the bench, we saw a squirrel digging through her bag.  We froze right on the spot to try and see what it was doing, but it must have heard us because it looked back at us for a brief moment before skittering away.  I wanted to record the incident here not because I hadn't seen this kind of situation before, but because it is remarkable to me how many animals are so urbanized that they know how to work around human contraptions.  That squirrel was so used to humans and human objects that it was unafraid to go out into the open to find what it was looking for, and knew how to open Kristina's bag for investigating.  I couldn't tell if this squirrel just happened to be really smart or if it had done this kind of thing before.  It just goes to show you how adaptable animals can really be.

Invasion of the Birds

Okay, seriously, I saw the creepiest thing outside of my window.  Every single building roof in South Village was lined, wing to wing, by grackles. There was not an inch of space along the edges of the buildings that was not completely lined with the black birds, and the worse part was that they weren't doing anything.  Literally, they just perched themselves on the roofs of the buildings and just stared down (or, at least, they seemed to) at the people walking along the pathways in between said buildings.  Even when I went down to Sovi, I saw grackles even lined up on the fence surrounding the lake there.  Why does the movie Birds suddenly come to mind?  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a picture of the scene, so I decided to post up one that had the same general situation.  Now, I'm not one for conspiracies, but it certainly looked like all the birds were just waiting for something.  I would say that maybe it was mating season and the birds were just nesting, but why then were they lined up on the buildings and not attacking people who came too close?  They were just...waiting.  Despite the paranoid feeling welling up in my gut, I know that there must be some logical reason why the birds would be acting that way.  I am not an expert when it comes to fowl, but it intrigued me nonetheless.  In the end, adding to all the creepiness, when I walked out of Sovi fifteen minutes later all the birds had disappeared.  Instantly, I decided not to think about it too much, lest I let my hyperactive imagination get the better of me.

Don't Feed the Alligators

This event happened a while ago, but I was just reminded of it by a friend and I need some place to talk about it, so why not on an environmental blog?  Anyways, I'm sure that everyone at FGCU is very much aware of the rule "Do not feed the alligators."  Most of the FGCU campus is wildlife preserve, so with that large of a habitat comes the animals that live there; this includes alligators.  Now, normally the alligators stay in the more swampy areas of the preserve, away from human interaction.  However, instinct calls them to move where ever their prey moves, so sometimes the gators will drift into the waters closer to campus. Let it be said that, as hard as it is to believe, alligators are more scared of us than we are of them.  Once they've realized they are in human territory, the alligators will normally just get their food and swim back to their homes.  Yet, if the students on campus start to feed them little bits of food as they walk past, the alligators will start associating humans as a food supply and become less afraid.  What happens when an alligator loses its fear of humans?  It starts to slowly become more bold, and we risk having said alligator coming out of the water and attacking us for our food.  This is an extreme danger to the students on campus, so if the staff catches people feeding the gators, not only will that person be fined, but the staff will have to kill the alligator.  This came up in a conversation I was having with my friend because we got off on a tangent about Gary the Gator, an alligator that used to swim around in the lake by Sovi.  The poor animal had to be put down because the staff caught students coming out of Sovi and throwing their leftover food out into the lake for Gary to snack on.  It wasn't fair to Gary, poor innocent Gary, to have to die because students didn't want to follow the rules.  Please, for Gary's sake, refrain from feeding the alligators, they are very capable of hunting their own food.  Don't let another innocent animal die.

ECHO Field Trip

Yes!  I was actually able to find the bus for this field trip, so I actually made it.  I have to say that I really enjoyed myself and it was absolutely fascinating to see all the different kinds of flora and fauna that populated the garden.  Everything was so intricately placed, and I absolutely loved how they separated each part of the garden by the climate which they were simulating.  There were a few things that caught my attention as we went through ECHO.  The first thing I remember was the rice paddies they simulated.  Firstly, I am a huge fan of the Asian culture, so when I saw the rice paddies, the first thing I thought of was the Chinese woman and men of 'ole mucking around through the thick, wet mud, trying to collect all the rice.  Of course, the only time I had ever seen this was in movies and books, so I was really excited to see one in person.  In addition to this, the different types of animals they had kept around the garden also stood out to me.  When we were on our way to ECHO, I was only expecting to see plant life--maybe some small mammals and bugs.  What I didn't expect to see was goats and chickens.  Now that threw me through a loop.  But, nonetheless, it was extremely interesting to see the animals and learn how useful they are in maintaining the gardens.  I even had taken a video of use petting the goats, but I couldn't transfer it onto the computer.  However, no experience topped the tasting of the leaves from the Moringa tree.  It was surprisingly good, and it was shocking to learn just how nutritious it's leaves actually were.  I wanted to buy some of the seeds, or at least the powder, when we got to the gift shop at the end of the trip, but I had left my money at home.  Oh well, better luck next time, I suppose.

Renewal

This was one heck of a movie, I have to admit.  I was raised in a very religious household, so when I saw how different religions like Judaism and Christianity handled environmental issues, I was quite intrigued.  It wasn't what I was expecting, since these religions normally focus on personal and spiritual cleansing rather than environmental cleansing.  But, I was quite surprised to find that some churches and synagogues are actually concerned with nature and are doing what they can to help.  Though, I have to say that I was a little disappointed by the obvious differences between the solution the Catholics found the movie compared to the Jews' solution.  All the Catholics did was preach about it and sign a contract.  After what they saw during the helicopter ride over the mountains, you would think that they would take more action.  However, they merely stuck with a sermon about what they saw.  The Jews, however, had started an entire camp dedicated to teaching young, Jewish children about the wonders of nature and how they must take care of it.  I feel that the the camp is a far more effective way of helping the environment since they are teaching the younger generation to care for their planet, something they will carry with them into adult hood.  Hopefully they'll pass this love of the Earth onto their children and their friends, so that eventually there will be a mass of nature loving individuals helping the planet.  In the long run, this seems like the best solution, though that may be my own basis as a teacher.