I thought the introduction to this reading was very, very, VERY dark and depressing. I already understood the sadness of the situation, but when the author put the reader in the woodpecker’s shoes, things got very depressing, very quick. I don’t know if the gravity of the parallel was necessary, but it did help me imagine the sadness and struggles the woodpecker could theoretically experience. I expected the article to go more into the woodpecker, like how the City at the Water’s Edge reading usually goes, but it continued to develop this dark-but-necessary idea.
One idea that the author offered that I found especially interesting was that “We and nature are mutually impoverished,” (113). In class, when we discuss how humans are impacting ecology and the natural landscape of our world, we never think how this is affecting us in terms of our interspecies relationships with the species we affect. Although we have acknowledged the fact that we are worse off as a result of our harmful actions, we never look at it in the light that the article focuses on. This made me think about other species being on the same level as humans, and made me think about the deeper connection that goes beyond the surface between humans and other species. As the author later cites, it is almost spiritual.
I was glad when the article took a positive turn. A part of this that stood out too me was when the author pointed out that the upside to humans being the cause of the extinction of man species is that we are able to, to some extent, revert our wrongdoings and help the species we have negatively affected in the past. It’s sort of like, we are the masters of our own destiny, but instead of our destiny, it’s the destiny of other species on this planet. This goes to show how important it is that we take action and try to fix our mistakes. Although we can’t undo everything, we can try our best to mitigate the situation as much as possible. Overall, I thought that this article was effective in bringing something we have previously discussed into a new light.
