Animals of Mushroom Mountain

The drastic geography of the region provides many niches for a multitude of wildlife. No feature, however, provides such a biodiversity hotspot as the winding river that cuts through the mountain forest providing nutrients, water, homes, and the occasional furtive visitor.

Animals

Our lovely cousins, articulating with mandibles or great jaws like ruthless traps or dull teeth behind soft lips in some measure like mine.

They come with their splendid colors that shame the rainbow;

their coordination of legs that come in twos or tens or one at all;

their ability to scratch a living in the deepest and highest places in altitude and in honor;

their instincts to survive and hunt;

their meanness without cruelty and gentleness without altruism;

their alienness to my perception yet bodies indistinguishable from mine in some respects;

their common quirks and unmistakable differences between individuals;

their strength and vulnerability to man.

Few love me – though some I know do love me – but I love them all.

That is part of man’s lopsided bargain with the natural world;

our will to view, to dominate, to coddle supersedes the wild’s to live in its way.

I love them for their innocence which upon a man or boy would be considered virtue.

I love them for how they remind me much alike with my fellow humans I am,

though not all of my fellow humans regard them as I do.

I love them for what men who view themselves as privileged by god do to them.

I love them because they populate and maintain the woods and wild spaces in which I feel most alive.