Curation Conservation

Abstract

Curation Conservation Andrea Appleton (bio) I Feral cats can jump as high as six feet. Juvenile mice can fit through a hole smaller than an aspirin tablet. Stoats move so quickly they can scale an electric fence between high voltage pulses and land on the other side unscathed. We have learned these things by trying to fence these animals out. We are fencing them out to atone for our mistakes. Human beings have rearranged the matrix of life on Earth, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident. In the nineteenth century, the British wanted to blow bugles and hunt foxes in Australia just like they did on their Yorkshire estates, so they shipped some over. The foxes still live there in vast numbers, devouring numbats and wallabies. Captain Cook accidentally left rats on tropical islands throughout the Pacific. Rats love nothing better than the egg of a ground-nesting bird. Whalers and explorers like Cook often had cats on board to control the rats; many disembarked and discovered that naïve island birds made for an easier supper. Invasive predators have contributed to more than half of all bird, mammal, and reptile extinctions. What can we do? We cannot herd together all the foxes and dispose of them. We cannot poison all the rats. Only very brave souls dare propose killing that most beloved of creatures, the cat. So we are beginning to fence in natural areas and fence out invaders. In Australia, a new enclosure to protect native animals from hungry cats, foxes, and other invaders goes up every year, on average. Federal, state, and municipal governments, NGOs, local environmental groups, and even individuals erect them. Last year, a nonprofit organization completed the world's largest, encompassing an area thirty times the size of Central Park. New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States have installed miles of predator-proof fencing. There are fences in the city and fences in remote deserts. There are fences to protect lizards and fences to protect snails. One fence crosses forty-two streams, with special gates to let fish in and out. The predators patrol the perimeter of these enclosures, sniffing, waiting. A tree could fall and break a fence, someone might leave a gate open, a kangaroo could [End Page 181] jump on the top rail and crush a fence section like a tin can. It takes less than twenty-four hours after a fence break for the rats to start streaming in. II When I was a kid, I watched a lot of "bear shows." That's what my family called television shows about nature, like Marty Stouffer's Wild America. At the time, Marty Stouffer was a celebrity among nerds, but his reputation isn't so great anymore. PBS did an investigation and discovered that he staged a lot of episodes. Once, his team filmed wolves chasing and killing a deer. The animals turned out to be within an enclosure, so the deer couldn't get out. A prey-proof fence, I guess. Filmmakers still regularly trick wildlife into camera-friendly behaviors. They put M&Ms in the carcass of a dead animal and send in trained "wild" animals to find them. They pester wild animals until they do something interesting. (One team of filmmakers reportedly smeared Bengay cream on a beaver's anus to get it to move around.) They rearrange footage to give it drama and a narrative arc. And they produce a lot of sound effects in the studio. In the right hands, a pair of gloves can sound like the flapping wings of a bird. III Here are a few things technology currently allows us to know about a tagged wild animal without leaving the office: Where the animal is at all times How warm or cold the animal is When an animal is pregnant or giving birth When an animal is interacting with another tagged animal When an animal has begun hibernating When an animal has died Here are a few of the tools we use to control invasive predators: Artificial perfumes designed to attract specific predators Poison bait targeted at specific predators Traps powered by gas-fired pistons that can kill twenty...