camp: Roswell, New Mexico
Today,
we saw birds in a wildlife refuge, where ponds are filled and drained each year
to provide “natural” habitat for the migrating birds. I read the newsletter,
which talked about how so many people were viewing the birds from an unsafe
location on railroad tracks that the entire pond had to be closed for people’s
safety. This all reminds me of a zoo, except that the birds are free to come
and go. But it’s so controlled. So managed. So like Owens Lake. I wonder what
the history is, if this is one of the restoration “wetlands” mandated by
Congress as penance for bulldozing habitat to create another parking lot. Did
this used to be a real wetland, without the drainages and surrounding fields of
government-commissioned crops? And do we pay farmers to grow those crops
because they’re what the birds want to eat or because the crops are in surplus
and we’re trying to find as many uses as possible for them? I suppose I
could’ve asked Paul or someone at the visitor’s center instead of just assuming
that everything’s a conspiracy against nature and for farmers and agribusiness.
But that wouldn’t be any fun.
I
don’t mean to devalue the refuge for what it is—habitat for birds that need it.
I’m glad we have protected areas and places for those birds to eat and hang
out. Mike Prather understood the necessity of compromise better than anyone
else we’ve met, and if he can see the “construction site” that is Owens Lake as
a victory, then I can be grateful for man-made refuges. But it just seems to
god-like. Here is nature. Here is our highway, our railroad, our thriving
metropolis in the middle of the desert. So even as I accept that we grow
cancerously, that we’ve spread out enough to make setting these places aside a
necessity, I still wish it were otherwise.
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