|
Back to
first page.
In the Dead of Winter,
page 2 |
|
Cutting wood for fuel and
lumber can have a devastating effect on flying squirrels if
clearcuts are too large and trees and downed logs are not
retained as cover and for travel across open spaces. I was
particularly intrigued by the part about the flying squirrel
needing cover and how woodcutting can destroy its habitat. We
decided right then not to cut firewood on our land, but to leave
it in a natural state.
I was later
reading Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (sixth
edition, January, 1872), and came across reference to the flying
squirrel in the section On the Origins and Transitions of
Organic Beings with Peculiar Habits and Structure.
Look at the family of squirrels; here we have the finest
gradations of animals with their tails only slightly flattened,
and from others, as Sir J. Richardson has remarked, with the
posterior part of their bodies rather wide and with the skin on
their flanks rather full, to the so-called flying squirrels; and
flying squirrels have their limbs and even the base of the tail
united by a broad expanse of skin, which serves as a parachute
and allows them to glide through the air to an astonishing
distance from tree to tree. We cannot doubt that each structure
is of use to each kind of squirrel in its own country by
enabling it to escape birds or beasts of prey, to collect food
more quickly, or, as there is reason to believe, to lessen the
danger from occasional falls. But it does not follow from this
fact that the structure of each squirrel is the best that it is
possible to conceive under all possible conditions. Let the
climate and vegetation change, let other competing rodents or
new beasts of prey immigrate, or old ones become modified, and
all analogy would lead us to believe that some at least of the
squirrels would decrease in numbers or become exterminated,
unless they also become modified and improved in structure in a
corresponding manner. Therefore, I see no difficulty, more
especially under changing conditions of life, in the continued
preservation of individuals with fuller and fuller
flank-membranes, each modification being useful, each being
propagated, until by the accumulated effects of this process of
natural selection, a perfect so-called flying squirrel was
produced.
In
reading further of the selective pressure exerted by changes in
habitat on Darwin’s organic beings, I was quite happy
with our decision to leave our woods uncleared and in close to a
natural state so that we would
|
|
not have any untoward
effect on our flying squirrels. I would not be able to be as
effective preserving woods outside of our ownership, however,
and with the territory
of the flying squirrel
covering some twenty acres in its lifetime and a mile from its
nesting tree on any given night, changing nesting trees
throughout the season within its circuit, the only way to have
any effect on the possibility of maintaining those other woods
in a state of nature was by spreading the word, as I am
doing here. Ideally, we could all preserve our woods, but simply
our presence may eventually compromise the flying squirrel’s
habitat, just by population pressure. For instance, while I am
not cutting wood for our wood stove on our own property, I am
getting it from the clearing activities of Settlers Bay Golf
Course, thereby compromising habitat with a long reach.
Loons are
another organic being experiencing selective pressure on
Flat Lake. While increasing human use on lakes Outside has
caused loon populations to leave, they persist here. I have
heard people say that the loons must be doing fine here because
there is all of this activity on the water and the loons are
still here. I wonder how many people said the same thing on the
lakes Outside before the loons left, removing the beauty of
their eerie nighttime wails and animated conversation during the
day? We should learn more about what makes them stay and try to
keep from degrading their habitat.
We had not
known about our flying squirrel until our second winter on Flat
Lake. It made me think of what Richard Proenneke said in One
Man’s Wilderness, an Alaskan Odyssey, “The more I see as
I sit here among the rocks, the more I wonder about what I am
not seeing.”
While the red
squirrel is very noisy, often sitting in one place chittering or
moving in short hops with a punctuating squeak with each leap,
the northern flying squirrel is very quiet. I did hear one
making soft chittering noises at me once, almost as a confidant
would, but have only heard that once. The reason for the
difference must be that in the daytime the red squirrel can see
what predators might be interested in it and draw them out,
whereas at night if the northern flying squirrel was noisy it
would attract predators it might not see.
When I told
PJ Ross about the flying squirrel, she said, “I knew we had
Bullwinkle on Flat Lake, but I didn’t know we had Rocky, too!”
Further
Excerpts:
The Novel Use of Carmen's Warm Bags
Warm Bag Design |
|