Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

Man versus Nature is one of the oldest conflicts in life, as in literature. Fuzz investigates that conflict, focusing largely on human-animal conflict. In some cases, humans are the prey, while in many others, they are indiscriminate killers. The fight is not fair, however, as humans have more weapons and knowledge. However, the author suggests that humanity should rethink its motivations and develop a new approach.

Many of the conflicts between humans and animals occur in agriculture. Farmers and ranchers, whether with large-scale or small, family-run operations, discover that their crops or livestock are being destroyed by wild animals. Blackbirds and coyotes are frequent culprits in the United States. Early conservation agencies in the US worked with farmers to bomb the birds by the thousands. The use of poison bait and traps was and, to some extent, still is common practice. For all the millions of dead birds, however, the effect on their populations was negligible. Additionally, the effect of crop loss from birds is not significant, either. For example, the estimates of sunflower seed loss in North Dakota turned out to be around two percent or less (174). Part of the issue is the human tendency to oversimplify the understanding of ecosystems and food webs. Examinations of the stomach contents of the “nuisance” birds reveal a complex diet: “The service rendered by the destruction of noxious insects and weed seeds far outweighs the damage due to its consumption of grain” (175). By allowing some loss, the farmers might have seen an overall benefit. The predatory animals, too, have a part to play in the food web. Without predators, prey animals can flourish because the ecosystem is unbalanced. An example of this occurred in the 1950s when “overexuberant slaughter of foxes and coyotes in Oregon contributed to a massive mouse infestation” (288). Allowing for nature to balance itself by promoting beneficial insects and installing bat houses, as the Pope decreed for the Vatican gardens (241), and allowing for some losses as the cost of doing business are some ways to reduce the heavy impacts of the conflict.

The author and many of the experts she interviewed hope to prevent some of the conflicts in the first place. She states, “As any criminologist can tell you, prevention is better than punishment. The safest thing for both species is to keep them apart” (25). In India, where people have dangerous interactions with elephants, it is not so easy. The elephants have lost not only their habitats but their migratory paths. They can break through the walls of workers’ housing to get food. Suggestions to change the crops to ones that aren’t palatable to elephants are not practical, as they are growing crops to feed themselves. Therefore, conflict reduction measures in India involve early detection sensors so that trained squads can divert the elephants from villages and farms (66). Translocation, moving the animal to a new location away from people, has proven to be costly, ineffective, and often causes more trouble down the line. Where prevention is possible, the onus of responsibility for making that change is on people, especially when the cost of interaction is an animal’s death. Securing garbage, not planting fruit-bearing trees near buildings, and following bear-resistant building codes would help minimize bear-human interactions in Aspen, for example. The author implores people in her state of California to “Build a safe nighttime enclosure for your animals! Keep your pet Inside at night! How is the life of a beagle or goat worth more than the life of a wild mountain lion?” (135). For villagers in India who are preyed upon by leopards, those same measures would work, too, in addition to clearing the brush that provides cover and having school buses to safely transport children (87).

Scientists and naturalists around the world are developing new, humane weapons for the arsenal against pests. New Zealand employs head-focused traps and quick-acting poisons laced with species-specific repellents to target invasive species, like stoats, but preserve the native fauna. In the US, researchers are experimenting with gene editing to eliminate, over a few generations, the population of invasive mice on an island. This approach, with its many unknowns, has the author worried. She wonders, “Will gene drive be a tidier rendition of the poisoning, shooting, trapping, bombing, wipe-’em-out campaigns of past centuries?” (285). Essentially, she asks whether trying to kill the way out of the problem is an effective, ethical, or desirable strategy.

The biggest question in human-animal conflict is how far to go in eliminating nuisance animals. Mary Roach asks, “Where does the line get drawn, and who draws it?” (284), stressing that the goal should be achieving balance or peaceful coexistence with pests while mitigating the sometimes serious damage that they do. The feedlot owner at the end of the book and Pope Francis’s encyclical on animals point to possible solutions: some tolerance for loss while focusing on less harmful methods, such as exclusionary tactics (fences or plugging holes in houses, for example), cultural practices (changing what to plant, reducing waste and keeping it secure), and biological controls (plantings that attract beneficial insects or birds). The author sees a way for the conflict to be less contentious: “Rodents are a good bellwether. If people can be less cruel to rats, if it even crosses their minds to be less cruel to a rat, then things are heading in a good direction” (290). It does mean the total acceptance and welcoming of pests, as well as an acceptance of human responsibility as stewards of the environment.