56 pages • 1-hour read
Wild Dark Shore
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Background
Genre Context: Climate Fiction and Ethics
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of animal death.
Climate fiction is a term given to a genre of works like Wild Dark Shore that explore the impact of climate change on humans and the environment. Climate change is a topic that can feel abstract and difficult to understand, particularly when described in clinical, scientific language. Climate fiction, or “cli-fi,” bridges this gap by depicting people confronting the material challenges posed by climate change within a narrative. In the case of Wild Dark Shore, the characters and wildlife face rising sea levels due to climate change and more frequent and intense storms that result from a warming, rising ocean.
While many works of climate fiction include elements of science fiction, Wild Dark Shore takes a generally realist approach. It is set in the near future when the outcome of climate change has intensified, but the setting is otherwise identical to the contemporary world. In this way, it illustrates what could happen if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase. This book and others in the climate fiction genre help people process their feelings of anxiety about climate change while also raising the alarm about threats to the environment. Author Charlotte McConaghy has written other works in the cli-fi genre, most notably her debut novel Migrations, which takes place in a world where most wild animals have died out.
Often, climate fiction focuses on the challenges faced by humans. While McConaghy’s works, both Migrations and Wild Dark Shore, do center the human narratives, they also address the stresses placed on wildlife populations and the human responsibility to mitigate these stresses as much as possible—a facet of the theme of Ethical Action in the Face of Climate Change. For instance, in Wild Dark Shore, a small group of humans work hard to save seeds, seals, and whales from death. In this way, McConaghy challenges readers to consider the moral responsibility humans have to protect and preserve the natural world.
Historical Context: Macquarie Island
Wild Dark Shore is set on the fictional Shearwater Island, which is based on the history and environment of Macquarie Island, an island located between the Australian island of Tasmania and Antarctica. While today Macquarie Island is a protected World Heritage Site, it has a violent colonial history. In 1810, a British Australian explorer discovered the uninhabited Macquarie Island and its rich population of seals, whales, penguins, and other birds. It then became a destination for hunters. Because the animals lived on an uninhabited island, they did not know to be afraid of humans, and over the next century, an estimated 200,000 seals were slaughtered for their furs. As mentioned in the book, between 1902 and 1920, hunters on the island also captured and boiled penguins in barrels for their oil. Author Charlotte McConaghy described the remnants of those barrels as “a sight so haunting [she] will never forget it” (299). Introduced invasive species like cats and rabbits further threatened the native wildlife of the islands, leading to the extinction of the Macquarie Island parakeet, among other species.
In 1933, the Tasmanian government declared the island a wildlife sanctuary. Since then, scientists and researchers have worked to restore the environment. As on the fictional Shearwater Island, a scientific base has been established there to support this work. Many of the invasive species have been eliminated, and the native wildlife populations have increased. However, the island’s ecosystem is under threat from climate change. For instance, many “cushion plants and mosses” on the island are dying out “due to windier and drier conditions” (“Macquarie Island Iconic Species Dying Out.” Australian Antarctic Program, 29 Apr. 2015).
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