Defining Space and Time
in the American West
by Mary Harper Bellis, MS
Psychotherapist
The issues of space, land use, property rights, and the rights of other beings have loomed very large for many months for me and most of my friends. Because we are all dedicated to providing a home for abandoned, abused, neglected, and surrendered wolfdogs and other animals, we have been learning much about the issues of space and time.
The sanctuary we support, Wolfsong Ranch Foundation, has been denied a Special Use permit by our County Board of Supervisors and must move or risk having the 160 animals who live here killed. Some of the animals have been with us for 10 years or more. There are at least a dozen other animal rescue facilities facing the same fate around the United States right now.
The wolfdogs are most often bred in captivity and sold as pets. The people who buy them are well-meaning people.
They invite the half-wild wolfdogs into their lives to meet a very important need - the need to feel connected to Life, our Earth, and our own collective past when we did not inhabit a world of cement, asphalt, manicured lawns and controlled environments. The wolves remind us that we have not always been so "civilized".
The problems associated with the wolfdogs and their owners begin to surface when these well-meaning people attempt to do the same things to the wolfdogs that have been done to all of us. They try training the animals, confining them, asking them to live in little squares and boxes just as we do. When the animals prove to be more resistant to control measures than most humans have been, the owners begin searching for places where the animals can live more successfully. Or, they simply have them killed.
There are now large numbers of people who are also intent on escaping the confines of our crowded cities, the sterility of our suburbs and "gated communities". Yes, these people are sad and tired of the terrible conformity required of them when they live together in huge groups. They also want more space. They want to escape the same boxes and squares that confine them and also confine the wolfdogs.
But space on our Planet is not limitless. It is a finite thing and can be measured in lots, acres, parcels, sections, miles. As our cities bulge outward into the countryside, the people and other beings in the open spaces feel the pressure. The open spaces here in the United States are shrinking and as they shrink, we all feel the pressure in one way or another.
The situation our wolves are facing is very disturbing to us but the wolves are not alone in their terrible circumstances. An entire city of prairie dogs in Colorado faces their own death sentence. Developers have bought the land where the prairie dogs have lived for centuries and they will soon begin bulldozing the town these creatures call home.
Although the developers are willing to delay their work until the animals can be safely relocated, no space for the prairie dogs can be found. There is no place to move them. One authority states that two centuries ago 2,000,000,000 (yes, billion!) of these animals lived on our prairies but their total population is now 1/1000th of what it was. Imagine what it would be like if 999 of every 1,000 human beings were systematically murdered by invaders. That is exactly what has happened to the prairie dogs.
Who cares what happens to chubby rodents? We all ought to care because they are a keystone species, one that promotes and maintains the health of the entire ecosystem in which they live. The prairie dogs build homes for other animals, spread seeds for grasses and flowers, aerate the land, and feed the predators and raptors. The prairie dogs, predators, and raptors are Balancers working to maintain the health of our Earth.
What happens when the inhabitants of an area are forcibly removed to make room for the next and seemingly more powerful group? The results can be seen all over the world, in our delicate atmosphere, and in the weather changes now so evident to everyone. We are healthy when we are in Balance. Illness is imbalance. Our world, our nation, and our neighborhoods are imbalanced: ill.
Our sanctuary for wolfdogs is not a balanced situation. It is a stop-gap measure to end the killing of innocent animals. We show the example of the wolfdogs to people in an effort to educate them and ourselves about the critical issues we are facing in our modern world. The wolves are teachers and they are teaching us of what our own future is likely to be. They ask us to answer some very difficult questions.
Do we want our future to be lived in prison-like compounds where we do not have even the most simple, basic right to lift our own voices in song? That is the situation the wolfdogs face today and we all might face tomorrow.
The cattle ranchers in our rural county feel the pressure of encroachment and development. They feel the invasion coming. Many still "blame" the old enemies - the predators who cull their herds. But predation is natural and necessary to maintain Balance. The terrible new viruses showing up in both wild and domestic grazers should be all the evidence needed to convince us of the necessity of predators.
The predators only do their work. But, what about the never-ending tide of humans moving into the open spaces and dragging their mentality of confinement along with them? People who have lived within a system of tight control know only that: control. So, the noise made by animals must be controlled. The presence of lawn eaters must be controlled. The weeds have to go along with the pesky bugs.
Marshall McLuhan wrote three decades ago, "It is not possible to do just one thing." He was cautioning us all to consider "other effects" of our actions. Yes, removing wolfdogs and prairie dogs will make life a little more comfortable for a few people. But, what ELSE will it do?
Filling our open spaces with enclaves of human beings intent on control will ease the pressure of confinement in some of our cities. What ELSE will it do?
There is a long history of forced removals in our nation. The list of beings driven to near or total extinction is very long and growing every day. We all read the same news, the same action alerts and pleas for help. We are losing the buffalo, the great apes, the tigers, the elephants, the wolves, the condors, the Sonoran Darter fish. We are losing flowering plants and medicinal herbs at such a fast rate, we cannot even track the names of the casualties. Hundreds of thousands of species of plants and animals that once flourished here on Earth with us are now gone forever.
And, human groups are also vanishing with whole Tribes wiped out or "assimilated" into the vast amorphous collective of humanity. Which group or tribe will be the next to vanish? It might be cattle ranchers and family farmers. They are near the top of the endangered species list already. While many people see that fact as a positive step, we need to take a much closer look at the reality of who these people are and what they do for our delicate human ecosystem - just as we must consider the contributions of a city of prairie dogs.
The farmers and ranchers are the very people who stand between the control of the urban populations and the freedom of the open spaces. In fact, they are the people who have been the space keepers in America for two centuries. Yes, it is easy to criticize the ranchers and farmers who have made egregious errors in their treatment of the land and the wild species. But many ranchers and farmers today have learned from the terrible results of pesticides and pogroms and they are changing.
Are the rest of us changing the way we think and behave to come into a more healthy Balance with our Earth and her other Beings? While we are so busy blaming the very people who have fed us, clothed us, and kept at least a small percentage of our country as open space, have we changed enough to stop and thank our ranchers and farmers for all they have done for us? Their lives are not easy and they are not all bad. When the ranchers and farmers are gone from our landscape, who will keep the Space?
Those of us who are committed to finding space for our unwanted animals will make our best effort to do that. Yet, our Space is limited and our Time is short. We have learned this lesson from the wolves and we want to share it. The very same things can be said for our country and our entire Earth. Our Space is limited and our Time is short. It is time for us to find new Measures.
Mary Harper-Bellis, MS is a writer, teacher, and healer. She and her husband, Art Bellis, are the co-founders of Wolfsong Ranch Foundation. For more information about the relocation of the wolfdogs and prairie dogs, contact Mary at wolfsong@vtc.net or visit her website:http://www.biopark.org/wolf/wolfsong.htm
She wrote also Islands in the Sky
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