Call To Nature

When you drive something into a corner, it’s bound to lash out. This is something my sustainable urban development professor said in our most recent lecture when speaking about urban development. Growing human populations and single-family homes meant more land was being eaten away while nature was essentially being driven into those human-created corners. This was due to man’s desire for control, he had said - humans were obsessed with trying to control other life forms. Slavery, deforestation, social heirarchies - all of these were often driven by that obsession, that instinct. In all of these situations, however, something has to give, often resulting in disasters or other noteworthy events.

I chewed over these words on my walk to the lab. I had the great opportunity to intern in the Ecological Management Research Institute, shortened to EMRI, at my college in northern Arizona. Dr. Collins was the main researcher I was assisting this year, and we were preparing to leave that afternoon for a three-day excursion into the mountains for surveying. The goal was to get an idea of what species were present that year and how many, which was especially important to monitor these days. A series of fires had swept through the area in previous years and the environment was trying to heal. That mixed with increased urban development in nearby areas was possibly affecting biodiversity when compared to the data samples we had from fifty years ago.

This would be our fourth excursion into the area for seasonal counts. I had my backpack and camping gear setup down to a T, something that I was glad for as I was always rushing to finish schoolwork. My course load was somewhat heavy for taking summer classes as I wanted to immerse myself in the field of environmental science, not quite sure what to do for a career yet, but savoring my journey to explore and learn how I could contribute to the natural world. Opportunities like this one were things I dreamt of, and my obsession with environmentalism and related topics meant my social circle was small and often full of similarly awkward science students and researchers.

I arrived to meet Dr. Collins in front of the lab, her SUV packed and ready to go. We loaded up swiftly to begin the two hour drive into the mountains, chatting briefly to make sure we had everything we needed. “You’ll always forget at least one thing, but let’s make sure it’s not something important!” she laughed.

The roads were winding and we passed through sprawling, hilly desert shrublands, which gave way to more lush vegetation and eventually melted into the pine forests that covered the mountains and valleys in this portion of the state. “What’s the weather supposed to be like this weekend?” I asked her.

She chuckled. “We’re camping and you didn’t check the weather? You’re lucky it’s supposed to be warm.”

I had been too preoccupied to remember to check something so simple, but always brought warm and cold weather gear. You never knew when something unexpected might happen and you could use one more layer, even at the tail end of summer. But I laughed with Dr. Collins and we began chatting about my classes and projects. I told her about the most recent lecture that had stayed on my mind. The professor for that class was named Dr. Lapahie, a Diné man that was a well-known researcher in the environmental studies and sociology fields. He also contributed a lot to indigenous history research and collection, something that supplemented his classes well as he was able to weave traditional environmental practices into what was happening today.

“Dr. Lapahie is wonderful,” Dr. Collins smiled. “He always has great insights whenever someone is working through a problem in their research.”

I nodded. He was a seasoned researcher and teacher with a warm and welcoming air to him. Students loved picking his mind and never hesitated to attend office hours if they needed his help, even if it was for different courses. Through discussions with him, I’d begun shaping my philosophy on the world and on mankind. We inherently wanted to survive, and to do that required control - security. That could lead to good or bad things, but when we brought bad into the world, the world would bring bad to us. It was unavoidable, and even the actions of relatively small populations could result in terrible things for everyone else if they threw the energy of the world off balance enough.

“He makes me feel hopeful and helpless sometimes,” I mused. “Like, he encourages us that we can do anything, and I believe him. But there’s also so much to do. And so much has already been done that needs correcting.”

Dr. Collins hummed in agreement. “That’s something that causes burnout or depression for many environmentalists. We’re so small, but can cause so many bad things. And correcting what has been done is harder than preventing it in the first place. This generation is doomed to be the cleanup crew.”

As we got closer to our campsite, we traversed rough forest roads. Dr. Collins was reminding me of our goals for this visit, knowing my habit to get sidetracked with things I found interesting. I had a hard time staying still and was so curious about things that I had to work hard to not wander off. Excessive movement could also startle nearby wildlife, but thankfully our first 24 hours were dedicated to pulling trail cam footage, so I didn’t need to worry about that until later. “I’ll give you the copy of the map that has the trail cams marked. We’ll be getting in kind of late so just try to get a few of the closest ones to the camp for now.”

After she was satisfied with her briefing, we sat in silence through the last leg of the trail. We arrived, parked, and she shooed me off with a map, GPS, and radio to check a few cameras before dinner. “I’ll set up camp and start dinner,” she told me.

I dutifully followed the marks on the map, deciding to work in a circle first. Sunset was still a little ways off but I’d rather not be walking back to camp in the dark. I had my pack on with some items to help ensure my safety, but you still never knew what you might encounter here, or when. Stories of ominous creatures from indigenous folklore briefly crossed my mind - something I immediately pushed away, remembering Dr. Lapahie’s reminder that thinking of them was likely to call them to you.

I was walking to the fourth trail camera, deciding it’d be the last one before I went back to camp, when I noticed the area was unusually disturbed. The forest we were in had been recovering well from an intense burn two years ago and had a lot of new growth. This area seemed to have less growth though, and some of the woody vegetation was ripped or pulled apart or out of the ground. I wondered if hunters had been here and done something - maybe got drunk and decided to cause some chaos.

The camera had been damaged, confirming my assumption that hunters were probably behind the disturbances. I’d be able to check the footage back at our camp, plugging the USB into our laptop to begin recording data. As I plugged in the new memory stick to the camera, I briefly heard a quick series of steps approaching me, and before I could turn around, everything went black.