As It Is: Pond Visits, Solitude, and Ecological Understanding

William James - Anthropology Major, University of NorthTexas

My alarm never goes off. I always wake 10 to15 minutes before, silently glide out of bed while my wife snores (yes....she does), and grab the first shirt and jeans that are hanging in the closet because I don't want to turn the lights on and wake her. She says people think I have only one shirt and pair of pants, I tell her she needs to stop sticking them at the front after she does the laundry. I go to the kitchen, put my pot of coffee on, and pet the pups. Buddy is half Lab and half ….something; Chester is a Border Terrier (12 pounds soaking wet).  We found both of them at the pound on different occasions. Buddy was a sweet pup with awkwardly huge feet. Chester was very ugly with a twisted, matted, long coarse overcoat. As he kept licking my wife's face, we were told he was going to be put down soon. She said she would clean him up and he would be her lap dog. So now, four years, later “I” have two dogs.

Mandala, what an apt description of my little circle. I've sat here repeatedly almost every morning over the last two years and contemplated everything from marriage, to my children, to unemployment. My pups have been my companions for most of these walks. I would only leave them behind due to inclement weather, of the kind I fear Frik and Frak couldn't handle, or because I had found something interesting that I wanted to take a look at without being disturbed. In the twilight hours before you hear the Rooster crow, and the spying of the first of the soccer moms in spandex jogging with their iPods and headphones about 300 yards away on the concrete sidewalks, this place is my Fortress Of Solitude (F.O.S, I hate to say mandala, it's been taken). All around the neighborhood sidewalks, there is graffiti, the lack of it on the concrete embankment next to the pond here puzzled me, until I found out there is no cell phone reception, hence, no teenagers venture out this far into the wilderness, they would die in several minutes from lack of social networking. In the last couple of months I've gained a new appreciation for my F.O.S. In August I had my cataracts removed. My wife insisted that I have the operation, after it became apparent I couldn't drive at night anymore. I never realized how blind I had really been for the last several years.

 

October 2, 2013 - I was sitting at the edge of the pond throwing sticks and rocks into the water for Buddy to chase (he loves to swim), when I noticed an odd shell sticking out of the mud at my feet. It wasn't at all like the typical freshwater bivalves you usually see in cow ponds. I brought the shell home and after several hours of research, determined that it was a “Devil's Toenail,” Exogyra ponderosa. I sat there marveling at it as I flipped it over and performed a detailed inspection. Here were the remains of a species that dates to100 million years ago. While it slid across the Cretaceous sea bed, going about its plodding cycle of filtering the salty water for phytoplankton, above it there were Plesiosaurs stalking small sharks. The oysters were fed upon by a huge 30 foot shark with thousands of molars, Ptychodus (it's amazing the things that you do remember from when you're twelve). Perhaps this explains the large amount of what I now recognize as shell fragments scattered across the local fields? It boggles the mind to think that we are now living in an area, which 100 million years ago was a warm shallow sea that separated Western North America from the Northeastern seaboard, tens of millions of years before our first rodent-like ancestors were stealing eggs from dinosaur nests.
 

Later that evening I made my way back to the pond.  During those thirty minutes, I paid close attention to the mudshell I was walking on. By the time I reach the water's edge I had seven different types of bivalves and ammonites in my pockets. After closer inspection, the rock where I frequently stop to scrape the mud off of my boots appears to be a huge mollusk. As I stood there examining my finds I noticed the many opened and crushed mussels on the shore. The water levels have dropped by a huge amount this year in all the local ponds by at least four feet, even though it was much hotter last summer?  The exposed little mussels were ravaged by the cranes. I've always seen mussels in ponds, but I've never stopped to consider, how did they get there?

There is no overspill or flooding from a lake or river in this area, and the mussels were not put there to filter the water to encourage growth. These ponds were dug for aesthetics, for a never developed area of the subdivision. The area around the pond is now very overgrown. The pond was much larger at one time; due to the water level dropping it is now two ponds, the northern one being almost completely dry.  Last year I caught a four pound bass in the northern half, but just like the mussels, I never stopped to ask myself how the fish got there. I was curious enough at one time to ask the developers if the ponds were stocked and was bluntly told no, and that if there were fish in them, I was forbidden to try and catch them because it might disturb the tame ducks, what jerks! Luckily for me the housing implosion forced development to cease in the area where my pond sits.

I sat there tossing shells into the water while studying my surroundings. Could it be that very strong winds had blown the larvae here? I've read stories where it has rained fish, so perhaps somehow the larvae were carried up by a storm and dropped back down, miles away. While I was sitting there a crane landed on the other side of the pond. I froze; it was a Sandhill, a “Ribeye in the sky,” the most delicious animal on the face of the planet! I immediately began making plans to come back during the season in November with my pellet rifle, as it would make the least noise and not alarm any nearby soccer moms. However, soon I started to lose my enthusiasm as I watched the bird slowly make its way along the other bank. When I was younger, I was a very avid hunter, anything I ever killed, I ate. It was a lesson taught to me by my daddy, who made me eat a Mockingbird that I had shot for no reason. Mockingbirds are in no danger of becoming extinct because tastiness. Now days I'm more content to shoot animals with a camera, plus due to the scarcity of Sandhills in this area, this bird deserves its own F.O.S.

As the sun went down behind me I began to reminisce about my many duck hunts, and then it struck me, birds! Although the weather may have deposited larvae and fish eggs in the pond, the most obvious depositor would be birds - this is my hypothesis! I remembered that on many occasions when I was cleaning ducks, their feet and legs would be sticky from paddling through pods of fish eggs. The diver species were coated with them sometimes. Of course ducks probably don't peck at mussels and eat them (although they might?), but cranes definitely do. The cranes and egrets plod along the mud of the shore cracking the shells with their beaks. The mud that clings to their legs is carrying the mussel larvae, which gets deposited at every water hole they come to. The cranes are unknowingly providing for their own future food supply, seeding every nook and cranny of tributaries, lakes, ponds, and rivers for hundreds of miles. Now that the mussels are established in the pond, they are nature's underwater vacuum cleaners, as they filter the water for nutrients. The filtered water is now prime habitat for fingerling, which are eaten by the ducks. The ducks were in turn eaten by coyotes (and me). As I watched with the sun slowly setting behind me, I was jolted by the memory of an incident which happened earlier during the year. Feeling a bit uneasy, I headed home.

October 4, 2013 - It's been raining hard the last two mornings, however this morning there wasn't even a wind.  I filled my travel mug and had the pups follow me to the pond. Earlier during the year, we were walking to the pond when Buddy's hackles raised. Little Chester was a bit ahead and oblivious to the world as he sniffed every rock. I peered into the scrub Oaks which are thick on the northern side of the path, and could see movement in the morning light. It was coyotes, however they weren't interested in Buddy or me, they were trailing Chester.  Two of them broke into the field about twenty yards from Chester. I ran and screamed at them, they merely glanced at me and kept their eyes on Chester, they didn't break and run until I was almost all the way upon them. I looked back for Buddy, he was head down  and  making a deep chest growl as he stared down a big male also about twenty yards away. When I started back to Buddy with Chester at my feet, the male broke for the trees.

This was a  trend that I've noticed over the past two years. The coyotes  were staying out later in the daylight hours, and they were becoming bolder. On another occasion the year before, I was walking up to the pond, without the dogs, and saw a  raft of ducks in the middle. I heard the type of whining and panting that dogs do when they want something, such as waiting for you to throw a stick. I thought it must have been a dog. When I came to a spot in the trail where I could see the southeastern bank of the bank, I saw a small frustrated coyote pawing at the water, yelping at the ducks floating in the middle. He (or she) saw me, stopped for a second sniffed the air, and went back to its yelping. I sat down and watched for thirty minutes as the wild canine did this. It finally lost interest and left for the tree line. Not once did my presence disturb it. I almost wanted to go pet it.

On this particular morning the dogs and I were maybe ten yards from where we normally start down the bank, when two coyotes appeared at the top. One was a small female; I'm guessing that the other was a male, because the female was pregnant, in October?  They slowly ambled back to the trees, in no hurry, and not looking back. Strangely enough Buddy and Chester just sat there looking at them until they disappeared. We made our way to the sitting spot and I discovered a dead Sandhill that had been ripped to pieces. There have always been coyote tracks around the pond, but this was the first time I had ever found a kill.

I am not an authority on coyotes by any means, however I have seen plenty of pregnant ones, and it was always in the early summer. When I researched mating seasons, I found that the season typically runs from January until March. The articles did point out that because of the coyote’s range explosion, cross breeding with domestic dogs was becoming much more common as the mating seasons became confused. Is this why I have been seeing them more during the day, and does it explain why they were not intimidated by me? One article suggested that as much as 75% of cross bred dogs (mutts) in North East Texas contained up to 10% coyote DNA. I am more comforted by the thought of individual, or even packs, of somewhat timid coyotes being around, than I am about the possibility of a cross breed with the aggression of a Pit-bull and absolutely no fear of humans.

But could it be something more? I doubt that these animals are that hybridized? I believe we are simply running out of room.  Coyotes are a very adaptive species and what we are seeing is not unusual behavior, but a new behavior as it adapts  to an increasingly urban environment. And what about global warming? Is the change in temperature also changing the behavior of the coyotes? I read that Texas and Oklahoma have extended mating seasons because of the warm weather. As the weather warms and we have water supplies being concentrated in urban areas, it seems natural (at least in my mind) that this crepuscular behavior should increase as they hunt the animals at night that are forced to use communal water supplies. Put another way, if we see decreasing water supply locations, and we have forced communal sharing between predators and prey, then I would think that all the animals drinking from that location at roughly the same time, is highly improbable.  Someone is going to have to change their schedule. Since coyotes are far less skittish than say, raccoons or ducks, it would seem to me that the coyotes would remain nocturnal hunters, and daybreak drinkers.  However, as I said, I'm not an authority, but I believe that my little secluded pond might be a good place to observe coyote daylight activity, if I can get there early enough and find a better position to view it from downwind. I suppose instead of calling it my pond, I should refer to it as the coyote's pond.

October 7, 2013 - I sprained my ankle a couple of days ago digging fence posts, so I was really itching to get out of the house, the pups wouldn't be with me this morning, it looked like rain. I've finally learned my lesson about taking them out when it's wet in the fields, for some reason it drives Chester to go roll in the newly moistened cow manure. If I don't catch him in time, when we get home, he'll jump up on the furniture and possibly my bed, it has happened before.  Since I was alone that day and not having to worry about the dogs, I was able to take another route, which brought me to the top of a hill. I took out my binoculars and spied in the direction of the pond just when the sun was breaking, amazing, several yards from the north end there was a pig rooting, and I believe I could make out several piglets.

I've often found tracks around the pond, but this was the first time I had actually seen one of the pigs that made them, in the daylight. I have seen them at night with goggles.  I believe I could see coyotes in the brush, but I'm not sure. There were plenty of ducks and egrets also, my own little Serengeti. By the time I reached the west bank the pig had retreated, but her tracks were all around my sitting spot. As I mentioned before, when I was younger, I hunted a lot, however when it comes to accurately identifying tracks, I am a moron, but it appears deer had also used this spot sometimes during the night, as did raccoons. It stands to reason, there aren't that many clear areas around the pond.  Off to one side of the trail leading down to the water, I found scat. Using a stick to dissect it, I found small bones, parts of grasshoppers, and yellow seeds which I couldn't identify. It didn't look like normal coyote droppings, so I wonder if the bobcat is back? In any case, whether it was bobcat or coyote, it's easy to see how this omnivore could fill almost any niche that opens in an ever changing environment.

On several occasions over the last two years I've seen the cat or cats at a distance, once actually walking on the road in our subdivision at night. I find no strange coincidence that the neighborhood started experiencing a rash of missing dogs and cats out of people’s back yards, around the same time I first spotted Lynx rufus. Up went the posters of the missing pets, my neighbor said she believed that people were stealing them, since almost all of the missing dogs were small lap-dogs. I've never felt the need to alarm her to the fact that we have predators coming into our yards. I have found several dogs in many pieces when making my way to the pond in the mornings, and one house cat. It may seem strange but the thought of bobcats back in their original ranges despite the intrusion of humans, excites me. I've spent many mornings trying to get a picture, but it's like Sasquatch, every time you see one, you don't have a camera handy! But once again, why am I seeing animals that have always been primarily active at night?

October 9, 2013 - I find the pigs equally intriguing. No matter how many feral pigs you kill, when you blink your eyes, there are ten more. An omnivorous animal with no breeding season and large litters that experiences almost no natural predation could be a dangerous thing to an environment it's not native to. My brother was floored by the number of swine in Texas herds, I'm wondering why there aren't even more. Several years ago I overheard a rancher complaining about the damage that the pigs were doing to his property. I offered to help by hunting several of them, he said sure, take as many as you want and I'll only charge you $50.00 apiece. I was astounded, this man actually thought that he could recoup or even make more money by charging people to hunt them. So exactly, what was he complaining about?  I wonder if he ever sat down and did a real estimation of the monetary damage the pigs were doing to his ranch, not to mention his neighbors farms? In 2012 feral pigs caused over $65,000,000.00 worth of damage to Texas. The population stood at just under an estimated 3 million last year, with a 20% yearly growth rate.

Although it may sound like I'm anti-pig, I actually have a healthy respect for them. I have a tree hugging neighbor, who wanted me to sign her anti-fracking petition (petitions that I have signed... just not hers)  She drives a Hummer H2 that gets 10 miles to the gallon, which has never seen the mud. I long for the day she steps out the door in the morning and drops her latte upon discovering her immaculate pesticide/chemical saturated lawn, has been rooted by pigs overnight. Yep, it would make me happy to see that as I drive by her in my little, beat up,1992 Civic that gets 42 mpg (yes, I know I'm being smug for the wrong reason.)

This morning I left the pups at home again and was nearly at the pond before the sun was up. I had hoped to catch some pigs rooting. The field and the pond turned up empty of everything, not even a bird or rabbit today. I sat down with my coffee and started looking around when I noticed that the batch of  thistle located behind me, had a large portion of it missing, of course maybe it was always like that and I had just never noticed? I went up to the field where the pigs had been, but could not find any droppings. I was curious as to whether or not the pigs had been eating the thistle.

I've seen pigs eat poison ivy, so, I didn't find it that far-fetched that they might eat thistle. There were lots of holes, but no dung. I went back to my spot to sip coffee and throw rocks. Thistles, in this case Cirsium texanam; I've never really given them much thought. To me they were nothing more than a nuisance that I had to untangle from Chester's fall coat (along with cockleburs).  Then it dawned on me, could that be why they are prickly? They stick to the fur of animals and in this way distribute themselves over the landscape? I do know that if they are entirely dispersed by air, I would see them in my yard, I have every other wild plant and weed in the neighborhood, why not Cirsium texanam?

Texas Thistle may also have found a friend in an invasive species, the pig. Sometimes I tend to romanticize observations I make. When I was growing up on the Amite river, every board I found below the water stuck in the mud, just had to have come from Jean Lafitte's pirate ship, which was believed to have sunk somewhere around Port Vincent. I do the same thing when I see a wild pig, I imagine that they are descendants of the boars release by the Spanish Conquistadors in the 1500s, and they may well be. However I do keep myself in check by remembering that Europeans unleashed almost complete devastation upon Native Americans by exposing them to influenza, and small pox, and the chief agents of delivery were their mobile food stores, the pigs they brought with them. The pigs came into contact with other animals (deer, turkey, etc.) and passed the diseases on to Native Americans. Even the ground where they fed was contaminated.

Will we see the thistle start to change, because it's such an abundant plant that pigs like? Or are the pigs so indiscriminate in their eating habits that they don't take the time to select a plant based on color or taste?  I've also seen an abundance of cockleburs where the pigs have been rooting. I've been told that there's not one wild or domestic animal that's immune to its toxic effects, even blinding cattle. Could cockleburs eventually develop into an edible plant for the pigs? I wonder if pigs could become instinctively aware, perhaps by taste or smell, of the level of toxicity in a patch of cockleburs in a certain location, and choose to feed there. They wouldn't eat the plant intentionally in these locations, but sense that if they were to accidentally ingest the cockleburs, they would survive. The less potent plant is then spread to other locations, through feces or sticking to the bristles, with a lessening of the poisonous effects in each generation. Could it become a viable food source, if it were spread in such a manner?  Oh well, just wondering.

October 12, 2013 - This morning I was a little late getting out the door.  It's Saturday and I celebrated a big eBay sale the night before. I really needed my coffee this morning. Made it to the top of the trail leading down to the water, I stopped cold in my tracks, there was someone at my and the coyotes pond! I didn't want to seem like a snob because I know that he heard me walking up, so I made my way down to the water.  He seemed like a nice enough 12 year old kid, but as my wife has pointed out, “Will, sometimes you just don't like people!”  It's true. I'm not misanthropic, I don't actually dislike people, but here lately, I would rather spend most of my time, not around them.  Trips to the pond are my times to think.

I made a half-hearted introduction as he cast his line out. Fishing with spinners in this pond is useless, I prayed he wouldn't catch anything. I asked if he had seen any coyotes, he gave me one of those “get real old man” looks and said, “Nah, I doubt there are any around here anyway.” I then explained to him that the tracks all over the bank did in fact belong to coyotes and possibly bobcats. He gave me another uncertain look and continued to walk his line down the bank (even though there was no current?) I told him to be careful because the pond had been infested with Water Moccasins, which was not really a lie, I'm sure at one time or another it had been infested with Cottonmouths, I just hadn't seen any. 

I asked him if he was going to fish this particular pond all day, and mentioned how chances of catching something were much better in the maintained ponds (the ones I was told were not allowed to be fished), which were very far from this pond.  He said he was waiting for his buddy to call and they were going to Six Flags later. I told him he probably wasn't getting any bars out here (I think it has something to do with a nearby radio tower?). He checked his iPhone, and sure enough, two weak fluctuating bars. He packed his gear, said “take it easy” (not a single “Sir” included) and walked up the trail. A few seconds later I heard a dirt bike start. I knew he wouldn't have walked this far. Thank goodness for terrible reception.

The cool weather had finally done it, it had actually encouraged a teenager to get outside and do something moderately physical. I sat and sipped my coffee as I contemplated the fact that the integrity of the F.O.S had been compromised. It wasn't perfect but it had been mine. My boots were caked with at least three inches of smelly black mud with hundreds of pieces of shell clinging to it. Why smelly black mud? Why not the brick hard clay of the ridge a little more to the west (looks like the cliffs of Dover)? I walked to the top of the trail and performed a 360 scrutinization of the area. 

I don't know how I ever missed it before, but my pond is near the low point of what appears to be a huge bowl formed by low hills and ridges (well, huge to a boy from southern Louisiana). The Black thick mud shell would lead my untrained mind to think that perhaps at one time, this may have been a small lake, or perhaps a tributary? All along the banks of the pond there are wildflowers, it amazes me how much the area had changed after one good rain. Purple lilacs, Vitex agnus-castus, circle the pond willows on the pasture side, it really is pretty. I wonder how many ancient oysters that once covered this area, are responsible for the rich soil. I believe there are high levels of calcium in the shells. But how long would it take for it to be depleted? I know that my tomatoes grow like wildfire here, and I've not had to add any calcium to prevent bottom browning.

Understanding - Nancy Turner and Fikret Berkes (2006) use the term ecological understanding to refer to a set of attributes embodied within traditional ecological knowledge systems. The first of these attributes involves an incremental learning of environmental knowledge through detailed observation. In my observations of the pond and the local area, I can only speculate due to being a complete novice, on the role each species (plant and animal) plays in maintaining or even modifying local natural resources.       As an example, I knew that pigs were an invasive species, however through observation and prolonged deduction, I was able to able to build a picture, not only of the destruction caused by their feeding, but also the role they may play in spreading cockleburs, another invasive species. Pigs feeding in the same pastures as cattle, spread this poisonous plant, which might be ingested by domestic grazers. The pigs have only one other predator in this region besides humans, which is the coyote.

In my understanding, large numbers of piglets would probably mean large numbers of coyotes. This leads to the next attribute, the development of a belief system which averts serious resource depletion and encourages conservation. The local resource in the instance of the pigs would be grazing land. The ecological understanding is that the pigs do not need to be controlled, they need to be eradicated. They are not part of the natural balance of the area, they serve no purpose. They encourage growth of coyote populations and possibly distribute invasive plants. Pigs that establish a population in proximity to urban areas, will in all probability, also have coyotes establish populations in the same area.

When the developers dug the pond I doubt they gave much thought to what would happen should they abandon it. Now we have an over grown area with a pond that is a water source a stone throw away from a heavy traveled recreational area adjacent to the subdivision.  This pond lures ducks, cranes, raccoons, deer and pigs, which in turn lures coyotes and bobcats. So a question comes to mind, if the residents start to complain about animals intruding on their property, or brushes with them as they jog or picnic, who is responsible for the wildlife management? Is it the county's responsibility or should it be the developers who caused the problem in the first place? Would anyone take the time to understand how the problem developed, so that it could be avoided in the future? If there wasn't extended observation, would anyone really know who was responsible?

Understanding the environment could lead to laws that would prevent ranchers charging people to kill an invasive species. Do the ranchers, or anyone for that matter, reserve the right to harbor animals or plants on their property, which may cause physical or economic damage to their neighbors, because they'd rather make a greenback rather than help? Understanding each link in the chain through detailed observation, is the only way to better understand the future possible impact of events that happen today, such as a pond being dug and abandoned. The passing of any new laws based on these observations demonstrates another attribute of ecological understanding as defined by Turner and Berkes, the development of rules by members of a society to deal with their environment and resources.

Along with this understanding there has to be a way to preserve and communicate it, which is the last of Turner and Berkes's attributes assigned to ecological understanding. Without this communication, the observations become useless. Do I actually believe any of my observations will be communicated to my neighbors?  No, it would take someone far more knowledgeable than I am to make any type of impact. I realize that my observations of the area were silly and amateurish, however observation of the pond has given me insight to the importance of a traditional understanding of the local environment by the folks who live there, and the preservation and communication of that understanding. 

Reference - Turner, Nancy J. and Fikret Berkes. 2006. Coming to Understanding: Developing Conservation through Incremental Learning in the Pacific Northwest. Human Ecology 34:495-513.