What are we missing?
“This was not a loss I knew as a child. Longleaf was a word I never heard. But it is a loss that as an adult shadows every step I take.” –Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (15)
Interestingly, the effects of ecological devastation aren’t as obvious and noticeable in the Intermountain region of the United States as they are in more densely populated parts of the country. The devastation is all around us, however, it hides well. The plant and animal life of the region has been astonishingly altered by humans. Most residents do not know or realize that there is a profound difference between the landscape of today and that our great-great-grandparents.
Unlike the highly developed coastal regions, the center of this nation is full of open spaces and wild country. In Utah and our neighboring states, outdoor recreation is a common pastime. Because of this proximity to abundant natural beauty, it becomes easy to assume that the region has been untouched (or at least less-touched) by humans. However, much has been lost in Utah. I can identify with Ray’s struggle to preserve and restore her heritage landscape. Like Ray, I am a native to this place. My mother’s family has been in this region for at least five generations. Some of my ancestors were Mormon pioneers, the early white settlers here. Like Ray, I can’t help but care about this place. It’s my home and my inheritance.
In his book Our Renewable Wildlands, author and ecologist Walter Cottam explores the vast difference between Utah’s historical and present ecology. In 1961 Cottam wrote that “a common impression of this generation is that the Mormon pioneers settled in a sagebrush valley (Cottam 10)”. Many Utahns do not realize is that Salt Lake Valley was once full of lush grassland. He explains that “the journals of early explorers and pioneers contain numerous references to the vegetation of Utah before the time of settlement” (Cottam 9). As an ecologist, Cottam was in involved in a number of field studies and from these he determined that “tremendous changes even in the plant types have occurred during the past century, particularly throughout…our valleys” (Cottam 9). The valleys, where most of the pioneers settled, have been altered drastically by destructive, developmental force.
Unfortunately, overgrazing has turned this once lush valley into a harsh sagebrush ruled frontier. In 1776, early explorer Father Escalante described the valley as covered with the “green grass of the plains”, “upland bunch grass”, and wetland “marsh vegetation” (Cottam 9-10). In Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Ray observes that if her ancestors gave “any thought to the environmental destruction wreaked by the introduction of armies of foreign beasts, it went unrecorded…died, forgotten or never said” (Ray 86). This also seems to be true of the Mormon pioneers attitude regarding the land here although Cottam notes that Brigham Young spoke “almost pathetically of the destruction of the willows and wild roses growing thickly on the two branches of City Creek” (Cottam 11). City Creek itself he notes was also destroyed to divert water for crops. Expending natural water resources in the valley produced a rugged landscape very quickly. Cottam notes that “within thirteen years” of the pioneer’s arrival “most of the important towns from Logan on the north to Saint George on the south had been founded” (Cottam 4). The grasslands were ruined shortly after.
“Most important about the longleaf pine settlers was their attitude toward nature, although this can only be inferred.” Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (85)
Like the ignorant settlers that Ray describes, Cottam also explains that the “basic facts of ecology where not understood by the pioneer settlers” (Cottam 21). The grass lands were grazed to the point of exhaustion and floods eroded top layers of soil preventing grass from taking root in the valleys again. What was once covered in plains grass is now “dominated by sagebrush, rabbitbrush, and shadescale” (Cottam 9). In Ecology, Ray bitterly remarks that “they (her ancestors) had no thoughts of a future” (Ray 86). The Mormon pioneers did not seem to have any concern for a sustainable ecological future either. Like many Europeans, it seems that they thought nothing of the environment, save what good it could do for them.
In addition to flora, animal life has been drastically altered in this region as well. Most prominently, Utah’s white settlers eradicated the region’s two largest predators and their largest prey. The last Grizzly Bear in Utah, known as Old Ephraim, was shot and killed in 1923 because he had been feeding on livestock (Ferry 5). The last wolves known to Utah disappeared around 1930 (“Wolf Restoration”). Each of these important species became a casualty to development. Humans seem to hate natural competition and will destroy any species that threatens our presumed dominance. The irony is that wolves and bears had resorted to feeding on cows and sheep because their primary food source had disappeared in the west directly because of the arrogance and greed in over hunting.
Traditionally, wolves had hunted bison here and bears would scavenge the remains (occasionally killing young or sick animals themselves). But the buffalo had been disappearing steadily in the United States as settlers encroached more and more on their lands. Viewed as an expendable commodity, bison where slaughtered by the thousands and were already gone from Utah in the 1880s (Schindler). This void left cows the freedom to roam and to graze smaller patches of grassland too heavily. Ray implies that with a human development comes destruction. She writes, “railroads were to pines what they were to buffalo: the means to extinction” (Ray 99).
The unhappy truth is that this type of human caused environmental destruction has been repeating itself since the dawn of our development. In the past several hundred years especially, civilization has replaced our natural role in the ecosystems of our planet. Instead of being immersed in the rhythms of nature, we are absorbed by manmade society. Most of us have forgotten or never learned how to survive in the wild. The rise of industrialization and technology has created a cancer on this planet, slowly poisoning all life upon it. Scientists now believe that we are entering the sixth major extinction on Earth and the only extinction caused by a single species: us. So where do we go from here?
“Sometimes there is no leaving, no looking westward for another promised land. We have to nail our shoes to the kitchen floor and unload the burden of our heart. We have to set to the task of repairing the damage done by us and to us.” Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (103)
The Mormon pioneers had too sought a promised land and settled in the Salt Lake Valley because of its rich grasses, mountain streams, and proximity to building timber. Over time the city rose and the suburbs sprawled. Human life in the Salt Lake Valley grew exponentially as did devastating environmental damage. We cannot change what happened in the past but we can dictate the face of our future. What we do starts today. I don’t profess to have the answers but I do know that escaping the dark shrouds of ignorance and the blindness of history is the first step toward recovery. We can remedy the damage of the past.
“It might take a lifetime, one spent undoing.” Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, 268
Works Cited
Cottam, Walter P. Our Renewable Wild Lands; a Challenge. Salt Lake City: Univ. of Utah, 1961. Print.
Ferry, Ryan. Learn to Be Bear Safe. Salt Lake City: Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, 2007. Print.
Ray, Janisse. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 1999. Print.
Schindler, Hal. "Antelope Island is Bison Home on Range." Utah History to Go. Salt Lake Tribune, 11 Nov. 1993. Web. 17 Oct. 2012.
<http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/111493.html>.
"Wolf Restoration Campaign." Utah Environmental Congress. Utah Environmental Congress, 2009. Web.
15 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.uec-utah.org/subpage/Wolf%20Restoration%20Campaign.aspx?pid=4&chid=22>.