August 8, 2001

Can We Keep It?

Back again, slithering through Summer.
Hard to work up much energy, but I’ve got to tackle that alligator.
Not literally, of course, but then, it wasn’t really an alligator, and I think I can handle a two foot long Spectacled Caiman if it comes down to it.

It was a classic tabloid news story: alligator in Central Park. Well, almost. Sewer-gators are a staple of the New York mythos, lurking beneath the surface of our psyche, if not our city. Here was a real one, albeit on the small side. A gator-wrangler was brought up from Florida to subdue it, which seemed like a bit of overkill. In the end, it was his wife who nabbed the poor thing, comprising, perhaps, a manifestation of the Goddess, embracing a traditional reptilian familiar. Or maybe it was more a dismissive jest of the Male power, spoofing the paucity of our local wildlife. I’m not quite sure, but the crocodilian supposedly got sent home, everybody had a good laugh, and nobody got hurt.

The Caiman was lucky. It’s no myth that people flush unwanted pets down the toilet, if they can. I don’t know why you couldn’t just hand the animal over to a shelter, but larger creatures require another strategy once they’ve worn out their welcome. Like dumping them in the Park. Which probably explains the foot-long lizard I saw the other day, ambling through the underbrush on the slope of the Point. As far as I know, turtles are the only reptiles that manage to live in the Park, spending most of their time in the water. This was no doubt a pet, likely let loose because it had a large tumor on its back, which may have degraded its exotic cachet. No cute news item here.

Wild animals are compelling.
Hence birdwatching, and every other approach, including zoos and hunting for sport. I’ve come around to the birding philosophy, in which simply seeing a natural occurrence of the beast (or plant, for that matter) is fulfillment enough. I don’t need to own it, and I certainly don’t want to kill it, but I’m afraid the two often go together.

I’ve kept various reptiles, amphibians, and arthropods. Even a skunk (very briefly). But all of this was as a child, and all it taught me was that to keep a wild creature is to kill it. Some may fare better than others, but it’s always clear that these exotic pets do not enjoy their captivity in the manner of truly domesticated animals.

Cats and dogs have entered into a mutually beneficial relationship with humans. They make good enough pets. Our world is their environment, and a good relationship with a domestic animal is one of the most humanizing experiences we can have. Wild animals signal the Mysteries of a natural world from which we are alienated.
We are ourselves domesticated.

A side effect (which is to say, an effect) of domestication is neoteny: the retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood. Humans can be understood as neotenous apes. Like infants, we have scant body hair, as well as big heads, relative to body size. An oversize head means a big brain, which may have something to do with why our cognitive capacities appear to outstrip other animals’, but it’s still the juvenilism that makes the difference. It’s not just the size of our brains, but the fact that they keep learning, even after we reach sexual maturity. Learning is juvenile behavior. What we call play, when a child or a kitten does it, is actually an arena for exploratory and imitative experimentation. But while most animals settle into a routine of stereotyped behavior once they pass puberty, we keep playing, learning new things. We are virtually unique in carrying this behavior into adulthood.

Our neoteny may derive from a sort of “self-domestication” , a concept which could represent the transformation of Evolution from a physical to a cultural vector. Or perhaps we’re just not willing to admit how much of a two way street domestication is. We have been changed as much as the plants and animals we breed. And let’s face it, plants had the original “domestic idea” to begin with: staying in one place; making their own food. Maybe they started the whole thing.

Grains and farm animals are our most important domestics, but we don’t pay much attention to them. We want something wild amidst all our domesticity, so we keep our would-be wolves and wildcats, curled at the foot of the bed. Which is all well and good. There’s some sort of dialectic at work here, as culture and nature interact, and we may all be hot-house flowers in the end. I wouldn’t want to dissuade children from bringing home a wild thing or two, but I draw the line at harboring crocodiles. And leaving them in the Park is downright irresponsible.

Childishness may make us Human, but we’re going to have to grow up sometime, so I’ve got a compromise for those desiring a wild familiar. Come to the Park, and adopt a Grass Spider. Spiders make fine pets, if you insist on something unusual. A Tarantula was the most successful exotic I ever had, though she may not have seen it that way. Ten years in a glass box can’t have been much fun. I used to keep Grass Spiders in fruit jars, but why bother with the container at all?

In the Conservatory Garden, you can have your pick of arachnids. Summer’s hedges are covered with webs. Grass Spiders weave funnel webs: tubes that open into broad sheets stretched across the tops of the hedges. The spider sits in the shadows of the funnel, then races out to attack whatever insect finds its way into the web. Fierce predators always make the sexiest exotic pets. All you have to do is catch a fly or a grasshopper and throw it into the web. (This is OK, because they breed in vast numbers, and are meant to be eaten.) The spider will pounce, and you’ll get a thrill. You may even feel parental, but the spider won’t show much affection. If you look too close, it will dart back down the funnel, into the dark recesses of the shrubbery. Then you can decide whether to wait for it to reappear, which might take a while. Maybe you should just move on to the next web. Your choice will help us decide if you’re mature enough for a pet of your own.
Anyway, it’s good clean fun, and brings you closer to nature, as we like to say around here. So brush up on your fly catching, and be sure to bring the kids.
But please, no crocodiles.

- alex 8-09-2001 3:21 am


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