Landmines of dog poop are disgusting. Like anyone, I detest a shoe full of gooey, stinky yesterday's recycled dog food. So, I pick it up. Most of the time.
Out on the trail, Nicholai prefers – nine times out of ten – to scuttle off into the brush to do his business in private. In contrast to my in-town behavior, I do not follow him there, plastic bag over my hand like a mitt, ready to scoop his waste the minute it exits his body. I don't want to for one thing, but more than that, I figure it's better off there. Animals have been s----ing in the woods for millennia. Rain will pound the poop into the soil, sun will dry the terds, and insects will gnaw away at the foul remains. Global warming will not be compounded and no one will die from the quiet composting of a pile of dog-doo.
On the other hand, the piles of garbage we stumble across on our walks every summer morning will not fade gracefully from view. I entered a park early this morning passing signs reminding me to "obey scoop laws." As has been true for at least the past fifteen years I have frequented the area, it wasn't dog poop that littered the trails. It wasn't dog poop that cluttered the beaches, or soiled the picnic areas, or overflowed the garbage cans. As Nicholai rooted through piles of left-over picnics, I wanted to shout. Where is the sign that says "Pick up your F___ing Trash?" Where is the sign that says Styrofoam takes 500 years to dissolve (and when it does, what exactly does it dissolve to)? Where is the sign that says pack out your plastic fast-food trays, your baby's used disposable diapers, your cans, bottles, paper plates, chicken bones, cigarette butts, and toilet paper?? Where is the sign that says plastic six-pack collars wash into rivers and seas and slowly strangle animals?
On a whale-watching trip in New Zealand, the tiny boat I rode in rounded a rock outcrop in the Kaikoura bay. On the rocks sat a young seal, its neck squeezed by a discarded six-pack collar. "He'll die," the guide said. "As he grows bigger, the collar will slowly choke him to death." "Why don't we do something?" I asked, realizing as the words left my mouth the futility. "We can't catch him. And even if we could, for every one we see, there are many more." The hazards of plastic six-pack collars are not a theory to me; in twenty years, I have not forgotten the sad eyes of the choking seal as our boat drifted past.
Dog walkers and dog friends, we need to scoop up dog poop – especially from parks, picnic areas, and my favorite – playgrounds. But, heaven help the next person who makes a comment my way about the catastrophic problem of dog poop.
I'd like to see some responsibility about trash. It would be fantastic if we could all make a whole lot less of it, but failing that, at least pick it the hell up.
I remember coming upon a campsite in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (a wilderness area of lakes and rivers in northern MN), full of trash that someone had left. We packed it out.
ReplyDeleteI remember my first trip to the BWCA some 30 years ago; we could dip our cups over the side of the canoe and safely drink the water. Five years later, we could only get safe water from the middle of the lakes; giardia had polluted the water closer to shore. I'm sure much of the problem was people who relieved themselves in this once-pristine area and left it to seep into the water at the portages. Pack it out, people.
The last time I went to the BWCA, a few years later, we used a water filter; the water had deteriorated that much in just a few years.
Today, I fight tears because the trees at the dog park, including the endangered madrone trees, are being repeatedly vandalized. A dog park is hard on vegetation; humans are doing damage that often seems ignorant at best, petty and mean at worst.
Where is the reverence we all need to feel for this earth that shelters us? Why do we not understand that we can't keep hurting her and continue to survive? Why are money and bulldozers more important than a forest?