I often think about the differences between being raised on the east coast, as I was, and being raised on the west coast, as my sons are. One difference I've mulled about lately is the relationship to wild animals. Growing up in the northeast, specifically suburban Boston, in the 1960s and 70s meant that the wild animals I encountered were squirrels, raccoons, skunks, garter snakes, chipmunks and a variety of small birds. At a stretch, I could go to New Hampshire or Maine and see deer, beaver, black bear and, if lucky (and I was never this lucky), moose. The small animals that shared my environment were so non-threatening as to barely register in my consciousness. Rabies from raccoons was about the worst I could imagine.
I had been in Santa Cruz only about a month or so when I was stunned one night to hear a pack of coyotes on the hunt. A few weeks after first hearing that pack, I heard a horrible series of screams that sounded like they were coming from a nearby quarry. It sounded like someone was beating a child in an outdoor echo chamber. I would have called the police, but it sounded far enough away and too indistinctly locatable to be able to give any directions. Besides, someone else closer to the scene must have heard it. It was only a couple of days later when I learned that the screams were coming from a mountain lion that had come down to our local woods (the Pogonip). Worse yet, the lion wasn't being attacked. That was just its normal cry (really hideous)! As time went on, I encountered other exotic animals: hawks, bobcats, sea lions, elephant seals and otters. Sure, the usual small animals were about, but these new animals were big, dangerous and (holy cow!) right next door!
So I've been thinking about these animals in my new environment a lot lately, especially on the "nature walks" with my boys. A couple of weeks ago we took a walk into some serious back country in a park called The Forest of Nisene Marks. We passed one of the above signs warning us that we were entering mountain lion territory and gave it little thought. But as we hiked up into a narrow arroyo late into the afternoon, I began to think about how risky I was being with my sons. I might not have much to fear from a mountain lion attack, but I was walking along with a couple of bite-sized morsels. I spent much of that walk looking over my shoulders, scanning the ridges above us for any sign of a big cat, cursing myself for being unprepared. Two days later I read that a big cat had attacked a 5 year-old boy walking with his parents in Washington State. The cat was dragging the boy away by the head but the mother managed to drive the cat off by beating its head with her metallic water bottle. The parents then carried the badly bleeding boy (head wounds!) for one whole hour back to the car certain that the lion was stalking its wounded prey. Ack! (Good thing the lion hadn't gone for the neck, must have been a young, inexperienced one.)
Since reading that article, I've started carrying my old pilgrimage walking staff with us on our hikes, figuring that plastic water bottles might not be as effective as metal ones. I'm also planning on buying one of those fog horns in a bottle that I used to hear blown at Red Sox games. Whack 'em and blast 'em if need be, I tell myself.
But I managed to keep these east coaster's fears to myself until our last hike, yesterday, in Wilder Ranch. This time, the boys spotted the mountain lion warning sign and spent the first 10 minutes of the walk trying to figure out the risk. I assured them that Wilder Ranch was a good place for us (that's why I chose it), but I was also concerned about them getting scared of nature.
As a born and bred east coaster, it will take me a long time to get blasé about the wildlife in Santa Cruz, the way I was about the animals I grew up with in Boston. What will it mean for my sons' attitudes about animals that they are growing up in a place where wildlife is really wild?
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