Animals In Wild Animals

Our beliefs, culture, and needs as humans influence our relationships with wildlife and how we view each individual species as well as how we treat/preserve them. After reading Wild Ones, it is obvious that the author Jon Mooallem and the others mentioned in the book believe that polar bears, birds, and bees are specific animals that deem worthy of protection. Mooallem provides many examples of people who give reasoning as to why we should help preserve these animals. Mooallem uses these specific people’s backgrounds to show the difference of opinions between someone who has knowledge of the animal, versus someone that only adores the animal because of the animals looks.

For instance, bears have evolved from scary animals that humans feared,

Dancing is seen as a form of entertainment to humans when humans are dancing never mind when a bear is doing it. Once a human sees how a bear can be taught skills like dancing, their opinion quickly turns from frightened to sympathetic. Eventually these positive views of bears are shown to children and eventually result in “handwritten pleas from children to save the polar bear” (pgs. 52-53). Overall, human’s thoughts on the polar bear depend on how they were introduced to the bear. For example, if someone sees a bear doing harmless actions like entertaining people, they will push towards saving them but, if they see a bear attacking a human or ripping apart another animal they may not care as much as to saving

108) which is why we see them on children’s clothing or household items and associate them with feminine actions. In Wild Ones, Mooallem mentions that if you woke up with a butterfly on your nose, you would not go ballistic as you would if there was a creepy, ugly spider on your face. But why? Important to realize, a butterfly like the Lange’s metalmark is minute making it “seem vulnerable to the point of helplessness” (pg. 111) as quoted in the book. Due to the fact that this butterfly is endangered and its peek count is dropping, people like Liam from the book, go to places like the dunes to count them. They volunteer to count them “because they want to not because they have to” (pg. 107). The only reason humans care about preserving butterflies is because of how precious they are. If they were to have huge eyes or scary patterns, preserving them would not deem so important to humans. For the most part, “It was all a matter of age and perspective, of course” (pg. 125) whether someone cares enough to protect