A red fox patrolling his London territory at night
Photo by Jamie Hall
It's believed that in order to avoid being devoured by dinosaurs, many ancient mammals became nocturnal. And it seems that in order to avoid equally unfortunate contact with humans, many modern creatures are again instinctively retreating into the night.
Having no more space in which to run and hide, there's little else they can do other than effect a temporal shift and seek the cover of darkness, thereby minimising contact with man. However, I fear this rather desperate measure will only further marginalise them and is a strategy that fails to guarantee their survival. For unlike man, dinosaurs didn't use electricity or dream of a 24/7 lifestyle.
Thus, despite the remaining pockets of darkness and the stillness of the moon, one can't help but be aware like Oliver Mellors of the incessant noise of man even in the middle of the night, including the diabolical sound of traffic. And aware also of the bright rows of lights everywhere, twinkling with a sort of brilliant malevolence:
Having no more space in which to run and hide, there's little else they can do other than effect a temporal shift and seek the cover of darkness, thereby minimising contact with man. However, I fear this rather desperate measure will only further marginalise them and is a strategy that fails to guarantee their survival. For unlike man, dinosaurs didn't use electricity or dream of a 24/7 lifestyle.
Thus, despite the remaining pockets of darkness and the stillness of the moon, one can't help but be aware like Oliver Mellors of the incessant noise of man even in the middle of the night, including the diabolical sound of traffic. And aware also of the bright rows of lights everywhere, twinkling with a sort of brilliant malevolence:
"He went down again into the darkness and seclusion of the wood. But he knew that the seclusion of the wood was illusory. The industrial noises broke the solitude, the sharp lights, though unseen, mocked it. A man could no longer be private and withdrawn."
And nor, alas, can any other creature in a world of mechanized evil "ready to destroy whatever did not conform" and ensure that all vulnerable things "perish under the rolling and running of iron".
And nor, alas, can any other creature in a world of mechanized evil "ready to destroy whatever did not conform" and ensure that all vulnerable things "perish under the rolling and running of iron".
Notes
Kaitlyn M. Gaynor et al, 'The influence of human disturbance on wildlife nocturnality', Science, Vol. 360, Issue 6394 (15 June 2018), pp. 1232-35.
According to the above paper, mammals across the globe are becoming increasingly nocturnal in order to avoid contact with humans - even if, in some cases, this increases their vulnerability to night hunters. This retreat into the darkness is also a retreat into the past; for previous work has found that many mammals originally abandoned a nocturnal existence for a daytime lifestyle roughly 65.8 million years ago (i.e., 200,000 years after the extinction of the dinosaurs).
The researchers compiled data from 76 separate studies of 62 species from around the world, including elephants, tigers, and coyotes. No mammal, it seems, apart from domesticated pets, wants anything to do with man; the mad animal, the laughing animal, the crying animal, the unhappy animal.
D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1983), Ch. 10.
Kaitlyn M. Gaynor et al, 'The influence of human disturbance on wildlife nocturnality', Science, Vol. 360, Issue 6394 (15 June 2018), pp. 1232-35.
According to the above paper, mammals across the globe are becoming increasingly nocturnal in order to avoid contact with humans - even if, in some cases, this increases their vulnerability to night hunters. This retreat into the darkness is also a retreat into the past; for previous work has found that many mammals originally abandoned a nocturnal existence for a daytime lifestyle roughly 65.8 million years ago (i.e., 200,000 years after the extinction of the dinosaurs).
The researchers compiled data from 76 separate studies of 62 species from around the world, including elephants, tigers, and coyotes. No mammal, it seems, apart from domesticated pets, wants anything to do with man; the mad animal, the laughing animal, the crying animal, the unhappy animal.
D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1983), Ch. 10.
Of course, the contemporary phenomenon of the 'urban fox' now attests to the creeping displacement of our animal friends from their increasingly eroded natural habitats (ranging from hedgehogs from English gardens to the alarming appearance of foraging bears in Canadian school playgrounds). Such discomfited and sometimes dangerous creatures are like vagabond viruses, free-floating signifiers, or Pirandelloesque characters in search of their authors. (Or, if you read The Daily Mail and lack a soul, diseased and mangy beasts who might abduct your baby after dining on the remnants of a Big Mac from your wheelie bin.)
ReplyDeleteFor readers with a little more depth and sensitivity, Al Alvarez has written powerfully (in his work 'Night': W.W. Norton, 1996) on the catastrophic extinguishing of the dark by the 24/7 illumination of the late capitalist metropolis, with all of its shadowless implications for our relationship to myth, story-telling and the primordial terror that unites us. Not seeing frees us from the tyranny of belief. As Don Paterson puts it, 'we turn from the light to see.'