In most places, signs of spring inspire feelings of hope and renewal. On an Illinois college campus, some of them, at least, stir up memories of seven shocking attacks that took place there a year ago, along with fears that this violent history will repeat itself.
A young woman who survived one of last year's attacks recounted her ordeal for the AP.
While walking through Thompson Woods on the Southern Illinois Univesity campus, Tammy Emery...a secretary in the political science department...heard a rustling and saw ''this deer was headed right toward me, full charge." Emery never saw any fawn, only the adult deer with eyes wide.
''I could tell it was angry, but I wasn't sure what about," she said. ''I know by the time I was in the area she was really mad and going to take it all out on me. I couldn't have run if I tried."
In an instant, the deer knocked the woman to the ground and delivered a flurry of kicks. Emery, screaming, curled into a ball as the snorting animal rained blows on her, slicing open one of her ears and leaving her with huge bruises and a hoof print on her hand....Emery has not been back in that stretch of the woods since.
At least three other victims were injured seriously enough to require hospitalization. SIU officials believe the attacks were the work of more than one suspect.
According to Clay Nelson, a wildlife ecologist at SIU, the does that attacked Emery and others were acting in defense of their fawns. Nelson said that in some cases, victims actually tried to pet fawns.
Since the attackers remain at large, and may in fact have multiplied, the university is taking aggressive measiures to protect members of its community.
[W]ith fawning season nearing its peak -- last year's attacks happened between June 7 and 15 -- Nielsen and other campus officials are using signs, radio spots, e-mails, and fliers about the deer in Thompson Woods. Later this month, Nielsen will lead a seminar titled ''Avoiding Deer-Human Encounters of the Third Kind on Campus."
This is not the kind of public safety issue campuses often deal with, at least in my experience, but it may become a more common one, with green space elsewhere diminishing, and many campuses hosting arboreta or wooded recreational lands that offer cover for wildlife. At SIU, Nelson acknowledged that one reason for increasing human-cervid friction on campus is "the clearing of trees and windbreaks around the campus's edges [that] has forced the animals into Thompson Woods, which is 20 or so acres with hundreds of yards of paved trails."
But these incidents raise concerns beyond biology and groundskeeping which are actually close to matters that have preocccupied universities in recent years. Specifically, they broach questions of inclusion and institutional identity. Deer now seem to be a part of the SIU community that cannot now be disregarded. How far must the university go to accomodate this ecologically disadvantaged population now knocking (stamping?) at its gates? As institutions of higher learning strive to adapt to sweeping economic and social changes, and to new demands from the (human) populations they serve, to what extent ought they also incorporate wildlife preservation, other than as a scientific discipline, into their missions? Also, this seems another case where universities become receptacles for things which the rest of the world discards: Marxism, for instance.
I'm less than half joking. As a student of environmental humanities, I'm intrigued by wildlife taking a formidable and non-prescribed role on a university campus. Being occasionally in a position where an animal could harm me, I do have sympathy for the victims of these attacks. If a doe were stomping me, I'm not sure I'd defend myself any more successfully than Ms. Emery. But as disturbing as they are, the events remind us that the usual campus business of learning, teaching, and career-chasing takes place in a larger ecology that is not fenced or climate controlled, or concerned about its US News & World Report ranking. I often suspect that if human occupations commonly went forward with awareness of this larger context, we'd avoid many of the environmental conflicts we wrestle with today--the market economy is not the only aspect of the outside world to which academia remains relatively indifferent. In short, this is what we in the biz like call a teachable moment. It would be disappointing to see the deer attacks provoke SIU to reaction only, and not reflection.
Tags: Nature; Academia
No comments:
Post a Comment