Pennsylvania Game News - July 2009 - 64

HE SHALE-COVERED slope rose steeply in front of us. It took an act of faith to imagine the scale and magnitude of force it had taken 250 million years ago when our then flat plate of earth was pushed into these undulating folds of rock. It was dizzying to try to envision how the product of all of that massive movement had been turned on its head over the intervening eons by the steady erosion from streams like the one we had just forded. And it was still going on, moving toward a form that we cannot know, any more than the peoples that preceded us on this land could have known what we would see now. As that brave young man in Utah said, “Geologic time includes now.” Having done this enough together, we said little as we readied our gear and finally slipped back into the familiar burden of our packs. We turned our gaze to a small wispy hemlock standing sentinel beside the root wad that was our destination. Jumping the small stream we made our oblique way up the slope, now bent nearly double to keep our balance. We made the distance slowly, trying to be as quiet as possible on the sliding slope. Coming closer we could see that the downed tree that was our focus was only a thin shadow of its former self, the bulk now gone to poor soil. From the graceful shape of the six or so feet that remained of the butt we could see that it, too, was likely a hemlock. It was no wonder that trees like this were hollowed for long-lasting water lines by our forbearers. After its normally long life it had taken still another long time to become the fragile, crumbling structure it was today. Its admirable permanence stood in stark contrast to the rootless transience so common in our lives today. The bear seemed startled by the dart, although she had felt it in each of the last five of her 25 springs. But she was, by all measures, truly old now, and it seemed likely that her hearing wasn’t as keen as it must have been in her prime. Her coat was luxurious in contrast to how it had appeared in her muddy dens of the last two years. But even taking into account that she hadn’t eaten since fall, she was in thin flesh beneath it. Before today we had wondered what primal urge had sent her far from her normal home range this past summer. One possible explanation came when we saw the extreme wear on her teeth; the molars were all she had left now, and they were eroded into undulating ridges, like the stark spines of this very earth in whose bosom she took her winter rest yet again. With so little grinding surface left, was she in search of the acorns or cherries that were so noticeably absent from her normal haunts, knowing that without something she could still at least split and gum down she would certainly perish? We spoke in tones even more hushed than usual as we adjusted her radio collar and finished her physical examination. It was a comfort to imagine that a lifetime of cubs had become the beneficiaries of her strength and adaptability. Finally, respectfully, we scuttled crab-like down the clattering slope and back along the path. We had been given once again the lesson of our interconnectedness, and been gently reminded that we are but small players on the broad stages of time and life. We had been encouraged to regain our humility by the silent, digniWalter O. Cottrell fied, testimony of PGC Wildlife Veterinarian our elders. 64 GAME NEWS T Elders

Pennsylvania Game News - July 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - July 2009