Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

by Mary Roach

We have human-wildlife conflict and human-human conflict. We have ranchers and farmers and animal lovers hating on each other in a cultural clash that can feel as dug-in as the politics in this country. Kill them all! Don’t harm a single one!

Doorbell cameras are the mammograms of wildlife biology.

Even under ideal smelling circumstances, there will be a point, many points, where a hound loses the scent. This is called, yes, “a lose.” To relocate the scent, good hounds will run a zigzag, sweeping wide left and right until they pick it up again. I tried this on a street near my office, after a young man passed by in a reek of Axe body spray. I let him turn the corner and disappear from view, then waited a few minutes. By zigzagging hound dog–style, I was able to track him to his destination, a cheesesteak place on the next block.

The poisoning campaigns seemed almost more like spite than pest control, a practice undertaken out of frustration and anger, rather than documented results.

In that possible future, people’s reaction to the damage brought about by wildlife is something akin to acceptance. Or maybe resignation is closer. Anyway, something far short of the conscience-free rush to annihilation that characterized previous decades and centuries. If people are able to step outside the anger, they may find that more humane approaches are also more effective.