On my weekends here in South Carolina’s low country, I can commonly be found either exploring a new beach or woodlands. It’s my escape from the gradually increasing fast-paced life of downtown; and, as a biology major, a favorite pass time. On my outings, I’ve seen a vast amount of South Carolina’s wild residents from deer to alligators. While these encounters are typical for me, they definitely aren’t for everyone. When I told one of my friends from D.C. that my ecology lab involved us wading in wild swamps, she seemed quite horrified. I didn’t think much of it until I had to read an article on American culture and nature for a sociology class. The article is titled Natures Looking Glass and it delved in to how a pair of red-tailed hawks fascinated city-goers in Manhattan. The hawks chose the ledge of an NYU building to start building a nest to raise a family. The students took notice and set up a camera to capture what everyone felt was “pure nature”. They were all entranced by the hawks’ daily life and a professor took notice of the students’ view of nature. They looked at it as “unspoiled” and “unaffected by humans”. Their bubble was soon popped when the hawk couple began to add human products to their nesting materials. People criticized the choice of material as “unnatural” and disrupted peoples images of the hawks being “natural”. Sociologists went on to describe how people living in more urban setting tend to view nature as separate from humans. They termed this as “asocial nature”. Sitting back for a moment, I realized how odd this sounded to me. Growing up in rural South Carolina, nature was everywhere.  It was totally normal to see white tail deer a few times a week or to see otters around the lake streams. I personally had never thought of nature as separate from humans. After college, I plan on being an ecologist and after reading how some people have an asocial nature viewpoint; I think its even more imperative to educate people on nature. While I don’t think people should go up to bobcats or alligators wanting to “connect with nature” I do think that people should understand that we as humans are also animals and that we should not subtract ourselves from that category given that we share a lot of common needs with the rest of the animal kingdom. Conservation biology would probably go a lot smoother if people accepted themselves as part of nature and thus have even better reason to protect it. I encourage everyone to get to know your local ecosystems.

Source:Angelo, Hillary, and Colin Jerlomack. “Nature’s Looking Glass.” Vol. 11, ser. 1, 23 July 2012, pp. 24–29. 1, doi:10.1177/1536504212436492.