Rewilding UNF

Our mascot is the osprey, presumably because the bird of prey status may pervade the university’s athletic endeavors. Whatever the reason, it only seems natural. Animal mascots are everywhere: schools, sports teams, companies, etc. I am ignorant to any ties the school or land may have to the actual animal osprey as I am only aware of the geese on campus. The campus also has a couple of ponds that hold various fish and turtles. Most of the trees I can think of have been implanted with regard to aesthetic desire. We have sidewalks that go through the natural flora (which surely must hold fauna), but there is always yellow tape surrounding man-made burrows for pipes to lay or drying cement with steel and plastic flags marking the business of someone else, of progress, of construction. I think it’s only repulsive (and only slightly still) when I see a trapped lizard in the cement or a frog sharing inch-deep water with a soda can. The campus has sufficient areas for disposing of unwanted plastics and such, but we’d rather get it out of our hands as soon as we’re done with it. And so, it ends up next to our feet, kicked around, at the base of a tree, lodged in an osprey’s throat. The argument that arises is that we aren’t wild. At least not in the way we consume, not with all this plastic, all this synthetic material that discolors, misshapes, harms, and ruins the whole thing (the word environment leaves us–the talkers–out, and this [expletive] is certainly hurting my body). People choose to be ignorant, and they forever will. Regardless of this, I do not hate them and I will not stop speaking what I think can help. If science has ever shown me anything, it has illustrated that the power of even the smallest thing can be unimaginably immense. Or maybe history taught me that. Yeah, I think it was history, and whatever it was that happened in response to Pearl Harbor.