Gorilla Extinct Reaserch Paper -- essays research papers

     The first recorded gorilla sighting (by western civilization) was in the 5th century B.C. by a Roman Explorer. at a time every day nearly hundreds of gorillas disappear because of an unnatural death. This death is nothing mysterious, but is caused by poachers that trap these gorillas and kill them exclusively for their hands and sometimes plain their heads. Besides that even construction and agriculture take the homes away from gorillas that were especially set aside. For these reasons gorillas are disappearing rapidly and moldiness be taken vex of. The western lowland gorilla is listed as an endangered species. Others are Eastern lowland, and Mountain Gorilla.     A population of endangered gorillas life-time in a topic commonalty in the eastern elective Republic of Congo has dropped fifty percent because of rebels, says the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society. Around the border of Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwand a, Kahuzi-Biega content park is now a battleground, with different rebel groups fighting in the area.Now many rebels and refugees living in the parks borders, bamboo is harvested and used for grammatical construction materials, and hunt large amounts of wildlife for food and commercial trade. Even the number of illegal snares has grown. It seems that for one reason or another citizenry do not requirement to stop hunting for Apes or Gorillas.      Man is gorillas only enemy. Because of the action of male gorillas protecting their groups with such determination from hunters, adult males positive a folktale well-nigh the ferocity of gorillas. Gorillas defense of standing and chest-beating make them a perfect target. Like all tightly knit social groups, gorillas allow defend their young. They defend them with their lives. Fights amid gorillas rarely ever happen and are resolved through threatening gestures. If there is an trespasser, the young and the female go to the safer ground. If the intruder runs away it will be caught and killed, but if it just stands there, it will not be harmed.     Gorillas are generally quiet. They are not actually capable of qualification the same sounds as human beings. They make about 15-25 different special noises. Hooting tin can carry a mile through the forest and is usually exchange between rival silverbacks. A hooting sound is used for an alarm o... ... Koko understands approximately 2,000 words of spoken English. Koko initiates the majority of conversations with her human companions and typically constructs statements averaging three to six words. Koko has a tested IQ of between 70 and 95 on a human scale, where 100 is considered "normal." Michael, the male silverback gorilla who grew up with Koko, had a working phraseology of more than 600 signs.     The way you can help keep gorillas from becoming extinct is that you can deny any gorillaparts that are being sell to you and report them to the authorities, donate coin to the Gorilla Foundation at www.koko.org or to the zoo nearest you. The extinctions of these animals are in great danger. Just by only destroying the forest, we are also destroying the habitats of undimmed gorillas. Because of human caused disorders and disasters, gorillas will not live for ever.Common Name     GorillaScientific Name     Gorilla Gorilla hostel     PrimataFamily     PongidaeGenus     Gorilla category     Mammalia Gorilla Extinct Reaserch Paper -- essays research papers      The first recorded gorilla sighting (by western civilization) was in the 5th century B.C. by a Roman Explorer. Now every day nearly hundreds of gorillas disappear because of an unnatural death. This death is nothing mysterious, but is caused by poachers that trap these g orillas and kill them simply for their hands and sometimes even their heads. Besides that even construction and agriculture take the homes away from gorillas that were especially set aside. For these reasons gorillas are disappearing rapidly and must be taken care of. The western lowland gorilla is listed as an endangered species. Others are Eastern lowland, and Mountain Gorilla.     A population of endangered gorillas living in a national park in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has dropped fifty percent because of rebels, says the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society. Around the border of Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Kahuzi-Biega National park is now a battleground, with different rebel groups fighting in the area.Now many rebels and refugees living in the parks borders, bamboo is harvested and used for building materials, and hunt large amounts of wildlife for food and commercial trade. Even the number of illegal snares has grown. It seems that for one reason or another people do not want to stop hunting for Apes or Gorillas.      Man is gorillas only enemy. Because of the action of male gorillas protecting their groups with such determination from hunters, humans developed a folktale about the ferocity of gorillas. Gorillas defense of standing and chest-beating make them a perfect target. Like all tightly knit social groups, gorillas will defend their young. They defend them with their lives. Fights between gorillas rarely ever happen and are resolved through threatening gestures. If there is an intruder, the young and the female go to the safer ground. If the intruder runs away it will be caught and killed, but if it just stands there, it will not be harmed.     Gorillas are generally quiet. They are not actually capable of making the same sounds as human beings. They make about 15-25 different special noises. Hooting can carry a mile through the forest and is usually exchanged between rival silverbacks. A hooting sound is used for an alarm o... ... Koko understands approximately 2,000 words of spoken English. Koko initiates the majority of conversations with her human companions and typically constructs statements averaging three to six words. Koko has a tested IQ of between 70 and 95 on a human scale, where 100 is considered "normal." Michael, the male silverback gorilla who grew up with Koko, had a working vocabulary of more than 600 signs.     The way you can help keep gorillas from becoming extinct is that you can deny any gorillaparts that are being sold to you and report them to the authorities, donate money to the Gorilla Foundation at www.koko.org or to the zoo nearest you. The extinctions of these animals are in great danger. Just by simply destroying the forest, we are also destroying the habitats of smart gorillas. Because of human caused disorders and disasters, gorillas will not live for ever.Common Nam e     GorillaScientific Name     Gorilla GorillaOrder     PrimataFamily     PongidaeGenus     GorillaClass     Mammalia

Fatherhood, Responsibility, and the Internet :: Technology Parenting Essays

Fatherhood, Responsibility, and the Internet As if you needed another reason not to verify a skank(Diatribes, par 1). This is the opening statework forcet on one of the endless amounts of web situates on the internet. This particular website, and many others, is about a certain case of beathood. On the web one can find a site about pretty much anything, and when looking into a particular subject like fatherhood they can find all different types of views on fatherhood, organizations of fathers, and even advice about fathering. The website that contains the above sentence is a site that discusses stories about some men that do not believe they should pay child support. In some of the cases, the man is unaware that he was the biologic father of the child, but was ordered by courtyard to pay to help support the child. Other cases were about divorced couples where the man is upset about providing for the children after the separation even if they are his biological children. In the view of Daniel Callahan, the author of the article Bioethics and Fatherhood, this website is nonsense. He argues that, given the obvious importance of procreation in bringing human life into existence, fathers flummox a significant moral responsibility for the children they voluntarily procreate. In the situations where the biological fathers just dont want to give up their cash for the children, Callahans argument can be directly applied. For the other cases, the argument can still be used because those men had believed that they were the real fathers at first. The incident that they arent obligated to take on the responsibility of caring for that child, does not mean that all responsibility should be taken off the real biological father and put on the man that thought he was. The website, Womens Health Care Services, also agrees with argument and says, The father of a child has a healthy responsibility to provide for the support, educational, medical and other needs of that child. Therefore the dad should at least be there financially for their child. The men in the Diatribes site also are hostile and put the blame on the mothers.Fatherhood, Responsibility, and the Internet Technology Parenting EssaysFatherhood, Responsibility, and the Internet As if you needed another reason not to trust a skank(Diatribes, par 1). This is the opening statement on one of the endless amounts of websites on the internet. This particular website, and many others, is about a certain aspect of fatherhood. On the web one can find a site about pretty much anything, and when looking into a particular subject like fatherhood they can find all different types of views on fatherhood, organizations of fathers, and even advice about fathering. The website that contains the above sentence is a site that discusses stories about some men that do not believe they should pay child support. In some of the cases, t he man is unaware that he was the biological father of the child, but was ordered by court to pay to help support the child. Other cases were about divorced couples where the man is upset about providing for the children after the separation even if they are his biological children. In the view of Daniel Callahan, the author of the article Bioethics and Fatherhood, this website is nonsense. He argues that, given the obvious importance of procreation in bringing human life into existence, fathers have a significant moral responsibility for the children they voluntarily procreate. In the situations where the biological fathers just dont want to give up their money for the children, Callahans argument can be directly applied. For the other cases, the argument can still be used because those men had believed that they were the real fathers at first. The fact that they arent obligated to take on the responsibility of caring for that child, does not mean that all responsibility shoul d be taken off the real biological father and put on the man that thought he was. The website, Womens Health Care Services, also agrees with argument and says, The father of a child has a legal responsibility to provide for the support, educational, medical and other needs of that child. Therefore the dad should at least be there financially for their child. The men in the Diatribes site also are hostile and put the blame on the mothers.

The Problems with Bandwagon Patriotism Essay -- Politics Political Ess

The Problems with Bandwagon Patriotism Ill admit it, Im Ameri stooge. Im an American and I admit, I enjoy it very thoroughly. I enjoy having the right to a free education, choice in who rules over me (who rules, who cares? pun intended), and the right to walk around the streets at three a.m. because I can. But I do not librate myself patriotic, in any way, sense or fashion. The astounding number of Americans nowadays who consider themselves patriotic can overwhelm the small few who were there for America before 9/11. But just what can we do about the bandwagon nationalism and its abuse on middle-eastern oriented Americans its manipulation of Americans gullibility for cheap trinkets, and the backing of leaders in a contend we preceptort belong in. I believe its time to instill more peaceful tactics in our country today. Its time to fall apart calling ourselves Americans and start calling ourselves humans. So far America has lost more soldiers in Iraq since the war ended than we actually lost in the war itself and people of Middle Eastern decent have suffered more embarrassing attacks than most average Americans. Perhaps its time to reconsider the Patriot Act, because truth be told its not merely what our true patriotic forefathers had in mind when they wrote that all men were created equal(despite the fact these men had slaves). Most Americans that watch CNN or FOXnews can tell you that exactly one month after the attacks on the twin towers, that Congress passes The Patriot Acts. But what most Americans cant tell you is what exactly is inside of these acts. According to the actual document itself, the purpose of The Patriot Acts isTo deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around... ...ic) descent she gave me perhaps one of the most memorable quotes I felt I could have used in my paper. Im not sure of the legalities of this, or if I should have gotten a indite paper, but she said if I wanted to I could use thi s quote of hers. We were sitting in Barnes and Nobles, and the topic of stealing came up and how ridiculously easy it would be to steal something. Upon hearing this she said, It might be easy for you, but whenever Im shopping somewhere I almost always feel the workers eyeball on me, like Im F(bleep)ing Osama Bin Ladens daughter or something. So what does this say about Bandwagon Patriotism? All it does is moot Americans another reason to hate, gives scared Americans another scapegoat to point the finger at. So armed with my solutions I hope you lead ask yourself, just when will we stop being Americans, and start being humans?

Analysis of Various International Environmental Conflicts Essay

Throughout the world, conflicts over environmental issues abound. As technology progresses and our world continues to become more interconnected, an understanding of the worlds environmental crises is important and prerequisite for the well-being of both humankind and the environment. This paper addresses and comments on the issues presented in the following books bionomics of an African Rain Forest by Thomas T. Struhsaker, Green Guerillas redact by Helen Collinson, NIMBY Politics in Japan by S.Hayden Lesbirel, Where Environmental Concerns and Security Strategies Meet by James A. Winnefeld and Mary E. Morris, and Innovations in International Environmental dialogue edited by Lawrence E. Susskind, William Moomaw and Teresa L. Hill. Innovations in International Environmental Negotiation has not been given a specific share for discussion, but is referenced in the section covering Where Environmental Concerns and Security Strategies Meet.Where Environmental Concerns and Security Strat egies MeetThis book is interesting in the way that it draws a particularly strong link surrounded by political (domestic and international) conflict and environmental crises. The authors chose to focus on environmental crises and conflicts in the Middle East and in East Asia, but the concepts discussed could easily be apply to political conflicts with underlying environmental crises worldwide. In traditional methods of security strategy policymaking, environmental issues are often given little thought and are order to separate governmental departments. However, the authors propose that not only do environmental crises often increase the risk of political conflicts, but they can also pass up the conflict itself as well as the outcomes and damage incur... ...dressed not only from an environmental perspective, but also from both a global and a socioeconomic perspective.ReferencesCollinson, Helen ed. Green Guerillas Environmental Conflicts and Initiatives in Latin America and the C aribbean A Reader. (1996) London Russell Press.Lesbirel, S.Hayden. NIMBY Politics in Japan Energy Siting and the Management of Environmental Conflict. (1998) Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press.Struhsaker, Thomas T. Ecology of an African Rainforest. (1997) Gainesville, FL University Press of Florida.Susskind, Lawrence E., William Moomaw and Teresa L. Hill ed. Innovations in International Environmental Negotiation. (1997) Cambridge, MA PON Books.Winnefeld, James A. and Mary E. Morris. Where Environmental Concerns and Security Strategies Meet Green Conflict in Asia and the Middle East. (1994) Santa Monica, CA RAND.

Analysis of As You Like It by Daniel Maclise :: As You Like It Daniel Maclise Literature Essays

Analysis of As You Like It by Daniel MacliseDuring the time that France was divided into provinces (or dukedoms as they were called) there reigned in one of these provinces an usurper, who had deposed and banished his elder brother, the lawful duke. The duke, who was thus driven from his dominions, retired with a few faithful followers to the forest of Arden and here the good duke lived with his loving friends, who had put themselves into a voluntary exile for his sake, while their land and revenues enriched the false usurper and custom soon do the life of careless ease they led here more than sweet to them than the pomp and uneasy splendour of a courtiers life. Here they lived like the old Robin Hood of England, and to this forest many noble youths daily resorted from the court, and did egest the time carelessly, as they did who lived in the golden age. In the summer they lay along under the fine shade of the large forest trees, marking the kittenish sports of the wild deer and so fond were they of these poor dappled fools, who seemed to be the native inhabitants of the forest, that it grieved them to be forced to kill them to supply themselves with venison for their food. When the cold winds of winter made the duke feel the change of his adverse fortune, he would endure it patiently, and say These chilling winds which blow upon my body are true counsellors they do not flatter, but stand for truly to me my condition and though they bite sharply, their tooth is nothing like so keen as that of unkindness and ingratitude. I find that howsoever men speak against adversity, to date some sweet uses are to be extracted from it like the jewel, precious for medicine, which is taken from the head of the -venomous and despised toad. In this manner did the patient duke draw a serviceable moral from everything that he saw and by the help of this moralizing turn, in that life of his, remote from public haunts, he could find tongues in trees, books in the foot race b rooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. The banished duke had an only daughter, named Rosalind, whom the usurper, duke Frederick, when he banished her father, still retained in his court as a companion for his own daughter Celia.

Analysis of As You Like It by Daniel Maclise :: As You Like It Daniel Maclise Literature Essays

Analysis of As You Like It by Daniel MacliseDuring the time that France was divided into provinces (or dukedoms as they were called) there reigned in one of these provinces an usurper, who had deposed and banished his elder brother, the lawful duke. The duke, who was thus driven from his dominions, retired with a few faithful followers to the forest of Arden and here the good duke lived with his loving friends, who had put themselves into a voluntary exile for his sake, while their land and revenues enriched the false usurper and custom soon make the life of careless ease they led here much sweet to them than the pomp and uneasy splendour of a courtiers life. Here they lived like the old Robin Hood of England, and to this forest many noble youths daily resorted from the court, and did swift the time carelessly, as they did who lived in the golden age. In the summer they lay along under the fine shade of the large forest trees, marking the elfish sports of the wild deer and so fond were they of these poor dappled fools, who seemed to be the native inhabitants of the forest, that it grieved them to be forced to kill them to supply themselves with venison for their food. When the cold winds of winter made the duke feel the change of his adverse fortune, he would endure it patiently, and say These chilling winds which blow upon my body are true counsellors they do not flatter, but consist truly to me my condition and though they bite sharply, their tooth is nothing like so keen as that of unkindness and ingratitude. I find that howsoever men speak against adversity, til now some sweet uses are to be extracted from it like the jewel, precious for medicine, which is taken from the head of the -venomous and despised toad. In this manner did the patient duke draw a usable moral from everything that he saw and by the help of this moralizing turn, in that life of his, remote from public haunts, he could find tongues in trees, books in the footrace brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. The banished duke had an only daughter, named Rosalind, whom the usurper, duke Frederick, when he banished her father, still retained in his court as a companion for his own daughter Celia.

Morality and Ethics Essay

As two members of our group are children of sea captains, the case of Exxon Valdez oil free fall was extremely interesting for our team. It demonstrates that ircreditworthy behavior of people can lead to the some devastating human-caused environmental disasters of the past century. Multiple factors have been identified as contributing to the incident.In our groups opinion, the most important are the captain was drunk creation on duty, the third mate failed to properly playing period the vessel, possibly due to fatigue or excessive workload and finally, the Raycas radar system was broken, because the company found it too expensive to fix it. To begin with, we venture that due to the restricted responsibilities of the crew comparing to the captain, its commitment was relatively low. Therefore the main motivation was their salary and working conditions didnt play a role. plausibly that is why sailors were ready to work overloaded shifts in order to earn as much as they could, to ou r mind, despite the fact that physically it was impossible. Thus the responsible sailor had to assess his ability to steer the ship before beginning the watch in this case he had no right to do that being too tired. Talking about the captain of the ship, our group found him being the most irresponsible person in this situation. He did not act correspond to the ethical norms.Firstly, captain is the person, who is fully responsible for the ship and the crew, but he dared to exceed the allowed norm of the alcohol. Secondly, he had to insist on the radar repair. Finally, he is the champion who is responsible for the crews adequate performance. Nevertheless, Exxon is fully liable for this disaster and the subsequent oil spill being the owner of the tanker. Hence, in our opinion, the company had to birth for the cleaning up the oil spill. To sum up, our group sees the ethical dilemma only concerning the crew. They had two choices only.On the one hand, when signing the contract they au tomatically see to fulfill their duties, that is why no one can afford to skip the watch even if he fills tired. On the other hand, the third mate had no right to expose to danger the ship and the rest of the crew by taking the watch in unacceptable condition. We would like to add, that despite the fact that this was the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters, it pushed the government to develop new laws in this industry and turned to be a good lesson for the human beings overall.

Alice in Wonderland Essay

Its almost impossible to set this story in the time and in the lacuna because nearly all of it forms part of a dream Alice was very tired and suddenly she felt asleep and began to dream. However, she didnt realize that whatever she saw in Wonderland was only a dream, a product of her imagination but not the reality. Anyway, we could say that there are two main stages the real world and Wonderland, the untrue one. In Wonderland all is nonsense and strange, you dont know whats going to happen in each situation. The real world only appears at the beginning and at the end of the story when she wakes up from her nap. Because of it, this world is not very important for readers and for Alice too, who prefers living in a world completely contrastive from hers. Interesting and strange things only happen in Wonderland where everyone is mad. Moreover, there we can see a lot of different places where Alice spends her time like the rabbit-hole, the sept of the rabbit, the garden, the house o f the Dukes. The time is not very clear because Alice thinks that she has spent a lot of time there, but all her adventures only last the time of her little nap. When you are sleeping you can believe that you work spent a lot of time dreaming and perhaps it has been no longer than fifteen minutes. She doesnt have any kind of time in Wonderland and everything happens all at once and very quickly so that she didnt realize.

Christian Places of Worship

- Christian places of latria should be plain and simple? Discuss. Ollie Gardner This roll is a very strong subject for certain people and religion. For example the Catholics think that it is right to evince their appreciation of god by designing their places of worship with mammoth stained glass windows, huge organs and a big bold altar etc. However the Protestants started out rebelling against the Catholics saying that you should non go for to show your appreciation with money and gold but with commitment and feeling should be enough.No religion is right or wrong. Looking at the Protestant way of thinking about it that places of worship should be plain and simple. I can see many reasons why people do believe in this thought. One reason could be because they think that god does not have to be bribed or given these big expensive gifts to appreciate his followers and the people. That only if showing your commitment to him and well being should be enough to gain your love or tha t you already have his love. God in my tear of visualise is not someone to judge someone by his or her wealth but by his or her actions.Meaning that wherever you worship in a church, at home in your bedroom, on the street in an alleyway with beer cans on the floor is good enough to show your respect and thanks. He does not think of you anymore by showing him and giving him gifts with great wealth. You might be quite poor and cannot afford to do anything quite so big and bold and might just want to do your receive prayer at home or anywhere of your choice, which is still fine. On the other helping hand I can see why you would want to show your appreciation via gifts, big services and god plated lecterns etc.Its like on Valentines day when you give you loved ones a present, card or gift of some point. I know the feeling of walking in to the Bath Abbey and being winded away by the remarkableness and memorising stain glassed windows that fill the room with colour. You do in some wa y feel that sense of astonishment and holiness as you witness something like the Bath Abbey. I can also see the commitment to god by giving him gifts of great wealth and big glamorous services. It shows hat if they have been lucky enough to be very wealthy or maybe not that much but to give what they can does show a certain amount of strong commitment. In conclusion either decision is fine, and god will not think of you any differently. In my point of view I would go with Protestant way of belief just because I think that god loves you whoever you are and we can show are own love to him, not by fancy lecterns and pulpits and a big choir but just by however way we feel like. Could be at home or anywhere that is most comfortable to you.

My Ideal Wife

My Ideal Wife, a Descriptive EssayA popular saying goes, Marriage involves three rings the engagement ring, the married couple ring, and the suffering. If it is jointly felt that marriage is so difficult, why do most people wish to get married? Probably, the instinct to let out a catch is inherent in hu populace beings and I am no exception. Somehow, I believe that there is somebody out there who was made especially for me, and, one time I find her, we will fall in love, and get married and only then will I feel complete. So, how will I actualize the right girl for me?What qualities should I be looking for? It is very important to have a person you can always rely on. I urgency my wife to be this person. She would be tightly connected with my life. I deficiency to wake up by her tender kiss. The first thing I would instruct would be her smiling face. She would make a breakfast for us. We would call each other from time to time during all day. In the evening I regard to hav e dinner with her, cooked by her, and fall asleep holding my arms around her. First of all, my future wife should be my best friend. I want to office all my troubles, sorrows and dreams with her.She would never let me down and I could always rely on her. Secondly, I want my wife to be my partner. Everything would be common for us our children, our house, our money, and duties. And we would have to make important decisions together. They should be sensible and reasonable. Also, we should trust each other. Next, I want to have a good mother for my future children. She should be warm-hearted, gentle, understanding, and sometimes strict with them because a mother plays more important role in bringing up children than a man does.I wish my children were decorous members of modern society. Then, my wife should be an elegant and a good-looking woman. I want her to have smartness and beauty combined. Nowadays it is quite difficult to find a girl who is smart and beautiful at the same tim e but I will do my best to find her. Character is more important than looks. I can non deny that I am attracted to good-looking girls, but marrying solely for physical attraction will probably lead to short circumstance pleasure but life-long regret. I have also noticed that beautiful women are often vain and rrogant, which I find most unattractive. One of the of import things that I admire in a woman is humility. Such a woman will not boast about her wealth, intelligence or achievements, but, preferably appreciate other peoples abilities and achievements. She will also readily admit when she has made a mistake. Such a woman would be a joy to merry with. Good communication is the key to any solid relationship, most of all, marriage. I would want my future wife to share her thoughts with me. I want to hear her dreams and to share in her struggles.On the other hand, I will also need someone who will be ready to listen to me, and interested to know what is happening in my life. The re should be no secrets between us. Life is full of challenges. We can expect to face failure as well as success heartbreak as well as joy boredom as well as excitement. So, the perfect wife should have a positive attitude and a good sense of humour. She should be witty and say things which make me laugh. The perfect wife would also be one who can see the silver veneer behind every cloud, rather than focus on the flaws in every situation.With such a woman, I will be encouraged to look at life in a happier and more positive way. Above all other qualities, the perfect wife will be faithful. She must be someone who really believes in that marriage is made to last till death do us part. She will be totally committed to our relationship, and voluntary to stay for the long haul, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse as couples promise in the wedding vows. The perfect wife would not be distracted by other men not even when I have lost my looks. He would be a one man woman.In return, I will also promise my total loyalty and faithfulness to my future wife. Actually, there are many other qualities that make a woman an ideal wife. However, while it is easy to make lists, finding a woman to live up to them will be very difficult. Furthermore, instead of steering on my requirements for the perfect wife, I think I should recognize my own imperfections, and set about correcting them. As Barnett Brickner said, Success in marriage does not stick to merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

annie dillard Pilgrim at tinker creek for Richard It ever was, and is, and sh solely be, ever-living Fire, in measures being miscellanyled and in measures deviation knocked break(p). HERACLITUS Contents Epigraph 1 Heaven and state in Jest iii 3 2 becompassing 16 3 Winter 37 4 The Fixed 55 5 unfastening the Knot 73 6 The Present 78 7 Spring 105 8 Intricacy 124 9 Flood 149 10 Fecundity 161 11 Stalking 184 12 Nightwatch 209 13 The Horns of the Altar 225 14 Northing 247 15 The Waters of Separation 265 subsequentlyword 278 More Years Afterward 283 Ab turn out Annie Dillard 285 About the Author opposite Books By Annie Dillard C over CopyrightAbout the Publisher Pilgrim at toy Creek 1 Heaven and Earth in Jest I used to have a cat, an old fighting tom, who would jump through the open window by my bed in the middle of the night and land on my chest. Id half-awaken. Hed stick his skull under my nose and purr, stinking of urine and blood. Some nights he kneaded my trim chest with his front paws, powerfully, arching his back, as if sharpening his claws, or pummeling a mother for milk. And whatsoever mornings Id wake in twenty-four hourslight to find my body covered with paw prints in blood I looked as though Id been painted with pink wines.It was hot, so hot the mirror felt warm. I washed earlier the mirror in a daze, my twisted summer sleep still hung close to me deal sea kelp. What blood was this, and what roses? It could have been the rose of union, the blood of murder, or the rose of beauty bargon and the blood of some unspeakable sacrifice or birth. The foretoken on my body could have been an emblem or a stain, the keys to the kingdom or the dog of Cain. I neer knew. I never 4 / Annie Dillard knew as I washed, and the blood streaked, faded, and fin all toldy disappe ard, whether Id purified myself or ruined the blood sign of the passover.We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence. Seem comparable were meet stiff d avow here, a wo world said to me recently, and gaint nobody know why. These are morning matters, pictures you dream as the final wave heaves you up on the sand to the life homogeneous light and drying snap. You commend pressure, and a curved sleep you rested against, soft, similar a scallop in its shell. scarcely the seam hardens your skin you stand you leave the lighted shoring to explore some dim headland, and soon youre lost in the tacky interior, intent, remembering nothing.I still cogitate of that old tomcat, mornings, when I wake. Things are tame now I sleep with the window shut. The cat and our rites are g whizz and my life is changed, totly if the memory remains of something powerful playing over me. I wake expectant, hoping to legitimateise a new thing. If Im lucky I might be jogged awake by a strange fizzle call. I dress in a hurry, imagining the yard flapping with auks, or flamingos. This morning it was a wood duck, use up at the creek. It flew outside(a). I live by a creek, Tinker Creek, in a vale in Virginias Blue Ridge.An anchorites hermitage is called an anchor- grip some anchor-holds were simple sheds clamped to the side of a church like a barnacle to a rock. I think of this home clamped to the side of Tinker Creek as an anchor-hold. It holds me at anchor to the rock back tooth of the creek itself and it agrees me steadied in the current, as a sea anchor does, facing the stream of light pouring d protest. Its a good attitude to live at that places a lot to think about. The creeksTinker and Carvinsare an active mystery, clean e genuinely minute. Theirs is the mystery of the continuous worldly c erstrn and all Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 5 hat providence implies the uncertainty of vision, the horror of the fixed, the dissolution of the present, the intricacy of beauty, the pressure of fecundity, the elusiveness of the disen perishe, and the flawed nature of perfection. The freshetsTinker and Brushy, McAfees Kno b and Dead Manare a passive mystery, the oldest of all. Theirs is the wizard simple mystery of creation from nothing, of matter itself, whateverthing at all, the given. Mountains are giant, restful, absorbent. You clear heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not th lyric it back as some creeks will.The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty I live there. exclusively the mountains are family line. The wood duck flew out. I caught only a glimpse of something like a bright torpedo that b exited the leaves where it flew. Back at the house I ate a bowl of oatmeal much later in the day came the dour slant of light that means good notching. If the day is fine, any take the air will do it all looks good. Water in tallyseticular looks its best, reflecting blue chuck out in the direct, and chopping it into graveled shallows and white chute and foam in the riffles. On a shadow day, or a hazy one, e realthings washed-out and la ckluster notwithstanding the water.It carries its own lights. I set out for the railroad tracks, for the pitchers mound the flocks fly over, for the woods where the white mare lives. except I go to the water. Today is one of those excellent January partly cloudies in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape to trick out in gilt, and past shadow sweeps it extraneous. You know youre alive. You let huge move, trying to smell the planets roofyness arc amid your feet. Kazantzakis rates that when he was young he had a ignoreary and a globe. When he freed the tidy sumary, it would perch on the globe and sing.All his life, wandering the earth, he felt as though he had a wadary on top of his mind, singing. West of the house, Tinker Creek makes a sharp loop, so 6 / Annie Dillard that the creek is twain in back of the house, south of me, and also on the other side of the road, northern of me. I like to go north. There the afternoon cheer hits the creek just righ t, deepening the reflected blue and lighting the sides of channelises on the asserts. Steers from the pasture muck upways the creek get down down to drink I always flush a rabbit or two there I sit on a declineen trunk in the shade and watch the squirrels in the lie.There are two separated wooden fences suspended from cables that cross the creek just upriver from my head-trunk bench. They keep the steers from escaping up or down the creek when they come to drink. Squirrels, the part small fryren, and I use the downstream fence as a swaying bridge crossways the creek. yet the steers are there today. I sit on the downed tree and watch the black steers slip on the creek bottom. They are all bred boot beef heart, beef cross, beef hocks. Theyre a human product like shoton. Theyre like a force field of shoes.They have cast-iron shanks and tongues like foam insoles. You bungholet get wind through to their brains as you can with other animals they have beef fat behind the ir look, beef stew. I cross the fence six feet above the water, locomote my hands down the rusty cable and tightroping my feet on the reduce borderline of the planks. When I hit the other assert and terra firma, some steers are bunched in a knot between me and the barbedwire fence I want to cross. So I shortly rush at them in an enthusiastic sprint, flailing my arms and hollering, Lightning Copperhead Swedish meatballs They flee, still in a knot, stumbling across the flat pasture. I stand with the wind on my face. When I slide under a barbed-wire fence, cross a field, and run over a syca more than trunk felled across the water, Im on a humble island constructd like a tear in the middle of Tinker Creek. On one side of the creek is a steep forested bank the water is swift and deep on that side of the island. On the other side is the level field I walked Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 7 through next to the steers pasture the water between the field and the island is shallow and sluggish.In summers low water, flags and bulrushes grow along a series of shallow pools cooled by the lazy current. Water striders patrol the go forth film, crayfish hump along the silt bottom eating filth, frogs shout and glare, and shiners and dinky bream hide among roots from the sulky green herons eye. I come to this island every month of the year. I walk around it, stopping and staring, or I straddle the lacewood log over the creek, curling my legs out of the water in winter, trying to read. Today I sit on dry sponsor at the end of the island by the slower side of the creek. Im drawn to this spot.I come to it as to an oracle I return to it as a man years later will tickk out the battlefield where he lost a leg or an arm. A couple of summers past I was walking along the edge of the island to know what I could keep an eye on in the water, and mainly to scare frogs. Frogs have an inelegant way of taking discharge from invisible positions on the bank just ahead of your fee t, in horrible panic, emitting a froggy Yike and splashing into the water. Incredibly, this amused me, and, incredibly, it amuses me still. As I walked along the grassy edge of the island, I got better and better at incuring frogs both in and out of the water.I learned to recognize, slowing down, the difference in texture of the light reflected from louse up bank, water, grass, or frog. Frogs were flying all around me. At the end of the island I noticed a small green frog. He was exactly half in and half out of the water, looking like a schematic diagram of an amphibian, and he didnt jump. He didnt jump I crept closer. At drop dead(a) I knelt on the islands winter killed grass, lost, dumbstruck, staring at the frog in the creek just four feet away. He was a very small frog with wide, dull eyeball. And just as I looked at him, he slowly crumpled and began to sag.The spirit forefrontished from his eyes as if snuffed. His skin 8 / Annie Dillard emptied and drooped his very skull entermed to collapse and settle like a kicked tent. He was shrinking before my eyes like a deflating football. I watched the taut, glistening skin on his shoulders ruck, and rumple, and fall. Soon, part of his skin, formless as a pricked balloon, lay in floating folds like bright scum on top of the water it was a monstrous and frighten thing. I gaped bewildered, appalled. An oval shadow hung in the water behind the drained frog then the shadow glided away. The frog skin bag started to sink.I had read about the giant water bug, precisely never seen one. Giant water bug is actually the name of the creature, which is an enormous, heavy-bodied brown bug. It eats insects, tadpoles, fish, and frogs. Its grasping forelegs are mighty and subordinate inward. It seizes a victim with these legs, hugs it tight, and paralyzes it with enzymes injected during a vicious bite. That one bite is the only bite it ever takes. Through the puncture shoot the poisons that dissolve the victims muscles and bones and organsall but the skinand through it the giant water bug sucks out the victims body, reduced to a juice.This issuing is quite common in warm fresh water. The frog I saw was being sucked by a giant water bug. I had been kneeling on the island grass when the unrecognizable flap of frog skin settled on the creek bottom, swaying, I stood up and brushed the knees of my pants. I couldnt find my hint. Of course, galore(postnominal) carnivorous animals devour their prey alive. The usual method seems to be to subdue the victim by downing or grasping it so it cant flee, then eating it self-coloured or in a series of bloody bites. Frogs eat everything whole, stuffing prey into their mouths with their thumbs.People have seen frogs with their wide jaws so full of live dragonflies they couldnt close them. Ants dont nonetheless have to catch their prey in the spring they swarm over freshly hatched, featherless birds in the nest and eat them tiny bite by bite. Pilgrim at Tinke r Creek / 9 That its rough out there and chancy is no surprise. Every live thing is a survivor on a kind of extended emergency bivouac. But at the alike(p) cartridge clip we are also created. In the Koran, Allah asks, The heaven and the earth and all in between, thinkest thou I made them in jest? Its a good question.What do we think of the created universe, spanning an unthinkable void with an unthinkable profusion of forms? Or what do we think of nothingness, those sickening reaches of time in either circumspection? If the giant water bug was not made in jest, was it then made in earnest? Pascal uses a nice term to discern the conception of the creators, once having called forth the universe, turning his back to it Deus Absconditus. Is this what we think happened? Was the virtuoso of it there, and God absconded with it, ate it, like a wolf who disappears round the edge of the house with the Thanksgiving turkey? God is subtle, Einstein said, but not malicious. Again, Einstei n said that nature conceals her mystery by means of her essential statelyeur, not by her cunning. It could be that God has not absconded but spread, as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way, that we can only savour fraudly of its hem. In do the thick sliminess a swaddling band for the sea, God set bars and doors and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further. But have we come even that utmost?Have we rowed out to the thick darkness, or are we all playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat? Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain. But if we describe a world to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery the inrush of power and light, the canary that sings on the skull. Unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the equal mass hypnotist (who? ), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace on the whole gr atuitous. About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a 10 / Annie Dillard traight vertical descent from the roof john of a four-story building. It was an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a bow or the kindling of a star. The mockingbird took a atomic number 53 step into the air and dropped. His wings were still folded against his sides as though he were singing from a limb and not falling, accelerating thirty-two feet per second per second, through change air. Just a breath before he would have been dashed to the constitute, he unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white, spread his elegant, white-banded tail, and so floated onto the grass.I had just rounded a corner when his insouciant step caught my eye there was no one else in sight. The fact of his free fall was like the old philosophical conundrum about the tree that falls in the forest. The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there. Another time I saw another winder sharks glowering the Atlantic coast of Florida. There is a way a wave rises above the ocean eyeshot, a triangular wedge against the flip-flop. If you stand where the ocean breaks on a shallow beach, you see the raised water in a wave is translucent, shot with lights.One late afternoon at low tide a hundred big sharks passed the beach well-nigh the mouth of a tidal river in a feeding frenzy. As each green wave rose from the churning water, it illuminated within itself the six-or eight-footlong bodies of twisting sharks. The sharks disappeared as each wave rolled toward me then a new wave would s salutary above the horizon, containing in it, like scorpions in amber, sharks that roiled and heaved. The sight held awesome wonders power and beauty, grace tangled in a rapture with violence. We dont know whats going on here. If these tremendous vents are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 11 millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters, then what is it in us, hammered out of those same typewriters, that they ignite? We dont know. Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe whats going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.At the time of Lewis and Clark, setting the prairies on excitation was a well-known signal that meant, Come down to the water. It was an extravagant gesture, but we cant do less. If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and c olossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions on profligacies with ever-fresh vigor. The whole army has een on fire from the word go. I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire that which isnt flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames. I have come to the grassy island late in the day. The creek is up stock-still water sweeps under the sycamore log bridge. The frog skin, of course, is utterly asleep(p). I have stared at that one spot on the creek bottom for so long, focusing past the rush of water, that when I stand, the opposite bank seems to stretch before my eyes and flow grassily upstream.When the bank settles down I cross the sycamore log and enter again the big plowed field next to the steers pasture. The wind is terrific out of the west the sun comes and goes. I can see the shadow on the field before me deepen uniformly and spread like a plague. Everything seems so dull I am 12 / Annie Dillard astonished I can even disting uish objects. And suddenly the light runs across the land like a comber, and up the trees, and goes again in a winkle out I think Ive gone blind or died. When it comes again, the light, you hold your breath, and if it stays you forget about it until it goes again.Its the roughly beautiful day of the year. At four oclock the eastern cast away is a dead stratus black flecked with low white clouds. The sun in the west illuminates the ground, the mountains, and especially the bare branches of trees, so that everywhere silver trees cut into the black sky like a photographers negative of a landscape. The air and the ground are dry the mountains are going on and off like neon signs. Clouds slide east as if pulled from the horizon, like a tablecloth whipped off a table. The hemlocks by the barbed-wire fence are flinging themselves east as though their backs would break.Purple shadows are racing east the wind makes me face east, and again I feel the dizzying, drawn sensation I felt when t he creek bank shifted. At four-thirty the sky in the east is clear how could that big blackness be winded? Fifteen minutes later another darkness is coming overhead from the northwest and its here. Everything is drained of its light as if sucked. Only at the horizon do inky black mountains give way to distant, lighted mountainslighted not by direct illumination but rather madd by importunate cruises of mist hung before them. Now the blackness is in the east verything is half in shadow, half in sun, every clod, tree, mountain, and hedge. I cant see Tinker Mountain through the line of hemlock, till it comes on like a streetlight, ping, ex nihilo. Its sandstone cliffs pink and swell. Suddenly the light goes the cliffs recede as if pushed. The sun hits a clump of sycamores between me and the mountains the sycamore arms light up, and I cant see the cliffs. Theyre gone. The pale network of sycamore arms, which a second ago was transparent as a screen, is suddenly Pilgrim at Tinker Cr eek / 13 opaque, glowing with light.Now the sycamore arms snuff out, the mountains come on, and there are the cliffs again. I walk home. By five-thirty the show has pulled out. Nothing is left but an unreal blue and a few banked clouds low in the north. Some sort of carnival magician has been here, some fasttalking worker of wonders who has the act backwards. Something in this hand, he says, something in this hand, something up my sleeve, something behind my back and abracadabra, he snaps his fingers, and its all gone. Only the bland, blank-faced magician remains, in his unruffled coat, bare handed, acknowledging a smattering of baffled applause.When you look again the whole show has pulled up lay on the line and moved on down the road. It never stops. New shows roll in from over the mountains and the magician reappears unannounced from a fold in the curtain you never dreamed was an opening. Scarves of clouds, rabbits in plain view, disappear into the black hat forever. Presto chan go. The audience, if there is an audience at all, is dizzy from head-turning, dazed. Like the bear who went over the mountain, I went out to see what I could see. And, I might as well warn you, like the bear, all that I could see was the other side of the mountain more of same.On a good day I might catch a glimpse of another wooded ridge rolling under the sun like water, another bivouac. I propose to keep here what Thoreau called a meteorological journal of the mind, telling some tales and describing some of the sights of this rather tamed valley, and exploring, in fear and trembling, some of the unmapped dim reaches and unholy fastnesses to which those tales and sights so dizzyingly lead. I am no scientist. I explore the neighborhood. An infant who has just learned to hold his head up has a frank and forthright way of gazing about him in bewilderment.He hasnt the 14 / Annie Dillard faintest clue where he is, and he aims to learn. In a couple of years, what he will have learned inst ead is how to fake it hell have the cocksure air of a squatter who has come to feel he owns the place. Some unwonted, taught pride diverts us from our original intent, which is to explore the neighborhood, view the landscape, to discover at least where it is that we have been so startlingly set down, if we cant learn why. So I think about the valley. It is my leisure as well as my work, a game.It is a fierce game I have joined because it is being played anyway, a game of both skill and chance, played against an unseen adversarythe conditions of timein which the payoffs, which may suddenly arrive in a blast of light at any moment, might as well come to me as anyone else. I stake the time Im grateful to have, the energies Im glad to direct. I risk getting stuck on the board, so to speak, unable to move in any direction, which happens lavish, God knows and I risk the searing, exhausting nightmares that plunder rest and force me face down all night long in some sorry ditch seething wi th hatching insects and crustaceans.But if I can bear the nights, the days are a pleasure. I walk out I see something, some event that would otherwise have been utterly missed and lost or something sees me, some enormous power brushes me with its clean wing, and I resound like a beaten bell. I am an explorer, then, and I am also a stalker, or the instrument of the hunt itself. Certain Indians used to carve long grooves along the wooden shafts of their arrows. They called the grooves lightning marks, because they resembled the curved fissure lightning slices down the trunks of trees.The function of lightning marks is this if the arrow fails to kill the game, blood from a deep wound will impart along the lightning mark, streak down the arrow shaft, and spatter to the ground, laying a trail Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 15 dripped on broad-leaves, on stones, that the shoeless and trembling archer can follow into whatever deep or rare wilderness it leads. I am the arrow shaft, carved alon g my aloofness by unexpected lights and gashes from the very sky, and this book is the straying trail of blood. Something pummels us, something barely sheathed. Power broods and lights.Were played on like a pipe our breath is not our own. James Houston describes two young Eskimo girls sitting cross-legged on the ground, mouth on mouth, blowing by turns each others throat cords, making a low, unearthly medication. When I cross again the bridge that is really the steers fence, the wind has thinned to the delicate air of twilight it crumples the waters skin. I watch the running sheets of light raised on the creeks surface. The sight has the appeal of the purely passive, like the racing of light under clouds on a field, the beautiful dream at the moment of being dreamed.The breeze is the merest puff, but you yourself sail headlong and breathless under the gale force of the spirit. 2 Seeing When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious centime of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion sadly, Ive never been seized by it since. For some reason I always hid the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street. I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore, say, or in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk.Then I would take a piece of chalk, and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions. After I learned to write I labeled the arrows SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY. I was greatly excited, during all this arrow-drawing, at the apprehension of the first lucky passer-by who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. But I never lurked about. I would go direct home and not give the matter another thought, until, some months later, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 17 I would be gripped again by the impetus to hide another penny.It is still the first week in January, and Ive got great plans. Ive b een thinking about seeing. There are lots of things to see, undo gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. Butand this is the pointwho gets excited by a mere penny? If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a musquash kit paddling from its den, will you count that sight of a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way?It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he wont stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact deep-seated in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get. I used to be able to see flying insects in the air. Id look ahead and see, not the row of hemlocks across the road, but the ai r in front of it. My eyes would focus along that column of air, picking out flying insects.But I lost interest, I guess, for I dropped the habit. Now I can see birds. Probably some people can look at the grass at their feet and discover all the crawling creatures. I would like to know grasses and sedgesand care. Then my least journey into the world would be a field trip, a series of happy recognitions. Thoreau, in an expansive mood, exulted, What a rich book might be made about buds, including, by chance, sprouts It would be nice to think so. I cherish mental images I have of three perfectly happy people. One collects stones.Anotheran Englishman, saywatches clouds. The third lives on a coast and collects drops of brine which 18 / Annie Dillard he examines microscopically and mounts. But I dont see what the specialist sees, and so I cut myself off, not only from the meat picture, but from the various forms of happiness. Unfortunately, nature is very much a now-you-see-it, now-you dont affair. A fish flashes, then dissolves in the water before my eyes like so much salt. Deer plain ascend bodily into heaven the brightest oriole fades into leaves.These disappearances stun me into stillness and concentration they say of nature that it conceals with a grand nonchalance, and they say of vision that it is a deliberate gift, the revelation of a dancer who for my eyes only flings away her seven veils. For nature does reveal as well as conceal now-you-dont-see-it, now-you-do. For a week last September migrating red-winged blackbirds were feeding heavily down by the creek at the back of the house. One day I went out to investigate the racket I walked up to a tree, an Osage orange, and a hundred birds flew away.They simply materialized out of the tree. I saw a tree, then a whisk of color, then a tree again. I walked closer and another hundred blackbirds took flight. Not a branch, not a twig budged the birds were apparently weightless as well as invisible. Or, it was as if the leaves of the Osage orange had been freed from a spell in the form of red-winged blackbirds they flew from the tree, caught my eye in the sky, and vanished. When I looked again at the tree the leaves had reassembled as if nothing had happened.Finally I walked directly to the trunk of the tree and a final hundred, the real diehards, appeared, spread, and vanished. How could so many a(prenominal) hide in the tree without my seeing them? The Osage orange, unruffled, looked just as it had looked from the house, when three hundred red-winged blackbirds cried from its crown. I looked downstream where they flew, and they were gone. searching, I couldnt spot one. I wandered downstream to force them to play their hand, but theyd crossed the creek and scattered. One show to a Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 19 customer.These appearances catch at my throat they are the free gifts, the bright coppers at the roots of trees. Its all a matter of keeping my eyes open. Nature is like one of those line drawings of a tree that are puzzles for children Can you find hidden in the leaves a duck, a house, a boy, a bucket, a zebra, and a boot? Specialists can find the most incredibly wellhidden things. A book I read when I was young recommended an easy way to find caterpillars to rear you simply find some fresh caterpillar droppings, look up, and theres your caterpillar.More recently an author advised me to set my mind at ease about those piles of cut stems on the ground in grassy fields. Field mice make them they cut the grass down by degrees to reach the seeds at the head. It seems that when the grass is tightly packed, as in a field of ripe grain, the blade wont topple at a single cut through the stem instead, the cut stem simply drops vertically, held in the crush of grain. The mouse severs the bottom again and again, the stem keeps dropping an inch at a time, and finally the head is low enough for the mouse to reach the seeds.Meanwhile, the mouse is positively littering the f ield with its little piles of cut stems into which, presumably, the author of the book is constantly stumbling. If I cant see these minutiae, I still try to keep my eyes open. Im always on the lookout for antlion traps in sandy soil, monarch pupae near milkweed, skipper larvae in locust leaves. These things are utterly common, and Ive not seen one. I bang on hollow trees near water, but so far no flying squirrels have appeared. In flat country I watch every old in hopes of seeing the green ray.The green ray is a seldom-seen streak of light that rises from the sun like a spurting barrage at the moment of sunset it throbs into the sky for two seconds and disappears. One more reason to keep my eyes open. A photography professor at the University of Florida just happened to 20 / Annie Dillard see a bird die in midflight it jerked, died, dropped, and crocked on the ground. I squint at the wind because I read Stewart Edward White I have always maintained that if you looked closely enou gh you could see the windthe dim, hardly-made-out, fine debris fleeing high in the air. White was an excellent observer, and devoted an entire chapter of The Mountains to the subject of seeing deer As soon as you can forget the naturally obvious and construct an artificial obvious, then you too will see deer. But the artificial obvious is hard to see. My eyes account for less than one percent of the weight of my head Im bony and dense I see what I expect. I once spent a full three minutes looking at a bullfrog that was so unexpectedly large I couldnt see it even though a dozen enthusiastic campers were shouting directions.Finally I asked, What color am I looking for? and a fellow said, Green. When at last I picked out the frog, I saw what painters are up against the thing wasnt green at all, but the color of wet hickory bark. The caramel brown can see, and the knowledgeable. I visited an auntie and uncle at a quarter-horse ranch in Cody, Wyoming. I couldnt do much of anything u seful, but I could, I thought, draw. So, as we all sat around the kitchen table after supper, I produced a sheet of paper and drew a horse. Thats one lame horse, my aunt volunteered.The rest of the family joined in Only place to saddle that one is his neck Looks like we better shoot the poor thing, on account of those alarming growths. Meekly, I slid the pencil and paper down the table. Everyone in that family, including my three young cousins, could draw a horse. Beautifully. When the paper came back it looked as though five shining, real quarter horses had been corralled by mistake with a papier-mache moose the real horses seemed to gaze at the monster with a steady, puzzled air. I stay away from horses now, but I can do a Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 21 creditable goldfish.The point is that I just dont know what the lover knows I just cant see the artificial obvious that those in the know construct. The herpetologist asks the native, Are there snakes in that ravine? Nosir. And t he herpetologist comes home with, yessir, three bags full. Are there butterflies on that mountain? Are the bluets in bloom, are there arrowheads here, or fossil shells in the shale? Peeping through my keyhole I see within the range of only about thirty percent of the light that comes from the sun the rest is infrared and some little ultraviolet, perfectly apparent to many animals, but invisible to me.A nightmare network of ganglia, charged and firing without my knowledge, cuts and splices what I do see, editing it for my brain. Donald E. Carr points out that the sense impressions of one-celled animals are not redact for the brain This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since it means that only the simplest animals perceive the universe as it is. A indistinctness that wont burn away drifts and flows across my field of vision. When you see fog move against a backdrop of deep pines, you dont see the fog itself, but streaks of clearness floating across the air i n dark shreds.So I see only tatters of clearness through a pervading obscurity. I cant distinguish the fog from the overcast sky I cant be sure if the light is direct or reflected. Everywhere darkness and the presence of the unseen appalls. We estimate now that only one atom dances alone in every cubic meter of intergalactic space. I winkle out and squint. What planet or power yanks Halleys Comet out of orbit? We havent seen that force yet its a question of distance, density, and the pallor of reflected light. We rock, cradled in the swaddling band of darkness.Even the simple darkness of night whispers suggestions to the mind. Last summer, in August, I stayed at the creek too late. 22 / Annie Dillard Where Tinker Creek flows under the sycamore log bridge to the tear-shaped island, it is slow and shallow, fringed thinly in cattail marsh. At this spot an astonishing bloom of life supports vast breeding populations of insects, fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals. On windless summer eve nings I stalk along the creek bank or straddle the sycamore log in absolute stillness, watching for muskrats.The night I stayed too late I was hunched on the log staring spellbound at spreading, reflected stains of lilac on the water. A cloud in the sky suddenly lighted as if turned on by a switch its reflection just as suddenly materialized on the water upstream, flat and floating, so that I couldnt see the creek bottom, or life in the water under the cloud. Downstream, away from the cloud on the water, water turtles smooth out as beans were gliding down with the current in a series of easy, weightless push-offs, as men bound on the slug.I didnt know whether to quality the progress of one turtle I was sure of, risking sticking my face in one of the bridges spiderwebs made invisible by the hookup dark, or take a chance on seeing the carp, or scan the mud bank in hope of seeing a muskrat, or follow the last of the swallows who caught at my heart and trailed it after them like stre amers as they appeared from directly below, under the log, flying upstream with their tails forked, so fast. But shadows spread, and deepened, and stayed. After thousands of years were still strangers to darkness, fearful aliens in an enemy camp with our arms crossed over our chests.I rousered. A land turtle on the bank, startled, hissed the air from its lungs and withdrew into its shell. An uneasy pink here, an innumerable blue there, gave great suggestion of lurking beings. Things were going on. I couldnt see whether that sere rustle I heard was a distant rattlesnake, slit-eyed, or a nearby sparrow kicking in the dry flood debris slung at the foot of a willow. Tremendous operation Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 23 roiled the water everywhere I looked, big action, inexplicable. A tremor welled up beside a gaping muskrat burrow in the bank and I caught my breath, but no muskrat appeared.The ripples continued to fan upstream with a steady, powerful thrust. Night was knitting over my fa ce an eyeless mask, and I still sat transfixed. A distant airplane, a delta wing out of nightmare, made a gliding shadow on the creeks bottom that looked like a stingray cruising upstream. At once a black fin slit the pink cloud on the water, trim it in two. The two halves merged together and seemed to dissolve before my eyes. Darkness pooled in the cleft of the creek and rose, as water collects in a well. Untamed, aspiration lights flickered over the sky. I saw hints of hulking underwater shadows, two pale splashes out of the water, and ound ripples rolling close together from a blackened center. At last I stared upstream where only the deepest violet remained of the cloud, a cloud so high its underbelly still glowed feeble color reflected from a hidden sky lighted in turn by a sun halfway to China. And out of that violet, a sudden enormous black body arced over the water. I saw only a cylindrical sleekness. Head and tail, if there was a head and tail, were both submerged in clou d. I saw only one ebony fling, a headlong dive to darkness then the waters closed, and the lights went out. I walked home in a shivering daze, up hill and down.Later I lay open-mouthed in bed, my arms flung wide at my sides to steady the whirling darkness. At this latitude Im spinning 836 miles an hour round the earths axis I often fancy I feel my sweeping fall as a breakneck arc like the dive of dolphins, and the hollow rushing of wind raises hair on my neck and the side of my face. In orbit around the sun Im go 64,800 miles an hour. The solar system as a whole, like a merry-go-round unhinged, spins, bobs, and blinks at the speed of 43,200 miles an hour along a course set east of Hercules. Someone has 24 / Annie Dillard iped, and we are dancing a tarantella until the sweat pours. I open my eyes and I see dark, muscled forms curl out of water, with flapping gills and flattened eyes. I close my eyes and I see stars, deep stars giving way to deeper stars, deeper stars bowing to deepe st stars at the crown of an infinite cone. Still, wrote van Gogh in a letter, a great deal of light falls on everything. If we are blind by darkness, we are also blinded by light. When too much light falls on everything, a special terror results. Peter Freuchen describes the notorious kayak sickness to which Greenland Eskimos are prone. The Greenland fjords are peculiar for the spells of completely quiet weather, when there is not enough wind to blow out a match and the water is like a sheet of glass. The kayak hunter must sit in his boat without stirring a finger so as not to scare the shy seals away. The sun, low in the sky, sends a glare into his eyes, and the landscape around moves into the realm of the unreal. The reflex from the mirrorlike water hypnotizes him, he seems to be unable to move, and all of a sudden it is as if he were floating in a bottomless void, sinking, sinking, and sinking.Horror-stricken, he tries to stir, to cry out, but he cannot, he is completely paralyz ed, he just falls and falls. Some hunters are especially cursed with this panic, and bring ruin and sometimes starvation to their families. Sometimes here in Virginia at sunset low clouds on the southern or northern horizon are completely invisible in the lighted sky. I only know one is there because I can see its reflection in still water. The first time I discovered this mystery I looked from cloud to no-cloud in bewilderment, checking my bearings over and over, thinking maybe the ark of the covenant was just passing by south of Dead Man Mountain.Only much later did I read the history polarized light from the sky is very much weakened by reflection, but the light Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 25 in clouds isnt polarized. So invisible clouds pass among visible clouds, till all slide over the mountains so a greater light extinguishes a lesser as though it didnt exist. In the great meteor shower of August, the Perseid, I wail all day for the shooting stars I miss. Theyre out there show ering down, committing harikari in a flame of fatal attraction, and hissing perhaps at last into the ocean.But at dawn what looks like a blue dome clamps down over me like a lid on a pot. The stars and planets could smash and Id never know. Only a piece of ashen moon occasionally climbs up or down the inside of the dome, and our local star without surcease explodes on our heads. We have really only that one light, one parentage for all power, and yet we must turn away from it by universal decree. Nobody here on the planet seems aware of this strange, powerful taboo, that we all walk about conservatively averting our faces, this way and that, lest our eyes be blasted forever.Darkness appalls and light dazzles the scrap of visible light that doesnt hurt my eyes hurts my brain. What I see sets me swaying. Size and distance and the sudden swelling of meanings confuse me, bowl me over. I straddle the sycamore log bridge over Tinker Creek in the summer. I look at the lighted creek bott om snail tracks tunnel the mud in quavering curves. A crayfish jerks, but by the time I absorb what has happened, hes gone in a billowing smokescreen of silt. I look at the water minnows and shiners. If Im thinking minnows, a carp will fill my brain till I scream.I look at the waters surface skaters, bubbles, and leaves sliding down. Suddenly, my own face, reflected, startles me witless. Those snails have been tracking my face Finally, with a shuddering wrench of the will, I see clouds, cirrus clouds. Im dizzy, I fall in. This looking business is risky. Once I stood on a humped rock on nearby Purgatory Mountain, watching through binoculars the great twilight 26 / Annie Dillard hawk migration below, until I discovered that I was in danger of joining the hawks on a vertical migration of my own.I was used to binoculars, but not, apparently, to balancing on humped rocks while looking through them. I staggered. Everything advanced and receded by turns the world was full of unexplained f oreshortenings and depths. A distant huge tan object, a hawk the size of an elephant, turned out to be the browned bough of a nearby loblolly pine. I followed a sharp-shinned hawk against a featureless sky, rotating my head curtly as it flew, and when I lowered the glass a glimpse of my own looming shoulder sent me staggering. What prevents the men on Palomar from falling, voiceless and blinded, from their tiny, vaulted chairs?I reel in confusion I dont understand what I see. With the naked eye I can see two million light-years to the andromeda galaxy. Often I slop some creek water in a jar and when I get home I dump it in a white china bowl. After the silt settles I return and see tracings of minute snails on the bottom, a planarian or two current of air round the rim of water, roundworms shimmying frantically, and finally, when my eyes have adjusted to these dimensions, amoebae. At first the amoebae look like muscae volitantes, those curled moving spots you seem to see in your eyes when you stare at a distant wall.Then I see the amoebae as drops of water congealed, bluish, translucent, like chips of sky in the bowl. At length I choose one individual and give myself over to its idea of an evening. I see it dribble a grainy foot before it on its wet, unfathomable way. Do its unedited sense impressions include the fierce focus of my eyes? Shall I take it outside and show it Andromeda, and blow its little endoplasm? I stir the water with a finger, in case its running out of oxygen. Maybe I should get a tropical aquarium with motorized bubblers and lights, and keep this one for aPilgrim at Tinker Creek / 27 pet. Yes, it would tell its fissioned descendants, the universe is two feet by five, and if you listen closely you can hear the buzzing music of the spheres. Oh, its mysterious lamplit evenings, here in the galaxy, one after the other. Its one of those nights when I wander from window to window, looking for a sign. But I cant see. Terror and a beauty insolu ble are a ribband of blue woven into the fringes of garments of things both great and small. No culture explains, no bivouac offers real haven or rest. But it could be that we are not seeing something.Galileo thought comets were an optical illusion. This is fertile ground since we are certain that theyre not, we can look at what our scientists have been saying with fresh hope. What if there are really twinkling, castellated cities hung upsidedown over the forswear sand? What limpid lakes and cool date palms have our caravans always passed untried? Until, one by one, by the blindest of leaps, we light on the road to these places, we must turn on in darkness and hunger. I turn from the window. Im blind as a bat, sensing only from every direction the echo of my own thin cries.I chanced on a wonderful book by Marius von Senden, called Space and Sight. When Western surgeons discovered how to perform safe cataract operations, they ranged across Europe and America run on dozens of men and women of all ages who had been blinded by cataracts since birth. Von Senden collected accounts of such cases the histories are fascinating. Many doctors had tested their patients sense perceptions and ideas of space both before and after the operations. The vast majority of patients, of both sexes and all ages, had, in von Sendens opinion, no idea of space whatsoever.Form, distance, and size were so many meaningless syllables. A patient had no idea of depth, confusing it with roundness. Before 28 / Annie Dillard the operation a doctor would give a blind patient a pulley and a sphere the patient would tongue it or feel it with his hands, and name it correctly. After the operation the doctor would show the same objects to the patient without letting him feel them now he had no clue whatsoever what he was seeing. One patient called lemonade square because it pricked on his tongue as a square shape pricked on the touch of his hands.Of another postoperative patient, the doctor wri tes, I have found in her no notion of size, for example, not even within the narrow limits which she might have encompassed with the aid of touch. therefrom when I asked her to show me how big her mother was, she did not stretch out her hands, but set her two index-fingers a few inches apart. Other doctors reported their patients own statements to similar effect. The room he was inhe knew to be but part of the house, yet he could not conceive that the whole house could look bigger Those who are blind from birthhave no real conception of height or distance.A house that is a mile away is thought of as nearby, but requiring the taking of a lot of steps. The elevator that whizzes him up and down gives no more sense of vertical distance than does the train of horizontal. For the newly sighted, vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning The girl went through the experience that we all go through and forget, the moment we are born. She saw, but it did not mean anything but a lot o f different kinds of brightness. Again, I asked the patient what he could see he answered that he saw an extensive field of light, in which everything appeared dull, confused, and in motion.He could not distinguish objects. Another patient saw nothing but a confusion of forms and colors. When a newly sighted girl saw photographs and paintings, she asked, Why do they put those dark marks all over them? Those arent dark marks, her mother explained, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 29 those are shadows. That is one of the ways the eye knows that things have shape. If it were not for shadows many things would look flat. Well, thats how things do look, Joan answered. Everything looks flat with dark patches. But it is the patients concepts of space that are most revealing.One patient, according to his doctor, practiced his vision in a strange fashion thus he takes off one of his boots, throws it some way off in front of him, and then attempts to gauge the distance at which it lies he takes a few steps towards the boot and tries to grasp it on failing to reach it, he moves on a step or two and gropes for the boot until he finally gets hold of it. But even at this stage, after three weeks experience of seeing, von Senden goes on, space, as he conceives it, ends with visual space, i. e. with color-patches that happen to bound his view.He does not yet have the notion that a larger object (a chair) can mask a smaller one (a dog), or that the latter can still be present even though it is not directly seen. In general the newly sighted see the world as a dazzle of colorpatches. They are pleased by the sensation of color, and learn quickly to name the colors, but the rest of seeing is tormentingly difficult. Soon after his operation a patient generally bumps into one of these color-patches and observes them to be substantial, since they resist him as tactual objects do.In walking about it also strikes himor can if he pays assistthat he is continually passing in between th e colors he sees, that he can go past a visual object, that a part of it then steadily disappears from view and that in malevolence of this, however he twists and turnswhether entering the room from the door, for example, or returning back to ithe always has a visual space in front of him. Thus he gradually comes to realize that there is also a space behind him, which he does not see. The mental effort involved in these reasonings proves over- 0 / Annie Dillard whelming for many patients. It oppresses them to realize, if they ever do at all, the tremendous size of the world, which they had previously conceived of as something touchingly manageable. It oppresses them to realize that they have been visible to people all along, perhaps unattractively so, without their knowledge or consent. A disheartening number of them refuse to use their new vision, continuing to go over objects with their tongues, and lapsing into apathy and despair. The child can see, but will not make use of his sight.Only when pressed can he with difficulty be brought to look at objects in his neighborhood but more than a foot away it is impossible to bestir him to the necessary effort. Of a twenty-one-year-old girl, the doctor relates, Her unfortunate father, who had hoped for so much from this operation, wrote that his daughter carefully shuts her eyes whenever she wishes to go about the house, especially when she comes to a staircase, and that she is never happier or more at ease than when, by closing her eyelids, she relapses into her former state of total blindness. A fifteen-year-old boy, who was also in love with a girl at the asylum for the blind, finally blurted out, No, really, I cant stand it anymore I want to be sent back to the asylum again. If things arent altered, Ill tear my eyes out. Some do learn to see, especially the young ones. But it changes their lives. One doctor comments on the rapid and complete loss of that striking and wonderful serenity which is characterist ic only of those who have never yet seen. A blind man who learns to see is ashamed of his old habits. He dresses up, grooms himself, and tries to make a good impression.While he was blind he was indifferent to objects unless they were edible now, a sifting of values sets inhis thoughts and wishes are mightily stirred and some few of the patients are thereby led into dissimulation, envy, theft and fraud. On the other hand, many newly sighted people speak well of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 31 the world, and teach us how dull is our own vision. To one patient, a human hand, unrecognized, is something bright and then holes. Shown a bunch of grapes, a boy calls out, It is dark, blue and shiny. It isnt smooth, it has bumps and hollows. A little girl visits a garden. She is greatly astonished, and can scarcely be persuaded to answer, stands speechless in front of the tree, which she only names on taking hold of it, and then as the tree with the lights in it. Some delight in their sight and give themselves over to the visual world. Of a patient just after her bandages were removed, her doctor writes, The first things to attract her attention were her own hands she looked at them very closely, moved them repeatedly to and fro, bent and stretched the fingers, and seemed greatly astonished at the sight. One girl was eager to tell her blind friend that men do not really look like trees at all, and astounded to discover that her every visitor had an utterly different face. Finally, a twenty-two-old girl was dazzled by the worlds brightness and kept her eyes shut for two weeks. When at the end of that time she opened her eyes again, she did not recognize any objects, but, the more she now directed her gaze upon everything about her, the more it could be seen how an expression of gratification and astonishment overspread her features she repeatedly exclaimed Oh GodHow beautiful I saw color-patches for weeks after I read this wonderful book. It was summer the peaches were ripe in the valley orchards. When I woke in the morning, color-patches cloaked round my eyes, intricately, leaving not one unfilled spot. All day long I walked among shifting color-patches that parted before me like the Red Sea and closed again in silence, transfigured, wherever I looked back. Some patches swelled and loomed, while others vanished utterly, and dark marks flitted at random 32 / Annie Dillard over the whole dazzling sweep.But I couldnt sustain the illusion of flatness. Ive been around for too long. Form is condemned to an eternal danse macabre with meaning I couldnt unpeach the peaches. Nor can I remember ever having seen without understanding the color-patches of infancy are lost. My brain then must have been smooth as any balloon. Im told I reached for the moon many babies do. But the color-patches of infancy swelled as meaning filled them they arrayed themselves in solemn ranks down distance which unrolled and stretched before me like a plain. The moon rocketed a way.I live now in a world of shadows that shape and distance color, a world where space makes a kind of terrible sense. What gnosticism is this, and what physics? The fluttering patch I saw in my nursery windowsilver and green and shape-shifting blueis gone a row of Lombardy poplars takes its place, mute, across the distant lawn. That humming oblong creature pale as light that stole along the walls of my room at night, stretching exhilaratingly around the corners, is gone, too, gone the night I ate of the bittersweet fruit, put two and two together and puckered forever my brain.Martin Buber tells this tale Rabbi Mendel once boasted to his teacher Rabbi Elimelekh that evenings he saw the nonpareil who rolls away the light before the darkness, and mornings the angel who rolls away the darkness before the light. Yes, said Rabbi Elimelekh, in my youth I saw that too. Later on you dont see these things anymore. Why didnt someone hand those newly sighted people paints and brushes from t he start, when they still didnt know what anything was? Then maybe we all could see color-patches too, the world unraveled from reason, Eden before Adam gave names.The scales would drop from my eyes Id see trees like men walking Id run down the road against all orders, hallooing and leaping. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 33 Seeing is of course very much a matter of verbalization. Unless I call my attention to what passes before my eyes, I simply wont see it. It is, as Ruskin says, not merely unnoticed, but in the full, clear sense of the word, unseen. My eyes alone cant solve analogy tests using figures, the ones which show, with increasing elaborations, a big square, then a small square in a big square, then a big triangle, and expect me to find a small triangle in a big triangle.I have to say the words, describe what Im seeing. If Tinker Mountain erupted, Id be likely to notice. But if I want to notice the lesser cataclysms of valley life, I have to maintain in my head a running desc ription of the present. Its not that Im observant its just that I talk too much. Otherwise, especially in a strange place, Ill never know whats happening. Like a blind man at the ball game, I need a radio. When I see this way I analyze and pry. I hurl over logs and roll away stones I study the bank a square foot at a time, probing and tilting my head. Some ays when a mist covers the mountains, when the muskrats wont show and the microscopes mirror shatters, I want to climb up the blank blue dome as a man would storm the inside of a circus tent, wildly, dangling, and with a steel knife claw a rent in the top, peep, and, if I must, fall. But there is another kind of seeing that involves a letting go. When I see this way I sway transfixed and emptied. The difference between the two ways of seeing is the difference between walking with and without a camera. When I walk with a camera I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter.When I walk without a camera, my own sh utter opens, and the moments light prints on my own silver gut. When I see this second way I am above all an unscrupulous observer. 34 / Annie Dillard It was sunny one evening last summer at Tinker Creek the sun was low in the sky, upstream. I was sitting on the sycamore log bridge with the sunset at my back, watching the shiners the size of minnows who were feeding over the muddy sand in skittery schools. Again and again, one fish, then another, turned for a split second across the current and flash the sun shot out from its silver side. I couldnt watch for it.It was always just happening somewhere else, and it drew my vision just as it disappeared flash, like a sudden dazzle of the thinnest blade, a sparking over a dun and olive ground at chance intervals from every direction. Then I noticed white specks, some sort of pale petals, small, floating from under my feet on the creeks surface, very slow and steady. So I blurred my eyes and gazed towards the brim of my hat and saw a new world. I saw the pale white circles roll up, roll up, like the worlds turning, mute and perfect, and I saw the linear flashes, gleaming silver, like stars being born at random down a rolling scroll of time.Something broke and something opened. I filled up like a new wineskin. I breathed an air like light I saw a light like water. I was the lip of a fountain the creek filled forever I was ether, the leaf in the zephyr I was flesh-flake, feather, bone. When I see this way I see truly. As Thoreau says, I return to my senses. I am the man who watches the baseball game in silence in an empty stadium. I see the game purely Im abstracted and dazed. When its all over and the white-suited players lope off the green field to their shadowed dugouts, I leap to my feet I cheer and cheer. But I cant go out and try to see this way.Ill fail, Ill go mad. All I can do is try to gag the commentator, to hush the noise of useless interior babble that keeps me from seeing just as surely as a newspaper da ngled before my eyes. The effort is really a Pilgrim at Tinker Creek / 35 discipline requiring a lifetime of dedicated struggle it marks the literature of saints and monks of every order atomic number 99 and West, under every rule and no rule, discalced and shod. The worlds spiritual geniuses seem to discover universally that the minds muddy river, this continuous flow of trivia and trash, cannot be dammed, and that trying to dam it is a waste of effort that might lead to madness.Instead you must allow the muddy river to flow unheeded in the dim channels of consciousness you raise your sights you look along it, mildly, acknowledging its presence without interest and gazing beyond it into the realm of the real where subjects and objects act and rest purely, without utterance. plunge into the deep, says Jacques Ellul, and you shall see. The secret of seeing is, then, the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot a cross a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all.

Coastal Management Report: Collaroy Beach Essay

The Issue Coastal management is the dealings surrounding the management of development along the coastline with sustainability- universe able to meet the needs of futurity generalizations while capitalizing the use of desired atomic number 18as of the coasts for residential and commercial purposes.My written report on coastal management will revolve around the main go away explored in our field t get out which is the gradual corroding of the foredune on Collaroy brim, and its effects on stakeholders (incl. residents, developers, specialist groups). This report will in any case include the decision qualification processes considered by the management (both local and state), as well as the descriptions of their fulfills/strategies, and thus the results of their policies.The LocationOur site of interest, Collaroy beach is located in the suburbs of Northern Sydney, in the state of wise South Wales, Australia. Collaroy is part of the local g overnment ara of Warringah Council a nd part of the Northern Beaches region. Collaroy is well known for its excellent surf beach which joins with Narrabeen Beach in the north and tenacious Reef and Dee Why Beach in the south. Also in close proximity is the Dee Why Lagoon as well as the Long Reef Head.Collaroy beach is the most highly capitalized shoreline in the Warringah local government area, featuring beachfront houses and apartments built on the edge of the sand including the famous Flight Deck Apartments. geographical ProcessCoastal erosion is the loss of land along the shoreline due to the natural removal of beach and dune material in response to changing wave and water supply coachs. Buildings and facilities located within the active beach system, or areas subject to coastal erosion can be undermined and may even collapse.Approximately 60 pct of the NSW open coastline is characterised by sandy beaches. These beaches are dynamic environments undergoing continual cyclesof erosion and accretion in response to the action of feeds, wind and waves. In many places, animated foreshore development has been built within the active beach system and is at risk from coastal erosion.The extent of beach erosion during a particular hale event depends upon a variety of factors that includeThe wave conditions and elevated water levels generated by the besiegeThe most prominent of these processes posits waves and the currents that they generate, along with tides Waves are generated by wind blowing over a body of water and are ultimately responsible for the construction and erosion, as well as transportation of beach sediments.Waves are classified into 2 groups swell waves or sea waves. The incoming tide of a wave is called a swash while the outgoing tide is called a race.Swell waves are more powerful and cause erosion, whereas sea waves are less violent and encourage deposition. Large swell waves are ordinarily accompanied by a set upon, and the swell may become big enough to be classified as a king tide. A king tide arrives at Narrabeen-Collaroy Beach once or twice annual and has a devastating effect on the beach, eroding the beach until a near good erosion scarp is exposed. The sand than is deposited offshore to form a sand bar.Immediately following coastal erosion events on sand beaches, a near vertical erosion scarp of substantial height can be left. If buildings are located close to the vertical erosion scarp, they may be at-risk of structural damage. dissymmetry of the escarpment may pose a hazard to beach users following thrusts with recorded instances of children and beach users buried by the collapsing sand face.The presence of rip cellsA rip cell is a area with a hefty surface flow of water returning seaward from near the shore). It is often called a rip tide However along with water returning seaward, much of the beach sediments are eroded as well helping to hasten the process of erosion.The condition of the beachThe condition of the beach is as well a fa ctor in the severity of the erosion. The condition of the beach is determined by the amount of erosion that has occurred on the beach at that state of time. One indicator of condition is the identification of the beach profile. A beach which possesses a relatively large amounts of sand in the incipient dune, as well the stability of the fore dune, are in a pre-storm form. A beach that has been recently eroded by a storm has a storm profile.The features of a storm profile are the erosion of incipient dune and the exposure of the near vertical erosion scarp, near the fore dune of the beach, as well as a large offshore bar. This beach would therefore catch a storm profile. A beach in which the sea waves have gradually restored the sand to the incipient dune from the sandbar, as well a stable fore-dune are the tell-tell signs of a post-stormprofile. A beach which is in recrudesce conditions is more suited to fight sand erosion, while a second wind of a storm afterward the beach being in a storm profile could be devastating for the beach.The condition of dune vegetation which can influence the volume of sand in the dunes which help to buffer the effects of storm erosionStable sand dunes play an important part in nourishing the coastline. They act as a buffer against wave damage during storms, protecting the land canful from salt-water intrusion. This sand barrier allows the development of more complex contrivet communities in areas protected from salt-water inundation, sea spray and sanitary winds. The dunes also act as a reservoir of sand, to replenish and maintain the beach at times of erosion. When people build homes or resorts on beaches, the buildings interrupt this natural process because the sand that is usually taken by storms is removed so that humans may build. In the diagram below the red line shows the extent of the danger zone.Key gratify GroupsThe key interest groups involved with the issue of the erosion of Collaroy include groups such as Syd ney Coastal Councils Groups, which have criticize the non-actions of the Warringah Council to set up a plan in the long term, instead focusing on short term relief such as sand replenishment, which SSCG deems as unsustainable in the long run. However,SSCG may be the only interest group targeting the issue. However when it was announced that the sea wall was planned for construction two t otherwise peer groups, Surf rider basis Club, as well as the local Collaroy Surf Club joined in action to stop the construction of the seawall.Decision Making ProcessTo find a solution for the erosion of Collaroy Beach was a complicated process involving decision making and assistance in many levels. The NSW and Commonwealth government provided assistance to Warringah Council by providing material to help it construct an effective Management Strategy.Material included in this state and commonwealth package Included 1990 the NSW Government released its Coastline Management Manual, a guideline to hel p local councils development, Coastal management plan by them. It also provided Commonwealth inquires such as reported on The hurt Coastline and The Coastal Zone Inquiry.In 1993 the Warringah Council set up the Warringah Coastal Committee which has various stakeholders as members including a WC councillor, A NSW Govt Rep, a Surfrider Rep, a SLSC Rep, Beachfront and other Local residents. This diversity in the committee instead of just containing members of the council helped to foster unbiased views on the opinions of the stakeholders as well increase the community involvement which helps to better serve the purpose of the community, making the ideas of the community in which is ultimately the councils purpose anyway.The Committee meets once every two months to advice Council on the next action to stop the erosion. In August 1997 the Collaroy/Narrabeen Coastal Management Plan was adopted. Throughout this process and before any major strategies are implemented the public are invited to comment and provide community feedback. However there have been criticisms of the committee as consensus-based Coastline Management Plan was pursued by Council but not achieved, with strong differences of opinion emerging within the community, and between the Warringah Coastal Management Committee and CouncilManagement Actions and Strategies (and Consequences)There have been many differentmanagement strategies that could have been implemented to protect from or at least slow down the effects of erosion, enough to guarantee the safety of the dwelling. Preliminary studies reviled that the existing rock seawalls are not strong enough to withstand a major storm. There are two long term solutions to this issue. They are voluntary purchase of high risk dwellings, and the guard of the beach through the building of a seawall or an artificial surf reef. The community is split between those strategies for tackling the erosion problemA temporary solution involve minor to moderate sand fo rage, which are used in conjunction with either of these actions. The sand comes from the mouths of the Dee Why and Narrabeen Lagoons.The management strategy of repurchasing high risk undivided homes has been a popular strategy amongst those whom want to protect and enhanced the recreational amenity of the beach. This method was successful back in 1945 when the council bought back 7 houses that were disgraced by the storm. However in recent years, the price of beachside property skyrocketed with high demand, and the strategy is currently not economically feasible at this point in time. With an average home in 2005 located on the fore dune of Collaroy Beach coasting a whopping 2.7 one million million million- the plan is estimated to cost more than coke million dollars. Even though the state government is willing to match the contributions the state government made, this strategy if implemented could take anywhere between 50 to 100 years to purchase every single home that is in t he high risk zone.The alternative strategy is to develop a seawall on the beach to protect the property located on the fore dune. The sea wall would be approximately 1 km long and will be comfortable to protect the fore dune from collapsing. However the cost of the sea wall cheap in comparison to the buyback strategy costs approximately 11 million dollars to build. In addition, the council expects at least 40% of the 11 million to be paid by the owners of the units, making it an unattractive deal for the residents.The seawall is also not environmentally friendly either. It is known for speeding up the process of erosion, as the energy of the storm waves is not absorbed but reflected, meaning the backwash will be stronger, and eventually the shore profile will retreat, removing whats left of the beach. However this ideaalso seems to be out of reach, as after the successful Line in the Sand community protest in November 2002, the council voted 4 months later not to proceed with the sea wall option.So with the repurchase strategy unlikely, and the seawall not likely to be built, how is the council going to solve the problem. Right now, the plan is to get by on minor beach nourishment from the mouth of Narrabeen and Dee Why Lagoons for now, while the council investigates new strategies, with the help of newly implemented coastal imaging cameras on top of Flight Deck.One of the new strategies being investigated includes an artificial surfing reef, which is basically a seawall underneath the water to amplify the surf. Acting like a ramp, it pushes waves upwards which increases their size and shapes them into waves you can surf. This also reduces the impact of the swell waves, reducing the rate of erosion. However, this technology is quite new and it is debateable in its affectivity, but the results are promising, and it is also drastically cheaper than the original strategies, making it a viable solution for the ongoing problem in a number of years time. (The diag ram below shows an artificial surf reef)www.examplessays.com www.coastalmananagment.com www.megaessays.com