Monster of God

[Guest guest]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2003:

 

 

Monster of God:

The man-eating predator in the

jungles of history and the mind

by David Quammen

W.W. Norton & Co. (500 5th Ave., New York, NY 10110), 2003.

384 pages, hardcover. $26.95.

 

 

Certain to be classified by most librarians as " natural history, "

Monster of God has already been mistaken by many reviewers as a screed in

defense of " sustainable use. "

Monster of God is actually a book mostly about faith, exploring the

influence of the human evolutionary role as prey upon concepts of religion,

and of the more recent human ascendance as a top predator on our ideas

about conservation.

David Quammen is profoundly skeptical that humans and predators

capable of eating us are capable of coexisting for longer than another 150

years. He presents a strong circumstantial case that the protohuman concept

of God evolved as a psychological response to swift and seemingly random

predator strikes. Sacrifice, Quammen suggests, began as appeasement of

predators, and in some remote places continues as such.

Others have written extensively about the emergence of sacrifice as

the ritual sustenance of a learned priestly class, coinciding with the rise

of animal husbandry, and have discussed especially the role of religion in

rationalizing slaughter. Without taking much note of of this, Quammen

explores the role of the earliest monarchs in recorded history as

lion-slayers, pointing out that the dawn of civilization coincided with the

emergence of humans as quasi-apex predators, able at last to do with

weapons what natural predators do with tooth and claw.

Quammen goes on to trace the rise of Christianity on every continent

parallel to the introduction of superior weapons, demonstrated between wars

of subjugation against non-Christians in countless episodes of

dragon-slaying and trophy-shooting. Christianity not only gave believers

license to exterminate the predators whom pagans appeased, but also

provided the means to do so.

Quammen seems no more concerned that predator-killing is not in the

recorded theology of Jesus than most of the purported followers of Jesus

have been concerned that he told Peter to put away his sword and in effect

sacrificed himself to the predation of both theocracy and secular

government. To whatever extent an attitude toward predation may be read

into the words and deeds of Jesus, his views appear most similar to those

embodied in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, which tolerate the existence

of predators but recognize an obligation to protect one's flock and family.

Quammen explores that attitude among the Maldhari herders who

co-exist, somewhat uneasily, with the Asiatic lions of the Gir forest in

western India. Ancestrally and culturally related to the Sindhi of

Pakistan, and more distantly to the Bishnoi of Rajasthan, the Maldhari

mostly seem to accept that the price of their life in the forest is that

lions will eat some of their cattle, and that if the lions find enough wild

hooved animals to eat, they will eat neither cattle nor humans. This

understanding is encouraged to some extent by recognition that if the Gir

lions decline, the Indian government under foreign pressure may resume

efforts to evict all of the Maldharis from the forest. Thousands were

evicted, along with their cattle, prior to the rise of the present Hindu

nationalist government.

Much of Monster of God ponders the paradox that the Gir forest lions,

the saltwater crocodiles of eastern India and northern Australia, and the

brown bears of Romania have all been saved (so far) chiefly by the interest

of a few wealthy and well-connected people in perpetuating their existence

not as predators but as prey. The Gir lions survived the 19th century only

because they were so coveted as trophies that one particular sultan saved

their habitat. Romanian brown bears survived the 20th century chiefly

because the dictator Nicolai Ceaucescu poured resources into breeding them

and protecting their habitat, reserving to himself the privilege of

semi-ceremonially massacring them as a frequent demonstration of his

potence. Saltwater crocs have recovered from the verge of extinction in two

of their most important habitats because of schemes to market their

hides--successful in Australia, a failure in India.

Quammen is quite uneasy about both the premises and practice of

" sustainable use, " and says so, several times. But Quammen is even less

hopeful that eco-tourism can provide an economic motive for saving large

predators.

In Africa, Quammen points out, where eco-tourism has historically

been most successful, the habitat of lions, cheetah, hyenas and crocodiles

is relatively open. The predators are easily seen and photographed.

In India, conversely, good tiger habitat is notoriously dense.

Eco-tour promoters have learned that the surest way to provide tiger

sightings is to leave only narrow corridors of habitat beside wild-looking

jeep roads--which does not allow the few remaining tigers to increase their

numbers.

If eco-tourists require only the illusion of wilderness, eco-tourism

will preserve only quasi-zoos. Even Yellowstone National Park, Quammen

observes, is more-or-less a zoo, though in recent years efforts have

increased to expand the opportunities for grizzly bears and wolves to

migrate out of the protected parkland into the less guarded national forests

that adjoin the park.

Reviewing the data that Quammen presents, it is difficult not to

share his pessimism about the future of predators. Yet Quammen has all but

ignored the increasing success of international efforts to restore

predators, of every size.

Examples include the reintroductions of wolves to the Yellowstone

region, red wolves to the Southeast, and Mexican grey wolves to the

Southwest; the introduction of legal protections for sharks in U.S.,

Australian, and Palauan waters; the recovery of bald eagles and other

raptors from near-annihilation by DDT; the conquest of U.S. cities by

pigeon-eating peregrine falcons; the growing public appreciation of

coyotes; the emergence of foxes and fisher-cats as suburban species; the

recovery of pumas throughout much of North America; Chinese efforts to

bring back tigers and raptors; global restriction of the traffic in bear

parts; and the post-Free Willy! rise of the once hated " killer whale " to

iconic status.

Quammen is correct that humans mostly love predators at a safe

distance, and that it is critical to give people who live and work in

proximity to predation as much security and economic reward for tolerance as

possible.

Yet one of the triumphs of science and civilization is that predation

is no longer a mystery, no longer an apparent instrument of a vindictive

and wrathful God. In coming to understand the ecological role of predation,

growing numbers of humans recognize the " monsters of God " as some of the

rarest miracles of creation--like the late Tim Treadwell and Amie Huguenard,

who were recently killed by grizzly bears at the Katmai National Park &

Preserve in Alaska, after years of work to try to ease human fear of

grizzlies.

As their longtime friend Paul Watson observed, to them the greatest

tragedy associated with their deaths would have been that retrieving their

remains led also to the deaths of the two grizzlies who ate them. They did

not volunteer to die, but volunteered to live in proximity to grizzlies for

thirteen and seven summers, respectively, to show that it could be done.

In the same week a captive-bred white tiger mauled entertainer Roy

Horn of the long-running Las Vegas act Siegfried & Roy. The mauling is

expected to end more than 40 years of stage demonstrations by Horn and his

partner Siegfried Fischbacher of human mastery over predators.

Over time, Siegfried & Roy themselves became leading advocates of

wild predators, and occasionally seemed to acknowledge that their act had

become an anachronism. Born a generation later, they might have indulged

their interest in predators as Treadwell did, as wildlife filmmakers.

Other reviewers have mentioned the Roy Horn mauling as a reminder

that great predators are still " monsters of God, " no matter how thoroughly

caged and dependent upon human feeding. The real reminder, however, may

have been that great predators do not belong caged and dependent.

The essence of wilderness, says Earth First! founder Dave Foreman,

is that something there can eat you.

Great predators need to roam, and many humans seem to have a

psychological need to venture at times into wilderness, to rekindle for

whatever reason our ancestral awareness that we are after all, in Quabben's

words, " just another flavor of meat. " --Merritt Clifton

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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