The Fiercest Creature in the Forest
Might not be who you think it is...
Moonrise, Cedar Bluffs Natural Area, Mahaska County, Iowa.
This past summer, when I had trouble sleeping for a month or so, I went for my daily morning walk at Cedar Bluffs Natural Area in Mahaska County at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.
One evening Annie and Johanna asked me if I was scared to be walking in the forest in the middle of the night.
“Why should I be scared,” I exclaimed, flexing my biceps and pumping my fists into the air, “when I am the fiercest creature in the forest!”
They laughed at me.
Then I started thinking about it.
The Cedar Bluff’s Natural Area overlooks the confluence of Cedar Creek and the Des Moines River. The river is a natural pathway for mountain lions.
They could tear me limb from limb! The all-knowing Wikipedia tells me that they are the most widespread large terrestrial mammal in the western hemisphere! Maybe there is one watching me every morning as I wander the forest!
So clearly the mountain lion is the fiercest creature in the forest, although some might beg to differ. I, for example carry a walking stick. Most men (including old Chuck Patton coached UNI wrestlers like me) have an exaggerated sense of our own physical prowess, and some readers (I would guess mostly men), think that if it were them with the walking stick, they could use it to fend off the lion as it attacked!
Or some men reading this are thinking that’s why you carry a gun into the forest, Bob! Shoot it!
That’s not going to happen.
Mountain lions “prefer to ambush their prey from behind. Once a mountain lion has killed its prey, usually by swiftly and cleanly breaking the neck, it will gorge on the carcass until it can eat no more, then covers the remainder with leaves and dirt. The lion will now fast for a few days, digesting and resting.”
Despite our delusions regarding our physical capabilities, since 99.9999 percent of American men are more Jello than Rambo, it’s no contest. Guys? You’ll be covered with leaves and dirt before you know it.
I always have my dorky headlamp on when I walk in the dark, so maybe the mountain lion would see my light and avoid me for being unusual (like some people do). I am also listening to podcasts without my earbuds in; almost entirely Crooked Media podcasts, except when Mary Swander drops an AgArts episode, and that goes to the top of my list. If the mountain lions have heard me laugh out loud, it’s probably at something Mary said. I would avoid me too.
I think the light helps keep me safe, because dumbass guy mythology says nocturnal animals fear light, but I really don’t know that’s true. I’m always looking for reflections that come from the eyes of many animals, so I can respond as needed. Deer, raccoon, and possums are what I most commonly see reflections from. That reflection comes from the Tapetum lucidum, which “is a layer of tissue in the eye of many vertebrates and some other animals. Lying immediately behind the retina, it is a retroreflector. It reflects visible light back through the retina, increasing the light available to the photoreceptors. The tapetum lucidum contributes to the superior night vision of some animals.”
I wish I had a Tapetum lucindum. But I also wish I had a prehensile tail that can grip things like a monkey’s tail can, and a million bucks, but that isn’t going to happen, so what I am is all I have to work with, which isn’t that bad.
What else is more fierce than I in the forest? I hear coyotes howling all of the time. A pack of coyotes could drag me down in no time! A bobcat could gut me before I blinked!
I freed a deer with its leg caught in a fence once, and I barely escaped with my life. It was ferocious and made fierce other-worldly sounds!
Raccoons have fierce teeth and claws, and they run in groups! Imagine a mom and a bunch of kits attacking me at once!
And didn’t a rabbit attack Jimmy Carter?
And there is the horror movie Night of the Lepus (the genus for jackrabbit, as opposed to Sylvilagus, the genus for rabbits like the one that attacked Jimmy Carter.)
And the horrifying attack by the bunny in Monty Python and the Holy Grail!
Did you know the possum has the most teeth of any North American mammal? Just think what it could do with all those peg-like omnivore teeth if they wanted to. And here is an existential question--if a possum attacked me and I played dead would it ignore me?
And what if a few mice decided to gang up on me? Run up the legs of my overalls to try to nibble me to death?
Or a swarm of bats, echolocating ferociously to find my throat?
Which, of course makes me think of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 movie “The Birds.”
And then there are snakes, spiders, grasshoppers, and bees! All potentially more ferocious than me! Individually or in swarms.
And what if the earthworms decided to rally to defend their territory? “In an acre of good soil researchers have found more than 1 million worms and 1,200 miles of earthworm holes or burrows. One-million earthworms per acre is about 25 earthworms per square foot of soil.” A million worms? No thanks.
Imagine them rising to the surface and flowing like a slimy, earthy, icky tide across the landscape to drown me! That would be the ultimate horror movie.
And if they are giant like in the movie Tremors there are no rocks big enough for me to seek safety!
The fact of the matter is your pet gerbil could own your ass if it wanted to.
Now I’ve talked myself into this corner, Bambi could probably take me with one hoof tied behind her back.
Fortunately, for my sake all these creatures want is to be left alone. Just like me.
So Annie and Johanna, I’m not afraid to go on walks in the middle of the night, even if I’m not the fiercest creature in the forest!
Not even close.
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Been ‘fraid of the dark since grade school; still leap into bed from three feet out so nothing grabs my ankles.
Will finish reading your piece when trembling stops!
Funny piece. You're right, though, about men thinking we're king of the jungle, especially if we're carrying a big stick. I hike in the mountains with a skinny little collapsible hiking pole and I think to myself if a bear pops out, I'll just smack him with this thing. Once the bear stops laughing, I'm sure he'd make short work of me and my hiking stick.