Other people’s words about … wild animals
As Paul and I were cresting the last hill, as I was squinting into the darkening woods to make out the path, a couple of deer lifted their heads at once and differentiated themselves from the trees.
We stared at them, and they at us, for a full thirty seconds without moving. They multiplied as we looked at them. There were three at first, then there were four, then there were five. They were the exact color of the bark and leaves –- gray brown –- but the skin around their eyes was red. I felt the breeze on their backs lift the braid from my chest and set it down over my shoulder.
‘They’re going to get us,’ Paul whispered. He reached for my hand.
‘They’re a herd,’ I reminded him. ‘They’re afraid of us.’
Two more appeared. Paul shivered.
From ‘History of Wolves‘
by Emily Fridlund
There are many places I like to go bushwalking in, but one of my favourites is the Aldinga Scrub. When I walk there, particularly at certain times of the day, I am always conscious that I might encounter a roo or too. There are traces of them throughout the Scrub.
Sometimes a kangaroo appears before me in plain sight — in a clearing in a patch of sunlight, enjoying the last rays of the sun, joey in pouch.
But sometimes there are roos in front of me all the time, without my even realising it. I don’t know what alerts me to them then. It might be the faintest rustle in the leaves around me, or a slight movement — an ear-twitch, perhaps. Sometimes a sense comes over me, simply: a dawning awareness that I am not alone any more, that I am being watched, and regarded, and assessed.
Kangaroos are not naturally aggressive towards humans, as far as I know, or not during encounters like this. But still, like all wild animals, they are protective of each other and of their young. And so, when I come across a roo or two (or more) in this way — when they differentiate themselves from the bushes around them, as Linda, the narrator in the passage above, beautifully puts it — I make sure to stop and take one or two steps back. I let the kangaroos know I’m not a threat. We regard each other a while, creature to creature, acknowledging each other. It’s not fear I feel then, like Paul, the little boy in the quote above: it’s respect.
And then I move on, leaving them to their world, re-entering my own.
twenty-one words 
I share that respect of native animals and often consider that I am invading their land and territory. Humans tend to act entitled, to dominate, but I think that they were here long before we were and what right have we to displace and disrupt them?
Absolutely, Eliza. I’m with you on that all the way 🙂