After watching “How Trees Talk to Each Other” and “Why I Love Vultures”, I took some time to reflect.

Of course I knew trees were living things and assumed that they probably had some sort method of communicating. I had no idea their methods of communication and levels of knowing were advanced enough to recognize and treat their offspring differently than the offspring of another tree of the same species. This was a very interesting discovery to me. I feel as though many people see plants as nothing more than plants, and while they maybe “be alive” they don’t feel/know and are very different from us and other living things. This has definitely changed my view of trees and my connection to them. I think it is easier to feel connection to animals as we often actively interact with them and either witness them interacting with each other/their young on TV or in zoos. Knowing that trees essentially do that same things just under ground and unbeknownst to us is quite enlightening. We often take trees for granted and forget that they to are alive, are members of the same Earth as we are and while also being beautiful, they have serious and very important roles to play in our survival.

I have never given much thought to vultures, sure I’ve heard people refer to them as “disgusting creatures” and sort of nodded along. After watching this TED talk and reading “The Urban Bestiary” I have started thinking of “pests” in a new light. Vultures, like trees, have a role to play here on our planet, whether we acknowledge this or are oblivious to it. I didn’t know the vital roles vultures play in things such as reducing the spread of diseases. I can’t say I’m surprised I had never heard anything nice/good about vultures. They aren’t exactly cute or cuddly and once something is labelled as disgusting/a pest, we often don’t hear about the good things the creature does for us/the environment. Anytime a species is on the brink of extinction, we should care. Especially with the mass extinct that is taking place now, we have caused this and need to acknowledge this if anything is going to change. We should care regardless of what the species is, whether it is a plant, a bird or a rodent, however we tend to care less when we feel less connected to the species. This TED talk opened my eyes as to why we should care about not only the vultures but all species as we all have a role to play here.

What aspects of nature and biodiversity are most important to protect? To me, there is one place protection and care needs to start and that is with the environment itself. Some may say “I want to protect the animals”. I am not an animal hater and am all for saving the animals but if we don’t protect their habitats, the land, the water, their ecosystems, we can try and save them all we want but where will they live and how will they survive? One example of the benefits of protecting the environment is the sustainable agriculture practice of caring for the grass or “farming grass” which provides the farm animals with food grown from the land and enough space to meet their needs. People want to save the polar bears but they are losing their habitat due to climate change and are unable to adapt to the warming temperatures fast enough. We need to address things like our greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, urban sprawling, pollution and increasing ocean/atmosphere temperatures if we have any hope in saving anything else.