Guided quiet tracking amid declining wildlife models attentive slow observation

Evidence

Development and population pressure in the rain forest have triggered a sharp decline in wildlife populations. Therefore, our guides were very excited to pick up the tracks of a mother tapir and her baby in the mud. We woke before dawn the next day to follow their trail along the river in hopes of seeing them. In the misty stillness of the early morning, we wove our way through the palms of the riverine forest, listening intently. The tapirs had vanished, but quiet walking in the woods never disappoints. Weheard a troop of howler monkeys waking and watched them move through the branches overhead, perfectly adapted for life in the treetops. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 266

Categorization

• SEED: ‘Quiet walking in the woods never disappoints’ is a usable epigraph/opening line for the Reading the Landscape observation-method essay.
• XREF: connects to: Attention, not technology, is what reveals the middle-scale world — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 66; Attentive, low-to-the-ground search reveals small creatures the casual eye misses — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 109; Species relationships resist the automated monitoring that captures physical ecosystem processes — Almo Farina, Soundscape Ecology: Principles,…, 2227

Broader Connections

• Attentive, low-to-the-ground search reveals small creatures the casual eye misses #expands (0.85) — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 109
• Species relationships resist the automated monitoring that captures physical ecosystem processes #corroborates (0.75) — Almo Farina, Soundscape Ecology, 2227