As evening closes in, I am finding myself increasingly mourning the loss of the steamer clams of Maine. I've always found them here in uncountable hoards, so numerous that they could no more disappear than could the sky-darkening flocks of passenger pigeons. Yesterday I went prospecting for them, trying to find a decent number to share with Cynthia and Lucy and new friends... but they are gone from their old places, leaving only shells. Today, as I sailed slowly, I researched hearsay information I had about green crabs killing them... you know how reliable hearsay can be. Well, apparently the invasive European green crabs ARE eating them up, digging the young out and eating them before they can grow. Part of the cause is the crabs, part is the warming ocean... and ALL of the cause is US. These (well, the ones in Cape Cod) are the first clams I dug as a child and to think that they are going, going, gone.... well, I find myself with an deep ineffable sadness, unstoppable tears running down my face... as I sit here playing my comforting sudoku, with the light fading... and the approaching hurricane remnants making the winds rise.
Funny: I didn't feel quite this way when beloved Wyoming forests died of bark beetles... but, then again, I never actually saw those dead forests, just pictures. And my coral reefs (but I never saw them in their prime)... and my abalone (but I haven't been there for decades)... Same goes for ash trees, American elms, American chestnuts.... I guess this is the first beloved bit of my beloved Earth I've seen die by our hand.
Another possibility might be that I connect to the natural world through foraging and this removes an important bit of that.
Ah, well. Life goes on.
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