Forget Me Not: Finding the Forgotten Species of Climate-Change Britain by Sophie Pavelle

Author:Sophie Pavelle [Pavelle, Sophie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: nature, Endangered Species, Environmental Conservation & Protection, Travel, Special Interest, Ecotourism, Regional, Science, Global Warming & Climate Change, Animals, Wildlife, Essays & Travelogues, Literary Collections, Essays
ISBN: 9781472986221
Google: L15hEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2022-06-09T20:48:12+00:00

I’ve been mulling for some time how to sweet talk dung to you. I am truly curious as to your immediate thoughts. Are you repulsed? Has a bad experience prompted lifelong aversion? Or are you simply indifferent? However you might feel about dung, I’m pretty sure we like beetles. A friend of mine once said she sees them as ‘indestructible’, which suggests a level of admiration, I think. Even so, when it comes to understanding their actual function, it’s easier to move on, isn’t it? Yet, it occurs to me that dung, in all its forms, offers us a rare opportunity for lifelong education. Indeed, we’ve learned that our grey long-eared bat prefers a more flamboyant approach to defecation. I can’t say the same myself, but I did enter a regrettable phase for about a year:

Parent: ‘How was school?’

Me: ‘Poo.’

‘Much homework tonight?’

‘Poo.’

‘What time is Rachel coming over?’

‘Poo.’

This most favourite retort was maddening for everyone else and hilarious for eight-year-old me. Aside from the obvious, a good many synonyms describe this most fundamental of biological happenings, some of which I will experiment with throughout this chapter: egesta, discharge, ordure (sounds like an ordeal), ejecta, turd (she will never admit it, but this is my mum’s favourite!) and, my new favourite, ejectamenta (some sort of private school Latin motto?). Anyway, the fact is, the world wouldn’t exist without it, and animal droppings buttress our countryside like little else.

Predictably, we’ve been swift to recognise dung’s value for our society. Dried dung has long been bricks and mortar for many communities around the world. Across India, dung is still culturally regarded as some sort of universal blessing. Where trees are sporadic, people burn dung as fuel. Our crops have been fertilised with dung since farming dawned more than 8,000 years ago. Yet, it seems that a sort of global dung divergence has emerged. Some cultures continue to harvest fresh dung for worthy, medicinal purposes. Oklahoma holds an annual World Cow Chip Throwing Contest at which contestants compete to throw dried chunks of cowpat. The record stands at 81.1 metres, unbeaten since 1981.

Cows, of course, augment our lives in other ways. Milk? Useful! Ice cream? Here for it. Cheese? Stupid question. But here’s the thing – I would confidently bet money on the fact that you have never, ever concerned yourself with another by-product of a dairy cow. Nor have you worried for the UK’s dwindling dung, let alone lamented the average consistency, health or content of it in a standard cattle field. Well, I’m with you. Until recently, I rarely thought about dung either, unless it worked its way onto my shoe. Overlooking dung is just the way things have panned out over the years, I guess. But the best dung is rapidly becoming the stuff of legend. And it’s high time we sorted that shit out and allowed ourselves to be schooled by the humble pat and the life – yes, life – within it.

UK dung beetles are part of a beetle ‘superfamily’

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