Sunday, July 03, 2005

Grayal on St. Vincent Island, Florida

Guest poster Grayal Farr on an alien that does no harm (also an occasion for a good Kipling quote. But then again, what isn't?)

"St. Vincent Island NWR is one of the bigger remaining chunks of near-pristine Florida. Visitors are allowed over every day, but no motorized transportation is allowed except for refuge staff and volunteers. The island is almost ten miles long, and except after a lot of rain, the roads and beaches are deep soft sand, so bikes aren't that good an option either. Public access, except for the nights before a couple of primitive weapons hunts, is dawn to dusk.

For decades it was the private hunting preserve of rich Yankees. They imported exotics, Zebras (Why, I don't know. Who ever hunted zebras?), Blackbuck, and Sambar Deer. The zebras and Blackbuck were hopeless, and came into the hunting camp on the eastern end of the island for feed from the very beginning. The Sambar, on the other hand, seem to have discovered that rare thing, an unoccupied ecological niche. They just sort of looked around, glanced meaningfully at each other - and disappeared into the marshes. They continue to flourish. When FWS took over the place they immediately got rid of the freeloading zebras and Blackbuck. The Sambar were another matter. A decision was made to let them be, partly (though never explicitly acknowledged) because of local sentiment. Anyway, they're still there, giving me an opportunity to experience some of Kipling's genius for description...

As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled -
Once, twice, and again!
And a doe leaped up and a doe leaped up
From the pond in the wood where the wild deer sup.
This, I, scouting alone beheld,
Once, twice, and again!

It does get you. They crash off like Elk in heavy cover. Nothing like it in Florida."

Oh and-- they have red wolves, too. That poem is, for non- Kiplingites (shame!) narrated by a wolf.

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