Ruin and Survival

The poetry of local nature

I’ve been a self-directed student of ecology for many years, and one thing I’ve learned is that, at a certain point, scientific familiarity becomes a kind of poetry. Take, for example, this report tucked away in the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) records database, which I just happened to notice somewhere on an aimless internet stroll.

The streambed generally consists of a series of plane-beds, pool-riffles, and boulder fields. Channel width varies from about 10LF in the upper reaches to 30LF in the lower reaches. Channel morphology is strongly influenced by bedrock exposures, large erratics, and gravel bars. At least six small seasonal feeder streams augment its waters with three shown on the area’s USGS topographic map. As one proceeds from the headwaters to the tailwaters of a riverine system, an increase in the proportion of fine particles is manifest; it is the accumulation of fine sediments in the fish spawning areas of the NAP that is one of the management concerns in the watershed.

The report outlines the natural history, ecology, and biodiversity of a relatively small headwater stream in the Litchfield Hills, one of the wilder corners of our domesticated state. About ten years ago, the state identified the brook as a candidate for its Natural Area Preserve program, and DEEP commissioned this expansive study and management plan. Something tells me this additional honor has not given the stream the recognition it deserves, or at least not the kind that would draw troublesome crowds. Still, I’ll keep its name anonymous. The report continues:

The heterogenous mix of boulders, ledges, downed timber, and gravels along with the opening of vernal channels provide both physical and physiological protection for fishes in brook during flood events. These shelters are critical because the energetic expenditure required to maintain swim control in the open water of flood events typically exceeds available reserves in a short time, leading to uncontrolled downstream drift.

Do you hear the poetry? Consider this vivid passage:

A significant ice-damage event on the brook occurred on 7 December 1998 when a heavy, warm rain followed an extended cold period. The stream was encased in surface and anchor ice and rapidly rose to flood stage, dislodging plates that flowed torrentially and continuously downstream along with widely disturbed substrate materials, logs, and other debris. Trees on islands in the stream channel and well into the adjacent forest of the Natural Area Preserve were destroyed or heavily damaged by floating pack ice, with extensive residual jams formed all along the brook. Stocked rainbow trout were found stranded in vernal pools in woodland areas rarely visited by flood. In many places, pieces of ice to 6 feet in diameter and 3 feet thick slammed into trees and curves in the river, creating horizontal pancake stacks over 30 feet thick.

This is thrilling drama for a little stream that hardly anybody has ever heard of. Imagine the sounds of the trees snapping, the pack ice cracking open and crashing together. Imagine finding the trout. It sounds like a folktale, or a scene from a magical realism novel. But to the brook, these are just things that happen occasionally.

Do we give enough attention to the fine particles drifting over brook trout eggs, or the colorful adult in “uncontrolled downstream drift”? The ecologists certainly do. Granted, that’s mostly because attending to these stories is a methodological requirement for studying the unimaginably complex interactions within ecosystems. But that’s also where I find the poetry: the looking, the noticing. It’s in acknowledging these quantum events of the biosphere, always happening or not happening, that somehow flow together to form the great cycles of the earth.

… unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the same mass hypnotist (who?), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous… we don’t know what’s going on here.

That’s Annie Dillard now, writing about these innumerable links in ecology’s chain. She argued these were not merely “random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters,” but in fact moments of revelation—bursts of “power and light”—that dispute the very notion of meaninglessness. Maybe this is too Transcendentalist. Nature writers are prone to seeing visions in nature that gratify human consciousness. But considering the baffled trout stuck in a forest—or the miracle it presents to a hungry bear—I ask: who says it’s just for us?

The point is, there is no end of things to notice. This is more than academic for me. When I got sick, I felt like a salmon hitting a dam. My old life's journey towards the remote wilderness vistas of our great landscapes was over. The modern outdoor community is a bit like a salmon migration in this way: an all-consuming, predetermined struggle into the highlands and hinterlands. (What exactly we’re rushing there for is less certain.) I do not know what exactly salmon do to survive at the foot of a huge dam, but for me the task was to adapt. I had to find nature’s solace elsewhere, in the smaller places I could still reach. That’s what taught me to notice.

Back to the brook:

In a historical context, the brook has long been considered to be excellent salmon and trout habitat. Atlantic salmon were plentiful before dams throughout the Connecticut River watershed blocked upstream migratory paths. In the first half of the last century, the brook was known as a prime native Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) fishery in Connecticut, but in recent years the number and size of brookies have steadily declined.

The brook is considered the highest-ranking Atlantic salmon restoration stream in the watershed.

Are we not all like Connecticut’s salmon, trapped and diverted by the stubborn industrialized world? Are we not all like the ecologist, wondering what, if anything, might save their world from extinction? It would be nice to be the lucky salmon swimming up less troubled rivers in wilder regions of the world, but I think none of us are so fortunate in human terms. The planet itself has been greatly disturbed by our civilization’s capacity for ruin. We must look hard, then, for the places like this modest brook that still hold a chance, however slim, of survival. We must save absolutely everything that we can.

When this report came out in the early 2010s, Atlantic salmon still had a fighting chance of recovery in the Connecticut River watershed. The next year, the federal government shut down the 50-year-old Atlantic salmon hatchery and recovery program, condemning the salmon to extirpation. Climate change had warmed Long Island Sound too drastically to allow the ocean migrations to survive. But this did not mean the brook became a ruined place. Today, a renewed effort hopes to bring back other migratory species like herring, alewife, eel, and shad—the Founding Fish—which still hold great hope for recovery. The odds for these species may even be better than before, enjoying the resources formerly dedicated to salmon.

To me, the meaning is clear. We could all stand to learn more about the pool-riffles and other amazing events happening everywhere in our local ecologies. The care, attention, and even love found in the survey of this modest Connecticut brook should be more familiar to all of us, ecologists or not. Maybe then we would be less sanguine about the ruin we’ve brought to the other pockets of nature closest to our homes. Maybe doing so requires not only scientific study, but an ear for poetry, an appetite for wonder, and a clearer set of eyes. Or if nothing else, call it a matter of survival.