Read Online Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island by Will Harlan - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Will Harlan
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years. Had she grown too comfortable in the trappings of urban life? Was she too scared to fly away?
Ever since her divorce from Charlie, Carol had been living in a dilapidated, one-bedroom house. Her roommates included two tomcats, a gopher tortoise, a raven with a broken wing, two gray rat snakes, a terrarium of field mice, an aquarium of frogs and salamanders, an injured owl, a golden pheasant, and five white leghorn roosters.
Kids constantly knocked on Carol’s door to see the animals. Finally she struck a deal with them: on Saturdays only, the kids could feed the animals and clean out cages. The kids loved petting the birds, holding the snakes, walking the dog, and chasing the chickens, and Carol enjoyed teaching them about animals—and getting a weekly break from cage cleaning.
“Kids reveal an obvious truth: natural wonder is built in to us,” she wrote in her journal. “We are instinctively attracted to nature.” Nature tugs on us like gravity, Carol believed. We travel long distances to stand atop mountains or stroll along seashores for reasons we can’t quite put into words. Nature keeps alive a childlike wonder and enables us to see the world anew through fresh eyes.
Carol’s animal house eventually prompted a visit from the landlord, who was receiving complaints from neighbors about unusual noises and odors. The landlord had planned to evict her months prior. But then he saw what Carol’s zoo was doing for the kids in their run-down neighborhood. Many of them had never seen a wild animal other than a rat. “You can keep your critters,” the landlord told her. “But there’s no way in hell you’re getting back your deposit.”
Her animal house was not much better than a zoo, Carol realized. At least she released her animals back to the wild. Still, there were cages and food bowls.
Carol hated zoos. Confining wild animals in concrete cages was a cruel expression of human pride. She saw the sadness and frustration in the animals’ eyes. What was the value in gawking at miserable, tortured creatures imprisoned behind steel bars? Zoos’ captive breeding programs were commendable in trying to save endangered species from extinction, but beyond that, she found nothing redeeming about them.
Sure, animals in the zoo had it easy: free food, no predators, and a warm place to sleep at night. Life in the wild was far less safe. Danger lurked everywhere, at every moment. Food was seasonal and unpredictable. No nest or territory was completely secure from fire, famine, or flood. Even sleep was a gamble. Birds and rabbits rested with one eye open, shutting down half their brain for a few hours at a time.
Though wild nature wasn’t safe, it was real. For millennia, animals had lived and evolved embedded in a web more intricate and delicate than humans could ever replicate. Comfort could never fully replace connection, Carol maintained. Animal and habitat were as inseparable as turtle and shell. When zoos severed this connection, they created different species. They housed artificial animals dependent on dried food, daily cleaning, and antibiotic injections.
Along the way, we humans had also cut our connection to the wild, Carol believed. Cities were zoos for people. Artificial food was manufactured for the masses. We built for ourselves climate-controlled cages and produced pharmaceuticals that helped us live longer, but what exactly were we living for? We had become zoo humans. We had stripped life of its wildness and incarcerated ourselves in picket-fenced pens that left us depressed and disconnected.
In 1969, Zoo Atlanta’s resident female bobcat gave birth to two sister cubs, but one of them was sick. When her mother refused to let the sick kitten suckle, the kitten was moved to a windowless concrete cell where she was scheduled to be euthanized.
Carol knew the groundskeeper at the zoo, an old friend whom she had worked with at the museum.
“I gotta put her down tomorrow morning,” he told
Ever since her divorce from Charlie, Carol had been living in a dilapidated, one-bedroom house. Her roommates included two tomcats, a gopher tortoise, a raven with a broken wing, two gray rat snakes, a terrarium of field mice, an aquarium of frogs and salamanders, an injured owl, a golden pheasant, and five white leghorn roosters.
Kids constantly knocked on Carol’s door to see the animals. Finally she struck a deal with them: on Saturdays only, the kids could feed the animals and clean out cages. The kids loved petting the birds, holding the snakes, walking the dog, and chasing the chickens, and Carol enjoyed teaching them about animals—and getting a weekly break from cage cleaning.
“Kids reveal an obvious truth: natural wonder is built in to us,” she wrote in her journal. “We are instinctively attracted to nature.” Nature tugs on us like gravity, Carol believed. We travel long distances to stand atop mountains or stroll along seashores for reasons we can’t quite put into words. Nature keeps alive a childlike wonder and enables us to see the world anew through fresh eyes.
Carol’s animal house eventually prompted a visit from the landlord, who was receiving complaints from neighbors about unusual noises and odors. The landlord had planned to evict her months prior. But then he saw what Carol’s zoo was doing for the kids in their run-down neighborhood. Many of them had never seen a wild animal other than a rat. “You can keep your critters,” the landlord told her. “But there’s no way in hell you’re getting back your deposit.”
Her animal house was not much better than a zoo, Carol realized. At least she released her animals back to the wild. Still, there were cages and food bowls.
Carol hated zoos. Confining wild animals in concrete cages was a cruel expression of human pride. She saw the sadness and frustration in the animals’ eyes. What was the value in gawking at miserable, tortured creatures imprisoned behind steel bars? Zoos’ captive breeding programs were commendable in trying to save endangered species from extinction, but beyond that, she found nothing redeeming about them.
Sure, animals in the zoo had it easy: free food, no predators, and a warm place to sleep at night. Life in the wild was far less safe. Danger lurked everywhere, at every moment. Food was seasonal and unpredictable. No nest or territory was completely secure from fire, famine, or flood. Even sleep was a gamble. Birds and rabbits rested with one eye open, shutting down half their brain for a few hours at a time.
Though wild nature wasn’t safe, it was real. For millennia, animals had lived and evolved embedded in a web more intricate and delicate than humans could ever replicate. Comfort could never fully replace connection, Carol maintained. Animal and habitat were as inseparable as turtle and shell. When zoos severed this connection, they created different species. They housed artificial animals dependent on dried food, daily cleaning, and antibiotic injections.
Along the way, we humans had also cut our connection to the wild, Carol believed. Cities were zoos for people. Artificial food was manufactured for the masses. We built for ourselves climate-controlled cages and produced pharmaceuticals that helped us live longer, but what exactly were we living for? We had become zoo humans. We had stripped life of its wildness and incarcerated ourselves in picket-fenced pens that left us depressed and disconnected.
In 1969, Zoo Atlanta’s resident female bobcat gave birth to two sister cubs, but one of them was sick. When her mother refused to let the sick kitten suckle, the kitten was moved to a windowless concrete cell where she was scheduled to be euthanized.
Carol knew the groundskeeper at the zoo, an old friend whom she had worked with at the museum.
“I gotta put her down tomorrow morning,” he told
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