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be an appropriate and important message to use, he reasoned. And as an educator, I had hoped to show the public, and some doubting legislators, an example of how deer can impact other species. The professor’ s earlier research project needed an update. So my staff and I set out to replicate the investigation.
The initial base-line data showed five species of shrews existed in the 1970s: the smokey, southeastern, short-tailed, masked, and pygmy. Our research conducted during the peak of high deer numbers, on the same trap lines with the same number of traps, revealed only two species, the short-tailed and southeastern. Total number of all shrews sampled had declined significantly. It wasn’ t difficult to see that if the herbal layer where insects live was nearly gone, the shrews that depend on them would disappear. And that’ s what happened.
As is sometimes the case, research can reveal more than anticipated outcomes. The park study we conducted allowed us an up-close inspection of the trapped shrews. The one most unusual to us was the pygmy. The second smallest shrew in the world, it had been living in the moist ravines of Brown County State Park’ s young forest.
While the world’ s smallest mammal is the bumble bee bat, by mass, the smallest shrew next in line is the Etruscan shrew. It lives in Eurasia. The next smallest, the pygmy shrew, inhabits these Brown County woods.
Seemingly insignificant and unnoticed as we enjoy this natural place, small and less dynamic relationships exist, and plants and animals go about their jobs, in their niche. Ecological relationships are so interconnected and dependent on one another we often don’ t realize it until something is missing.
A“ keystone specie,” the white-tailed deer can exert tremendous impact, influencing forest ecosystems. A miniature pygmy shrew, so small we may not see it on the forest floor, is akin to other insect-eating, burying, scurrying shrews, and lives its quiet life in the hills. It’ s certainly a part of this living system. And among this tiny claim to fame, it simply comes in second. •
Reading Poetry In The Shade
The green leaves of trees quiver. Swallowtail follows the air toward the lakeshore – buttonbush flowers on water’ s edge.
I think this afternoon is a poem. In this line, the hummingbirds fight at the feeder, in this one, the cat dozes under the rocking chair.
These lines don’ t quite rhyme, but then another swallowtail, another – a jet stream of butterflies over the house and down the hill.
I am just sitting here, inside this poem, inside this shady late summer afternoon.
I tend to prefer late afternoons to mornings, cannot wake up
for any kind of sunrise. Not even a poem as beautiful as a river of butterflies will lure me from my dreams.
— Michele Pollock
July / August 2022 • Our Brown County 55