Blogs by Patricia Hilliard
Dehumanized Humans and Wildlife
6/20/2021 2:15:59 PM
What the industrial revolution did to humans and what could happen next.
As a person who enjoys nature, I find it difficult to understand people who are totally isolated from it. I grew up in the countryside hiking the fields and woods of southeastern Ohio. As an adult in search of a job, I moved to the East Coast to Hudson County, New Jersey. This area was once highly industrialized. Manufacturing of glass, iron, steel, chemicals and wood products occurred here from the 1790s up to the 1980s when industry moved off shore to places like China.
What was left behind was a population of working people who had spent generations cooped up in factories, bars and churches. They had little experience in nature, except for a Sunday walk in an Olmstead park of which there were several in Hudson County. These working people, of various nationalities, religions and cultures, spent their lives breathing soot in the air, fumes from diesel engines, gasses seeping up from sewers and garbage dumps, and clouds of toxic chemicals seeping from factories. They accepted this degradation as normal. After two centuries of this existence, they felt they had no need whatsoever for nature. What use are trees, flowers, clean air, healthy soil or birds and animals?
Once when I led a nature walk in one of the Olmstead parks, I discovered that most of the young people were terrified. They feared that something wicked would leap out at them from the bushes and trees. They told me of horror movies they had seen which had embedded in them this fear. They marveled at my confidence that nothing terrible would happen to us while “out in the woods.” We were walking among a few trees that were surrounded by wide-open lawns.
With the industry gone, Hudson County is trying to re-make itself. Green-ways are being created along rivers that used to be shipping docks. Factories are being torn down to create exercise parks with trees and flower beds. Now, with cleaner air and water, the birds and wildlife are returning. Residents are amazed to discover that nature can be right outside their doors. Long live Mother Nature and her resiliency!
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More Blogs by Patricia Hilliard
• Snowy Weekend - Monday, January 26, 2026
• Water Everywhere and Not A Drop to Drink - Friday, November 15, 2024
• The Writing Life - Sunday, August 18, 2024
• The Sad History of Nature in Our Town - Tuesday, July 16, 2024
• After 200 years, Bald Eagles appear. - Thursday, April 6, 2023
• Bird Seedy - Wednesday, March 9, 2022
• Dehumanized Humans and Wildlife - Sunday, June 20, 2021
• Discrimination in the World of Bird Watching - Friday, June 11, 2021
• Big Day Bird Count 2021 - Monday, May 10, 2021
• Plant a Pollinator Garden - Sunday, February 28, 2021
• Bird Watching during the Covid-19 Pandemic. - Friday, February 5, 2021
• Clapping for Clapper Rails - Saturday, July 11, 2020
• Beginners and Enders - Monday, November 18, 2019
• Change is the only Constant - Saturday, July 6, 2019
• Sports and Global Warming - Thursday, May 9, 2019
• A Realistic Rodent - Thursday, March 28, 2019
• Bald Eagles Again - Monday, February 18, 2019
• Birds and Words - Thursday, December 20, 2018
• Big Day Bird Walks - Saturday, October 6, 2018
• Nature Therapy--It Works! - Sunday, May 27, 2018
• 2017 A Better Year than Expected - Monday, December 11, 2017
• What the Warbler Migration has Taught Me - Monday, November 27, 2017
• Irony: How a loss of habitat occurs and why. - Tuesday, July 11, 2017
• Bald Eagles Return - Monday, May 8, 2017
• King Rail in Bayonne NJ - Thursday, August 21, 2014
• Snowy Owl Olympics in New Jersey, USA - Saturday, February 15, 2014
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