About a month ago I heard a story on the radio about a whalefall, what happens when a whale dies. The decaying whale supports a universe of life. This includes at least 55 species that exist nowhere else other than on dead whales. A whalefall can support a community for up to 70 years which is about the same time a whale lives ("Everything and Nothing"). You can see a bit of this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQbGk4sHROg.
As I have been observing my tree, I keep thinking about whalefalls and how life supports life. I have counted at least five species of birds that eat my apples: scrub jays, starlings, flickers, crows, and goldfinches. Then, there are the bees and flies and butterflies (a variety of each) that feasted on the buds, and the different flies and slugs and ants and horses and humans that eat the apples after they have ripened.
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| Apple cake made with 8 ripe apples on September 27,2014 photo by Wes Reid |
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| Slug on a fallen apple, October 5, 2014 Photo by Wes Reid |
I can't say all these creatures need the apples the way those species need the whale carcass, but I know my life is enhanced by apple cake, apple pie, apple butter, apple bread, apples. I also know that my horses will walk a long way in the heat of the day from the middle of the pasture to the gate hoping I have an apple in hand for them. What slugs think, I don't know, but the one on my apple seems happy--as do the flocks of birds that jockey for position in the tree.
And, although I think these creatures could live without my apple tree, their activity in the tree points out the cycle of nature that is so obvious, yet so easily overlooked: we are linked in the loop of nature, as are the slug and the tree. If we do away with the slugs, will the trees flourish? If we do away with the birds, will the bees flourish? If we do away with any one species, how many are affected? It seems like the ripple would be endless and tragic.
Work Cited
"Everything and Nothing." Craig Smith. Radiolab. NPR. KUNR, Reno, 30 Aug. 2014. Radio.
My god you're getting good at this. I've heard it said that a fallen tree in forest, say a Jeffrey pine somewhere in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, becomes the engine of the ecosystem in that forest, the fuel that starts the cycle all over again. These trees are sometimes called deadfalls, which may be where the phrase whalefall is derived.
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