Sunday hot summer. I’m going emergency to a native plant nursery, for the 6 little caterpillar in the butterfly Battues Polygamous, also called “Gold Rim” (for the yellow stripe on the dominant black of their wings) have eaten all the leaves of the plant from which they feed, the beautiful Aristolochia triangular is.
After a trip of about 2 hours by train and walking group, came to the nursery, get me a lady and headed for where the plants, enclosed in a antimariposario so that they do not come to place their little eggs, and yet in the short time they open, in their desperation they managed to enter because there were several tracks in there.
I say desperately because, sadly, this plant is very little to bring the curse of being a native (1). Like the aborigines of our suffering and pillaged America and other native vegetation was wiped out.
Instead we now see everywhere species introduced from Europe and other parts of the world, become invasive because the environmental conditions here are different and because they have no natural predators to regulate them.
Letting ourselves be carried away by what everybody does, growing exotic species is only because we liked the nursery and we do not have in mind so we break the perfect balance of our Mother Earth.
We do not care (or not think) that many animals have disappeared or are becoming increasingly scarce due to the disappearance of their natural environments.
In the squares and other flowers planted thoughts that must be changed every year, business for a few who are left with a cut, and nothing else.
Instead they could plant beautiful native plants that attract birds, butterflies and other insects (which does not happen with most of the vegetation introduced) (2).
Continuing my journey … I decide to take 2 caterpillars with plants, to save the tragic fate in store for them when someone buys this vine and the mate of a kick.
Once back, when I go to the group a lady stopped me and told me be careful because “burn.” I explained that that species did not have stinging hairs, is harmless, and had purchased the plants especially to feed the little caterpillar.
(I must say that the so famous “cats hairy” we killed because “burning” moths are very beautiful).
In my thought that the only thing missing now was that even when the want to kill me, and would be the last straw!
Stepping onto the train and sit down. A girl looking at me after a while he rose from his seat and walked toward me and tried to kill one of the tracks with his foot, saying: “There is a bug.”
This could not be true! So far as the hobby of killing people! The automatic … Even without even knowing … Fearing the unknown, our conduct is to kill.
In part it is due to ignorance. We love butterflies, but we hate the tracks and give them a stamp right away, exclaiming: a hairy cat! Many printing and are given routinely conduct of killing them, as if these beings have no right to life as “impressionable” for most humans.
This happens with caterpillars and many other animals is typical of our current vision of the world, which is anthropocentric (3) and is manifested by conduct specialist. (4)
We believe higher than other species, the center of the universe.
In our view the world is at our disposal, we are not part of nature, but outside of it. Completely detached.
We call them “natural resources”, a purely economic terms. We turn the world into a commodity, and what does not serve us, which has no commercial value, we do not care and is exterminated. But we do not realize that as he said the Indian chief Noah Stealth: “Man did not weave the web of life, he is just a thread. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself “(5)
Odyssey is not the end of my trip …
The train was on a station near my house, and had to wait for the next. I sat beside me and had a wife and she told me she had hairy hands and knees and I would eat the whole plant.
This idea that we (anthropocentric in fact) that the plant is for us to admire its leaves and flowers … again, without respecting the web of life, what we do by applying pesticides is a violation, in some way to humanize the plant. In our ego, we adapted to our taste and we do not allow animals to feed her.
I explain (for the third time this trip) the reason why I bought this vine, in that a street kid, about 12 or 13 years that he was aware of the situation came to see the tracks with great curiosity and enthusiasm and then we had a pleasant conversation.
This child told the lady that he did not know all the tracks were transformed into butterflies and asked if her if, to which she responded negatively.
While this guy and the lady knew about the process of metamorphosis (the same as I said), not related to everyday life … obviously something is amiss in the education system. If this school is how is it that when we are facing do not know that a caterpillar will turn into a butterfly, or some other insect?
The habit and routine ours is something very harmful to nature in general and our animal brothers. Thought is a prison. It prevents us from reflecting on what we are doing every day with them (directly or indirectly). Delays paradigm shift (from today to biocentrism anthropocentrism) (6) needed to recover from the current social-environmental crisis, and to end animal exploitation.
For the damn habit, routine and ignorance kill caterpillars and other “bugs” like having a chip in our brains that makes us kill everything we see automatically, as frequently happens with the spiders.
The positive aspect of this trip was that the outrage over the incident served as a trigger for me today to have it happen with the larvae of butterflies, but also with other arthropods such as insects and spiders. I also led to the conviction of something already believed, that we must focus our energy towards children as vehicles for change (without glossing adults), whereas this street kid who came, became very excited this item. But why that happened?
It was because COULD SEE DIRECTLY what adults can not generally be blinded by common sense, their prejudices and customs that prevent you from discovering (via observation), the wonderful world and the beauty in something so small, was passed by high and killed without first getting to know, such as a caterpillar.
