Life on Earth

This week in “Life on Earth”, we have come to Paddington Station in West London to search for a creature whose physiology and behaviour continues to inspire our affection and our disbelief.

There’s one! A young female Peruvian Bear, sitting on an old leather suitcase, eating a marmalade sandwich!  She is adapted to live off just one of those a day; and, look, she offers some to those pigeons.  This tendency to moderate her habits for the sake of another species has led many to doubt her survival.

Statistically, she does look vulnerable. The first recorded sighting of a Peruvian Bear was in 1958, here, under these imperious arches. Since then, there has been a 60% reduction in animals, mammals and reptiles.  So now, wild beasts like that bear make up only 1% of all vertebrates. The remaining 99% are humans, our pets and the livestock we farm to feed ourselves.  Is it only in our anthropomorphisms that we can keep that bear from extinction?

She is angry, leaning towards me, raising her paw!  Lifting her hat.  “Good afternoon.”, she says, “Can I help you?”  It’s very kind; I was wondering if we could help you; but there are already books and books of stories in which we imagine ourselves smiling and tolerating the clumsy misunderstandings of you and other species who fled our expansion and damage.

What might help is a long hard stare and then an adage from a great grand aunt Lucy, imploring us to take no more than our share and always to remember our manners.

2024