The Box of Life

So this week we are working with Tracy, the on-staff raptor handler, and Dave Olerud, the founder of the American Bald Eagle Foundation. Yesterday we learned about food prep, which entails dissecting the rat and removing the gastrointestinal tract. As you can imagine, it's very messy and kind of gory. Dr. Hart explained that we have to do this because the rats have a far way to travel to get to Haines and it's better not to risk some sort of organism traveling along in the stomach. (Also, the birds like to sling intestines around, and that's a pain to clean up after). Today, we did food prep again, but this time Tracy allowed us to do it all on our own, including figuring out how much to feed each bird.

Each day after food prep, Dave has us for fun afternoons of natural history education! And that is not a sarcastic statement. Dave is the founder of the American Bald Eagle Foundation and he's been living in Haines for the past 50 years. He really is one of the greatest guys I've ever met and he really has a way of telling a story that makes even the most mundane things seem interesting. He told us about the history of the area and about the native people, the Tlingit (pronounced klinkit). The biggest thing that he told us about, well the thing that stuck out the most to me, was the Tlingit idea of the "Box of Life." Now I might be mistaken, but here is my understanding of the Box of Life from what Dave told us: Basically, in life, you live in your area, known as "your space," and in your space, you have certain resources available to you. As long as you live in that box, you must learn to use those resources to your fullest advantage and in the wisest way, without using them to excess. For example, the Tlingit tribe here has many different types of fish, and one of the most important fish they have is a type of smelt fish known as hooligan. Thousands of years ago, the Tlingit figured out that when you let hooligan sit out in the sun, their fat liquifies and starts leaking out of their body. Well, they would take that liquified fat and purify it into an oil.  The oil turned out to be an extremely valuable trading tool as well as a staple in the Tlingit diet (hooligan oil is very rich in amino acids and omega-3, leading to a healthier, more powerful Tlingit people). Since the oil ended up being one of the most valuable things to the Tlingit people, it can be said that they were using their available resources to the fullest. Box of Life utilized.