From Parklane Landscapes
Shifting Baseline Syndrome (SBS) is what happens when we forget how vibrant the natural world used to be. Each generation grows up with a more depleted environment and calls it “normal,” simply because it’s all they’ve ever known.
Think about walking through a park and thinking, “This seems healthy.” But maybe 30 years ago that same park had twice as many birds, wildflowers, or insects. If you never saw that version, you don’t feel the loss - and that quiet forgetting becomes the new baseline. Over time, we start accepting degraded ecosystems as normal.
Researchers warn that this shift lowers our expectations, increases our tolerance for decline, and reduces our urgency to protect what’s left.
What helps:
Intergenerational conversations that reconnect us with what nature used to be.
Direct experiences with nature that sharpen our awareness of change.
Remembering (knowing) the past is the first step to restoring the future.
Not a sponsor, I don’t think it’s an AI graphic, and I think it has something important to say. Plus it does have an owl. We can’t save our animals if we don’t save them the spaces they need to thrive.
Yeah, my purpose is not to suggest that we haven’t affected the environment; we have, dramatically. It’s just to say that there is way more than 1 kind of natural state.
We haven’t even gotten into the ways many other animals shape environments. Ungulates can destroy trees, yes, and wolves can limit ungulate populations, so more wolves tend to lead to thickets, whereas more ungulates lead to more clearings.
Beavers are another shaper of habitats, by their damming of rivers, creation of lakes, and the silt deposits in those flood plains which can lead to the ecological succession of forests.
My mom sent me this today, looks like they got a beaver! 🦫
I highly suggest people listen to this song about the birth of the conservation movement of you ever need a little hope.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/wild-ones-live/
They mentioned the diamondback terrapin! She’s been one of my fav animals this season!
Sadie Sink
That was a long song! If it’s too long for anyone, there is a transcript, but of course you don’t get the music part, which did set a good mood for the story.
It doesn’t sound like Hornaday enjoyed certain people as much as he came to enjoy animals, so you may want to skip his wikipedia page, just as a heads up.
I found the storytelling very inspiring though!
Someone recently recommended to me The Dollop #386 - The War on Squirrels. While many of us in the US still see lots of squirrels, there used to be so many the government paid a cash bounty on them. Some real crazy stuff in there, and a strange history I’d never heard. Look it up on your podcast platform of choice.
In apology for our country’s former squirrel hatred, here is one of my squirrels drinking upside down.
That is so cool! I hope your mom and the beaver are able to keep the peace. I know some folks get really frustrated by them!
Yeah, she’ll figure it out haha. Probably will need to wrap some trees but that’s ok.
I guess you just wrap them in hardware cloth?
Ah, I got ya now. The balance of creatures can certainly affect the ecosystem more than many will give them credit for.
We’re raising funds to build a new beaver pen, so I’m hoping I’ll get to know those guys better soon. They look like loads of fun.