AUTHOR: MACK WHITE, EARTH AND ENVIRONMENT PHD STUDENT, Florida International University; Advised by Dr. Jennifer Rehage
Short Bio: My name is Mack White, and I am a second year Ph.D. student working with Dr. Jennifer Rehage in the Coastal Fisheries and Fish Ecology lab at Florida International University. Born and raised in West Virginia, I spent time living and working in Kentucky, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Tennessee. I received my M.S. from Tennessee Tech University in Spring 2021 where I worked with Dr. Kit Wheeler to quantify the magnitude of resource subsidies delivered by spawning suckers in Eastern TN via excretion, eggs, and carcasses. Following, I accepted a position at FIU and began my dissertation in Fall 2021. My research interests broadly revolve around animal movement, consumer nutrient dynamics, and food webs.
Like many other fisheries ecologists, my appreciation for the natural world started early and at the end of a fishing line. As I grew older, my appreciation for fish quickly turned to obsession. I continued fishing, but also took up snorkeling, seining, underwater photography, and doing anything I could just to interact with fish in some capacity. More than anything, I wanted to be in the water. I also deeply enjoyed hunting. Growing up in West Virginia, hunting was a huge part of my childhood. The sight of my breath catching rays of sun on a frigid, still morning as the sun rose over the gentle-sloping mountains with my uncle’s rifle in my hands as I watched for a Whitetail Deer to cross my path on opening morning is something that is forever etched in my mind.
Or the feeling of that first step into a cold mountain stream on a summer morning, hand wrapped loosely around the cork handle of a 3-wt fly rod, fog blanketing the clear water where native Brook Trout are eagerly slurping mayflies and all you can hear is the sound of riffles rushing over your feet. I remember these moments more than any catch or harvest – it felt as if the whole world was just before my own two eyes.
Memories like these are increasingly special to me as I grow older. These memories center around the peace and tranquility I felt when immersed in an environment void of human’s footprint. It was just me and nature – complete solitude. However, those moments are becoming harder to come by as I get older. I have also begun to see the world a little differently as I have progressed in my research career – one may say through a scientific lens. I often forget about the intrinsic value of wilderness and find it increasingly difficult to let my mind wander into nothingness while I absorb my surroundings.
Spiritual value, inspiration, and the ability to re-connect with natural beauty has been shown to be important benefits associated with the preservation of natural areas since the Wilderness Act of 1964 was written by Howard Zahniser of the Wilderness Society and signed into legislation protecting 9.1 million acres of wild lands in the United States. Today, the Wilderness Act of 1964 protects 111.7 million acres of land across 803 areas designated as wilderness (USFS-USDA) – areas of land which the federal government claims that nature still calls the shots. Though I am not writing explicitly about the Wilderness Act of 1964, I believe it provides a good starting point for understanding the intrinsic value of nature and have provided its definition of wilderness below:
“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.”
– Wilderness Act of 1964
I believe most of us feel truly immersed in nature when the following conditions are present – (1) the human footprint is not evident, (2) there is a feeling of solitude, and (3) the land is of sufficient size to move around freely. Though many scientists turn to scientific criteria when evaluating these areas, these values are not deemed necessary of wild places as defined here and could be considered a benefit of preservation with the priority of a landscape unimpeded by man’s work and the opportunity for solitude leading the charge. I still believe the value in lands left unscarred by man lies predominantly in its ecological merit, and there is something beautiful in understanding the ecology of any natural system. That said, I also feel it important to step back, find time, and really focus on those feelings I had before I began to view the world from a scientist’s perspective – like I did when I first discovered beauty in nature and my passion for understanding it emerged. I think I can speak for most of us in the natural sciences when I say that we study the world we live in because we saw more than just plants, rocks, or animals. Take time to reflect and appreciate the world around you for nothing more than what it is, like you once did, and feel that renewed sense of appreciation for the environments we care so deeply about.
“The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.”
– John Muir, Mountain Thoughts
Reefs to Rivers: Florida Fisheries Science 