I spent the day out tracking, first with a class backtracking a Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) and examining the track patterns and interpreting their gaits, an afterwards, alone, following up a possible Fisher (Pekania pennanti) sighting, and instead finding a Coyote (Canis latrans) bed and trailing them through a rough hewn White Pine (Pinus strobus) plantation. I got to thinking about gifts that are the tracks which are left behind without consideration of how the tracker might feel or what we may want out of the experience. I was struck by awe and wonder when I came across the bed and was truly grateful for this gift left behind by the animal that was there so recently.

In philosophy, a true gift is one that doesn’t involve reciprocity or exchange, and breaks away from the system of mutual accounting that’s created when something is given. A few philosophers have written about this true gift, including wolf tracker Baptiste Morizot. Considering the tracks and sign left behind by animals, it could be that these are examples of true gifts? But what about our responsibility as a culture and as a species to honour the land and our relationships with all beings we share the land with? When and how does reciprocity fit in the context of this gift?

I am not a philosopher and likely butchered some of the ideas that I am working with for this episode, but I was also just inspired, sipping hot tea sitting cross-legged on my gloves in a hedgerow beside the Pine plantation watching the first snowy squalls blow in across the fields. I am grateful for the trail that led me there, and for those animals who teach me along the way.

To learn more :
On The Animal Trail by Baptiste Morizot. Polity Press, 2021.
Ep. 178 : A discussion of On The Animal Trail by Baptiste Morizot with Julian Fisher