I started this graduate program 15 months ago with a firm set of opinions and beliefs and I did not expect my viewpoints and understandings of the natural world to expand as much as they have. I recall our time spent at the Aldo Leopold Foundation during the first few weeks of the program when we all drafted our first versions of our personal “land ethic.” I remember my land ethic being rather simple and emphasizing the importance of working toward the benefit of all living beings. But recently, my “land ethic” has begun to broaden and reflect the idea that humans and non-human creatures are more deeply connected and more deserving of equal respect than I perhaps believed.

In their article “The Three Stages of Euthanasia,” Adele T. Moore and Sally Joosten write that a beginner wildlife rehabilitator views euthanasia as a last resort.  They explain that an advanced rehabilitator views euthanasia as his/her duty.  But the most experienced and wisest rehabilitator sees euthanasia as a gift. In other words, rehabilitators should not make their decision of whether or not to euthanize an animal based on his or her own emotions or desires, but on what is right and best for that animal.  We can’t project our own ideals and rules onto wildlife.  They are different than us, and we will never completely understand the extent of their thoughts and feelings, or even what happens to their spirits when they pass away.  Therefore, the decision to euthanize an animal is made because humans are most likely the reason the animal needs our help in the first place, and it is only right that humans remedy their suffering through “the gift of freedom, or the gift of a quick and painless death” (Moore and Joosten.) Additionally, we make the decision because we co-habitat this beautiful earth with these magnificent creatures, and they deserve our love and respect simply because they are.

Katherine McKeever offers this wisdom to beginning rehabilitators in her article “Quality of Life:” “For all your long hours, and physical effort, and the expense, and the arguments with others over your priorities, and even your genuine affection for this creature you have come to love, there will be one thing missing from its life. And if you leave the cage door open, it will opt for that one thing above all others that were provided, and it will walk out of the door to freedom, and its death. Because this is the way of all wildlife.”

Grey squirrel euthanized today due to an untreatable leg injury.

I struggle with being careful. My natural inclination is to lurch forward into the day like a child’s wagon rolling downhill, scraping my ankles on the books I left on the bedroom floor, dropping my teaspoon down the gap between the oven and the counter, reading a report off my phone with one hand while brushing my teeth with the other. My words always seem to come tumbling out in an undisciplined torrent of thought and idea, because I have a ridiculous fear that if I don’t speak quickly, I’ll forget what I was trying to say.

I was riding passenger in a rattletrap old pickup yesterday. It was a technicolor dusk, smotheringly hot, downtown Saint Paul ablaze with artificial light on the horizon. A thunderstorm had passed over the Cities and flooded the gutters with one of those intense, concentrated precipitation events that are increasingly common in this part of the world, but right now the clouds overhead looked like carded wool. Drivers were switching lanes with reckless disregard for safety, and on the radio, four academics were having an intense and increasingly personal debate about the Transatlantic Alliance.

The main point of contention – you could hear it in how their tones sharpened – was  whether certain recent events had irreparably damaged the relationship between the United States and the European Union. Sometimes it helps me to visualize the argument in my head. I imagined this one as a cat’s cradle of interconnected threads. Cat’s cradle is an ancient game, and I suspect part of the appeal is that it’s so easy to screw it up. Twist the wrong string and instead of an Eiffel Tower in yarn you have a useless snarl of strings. Trust and values, national interest and public good, each binding us to people across the ocean, each easily tangled with the rest.

I could talk about the strategic planning process at length. I will, in my paper. But that’s not what I’m reflecting on here, really. Here, I’m thinking about what it means to be careful. In every meeting, in every communication. You know the feeling: you’re sending an email to someone you barely know, and you fuss over every word. Or you’re in a meeting and you’re watching everyone, worrying that someone has been left out. Or you’re trying to fold in the editorial suggestions of six different people, wondering how to reconcile contradictory opinions in a way that pleases everybody. And maybe you’re the intern, and you don’t have to worry as much about maintaining group cohesion, but the point of this graduate program is that, one day, maintaining group cohesion might be part of your job.

A few weeks ago, my host supervisor asked me to draw up a list of questions that staff might have about the new strategic plan. This turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable activity, in part because it involved anticipating what staff might ask before they ever asked it. It strikes me that this is the hardest part of planning: to hasten slowly. To make a plan ambitious and exciting and eminently persuasive, without sacrificing accuracy or the good opinion of your colleagues. And that’s a level of deliberate, patient detail work that can be both difficult and thankless, even as it keeps nonprofits and alliances and transatlantic coalitions together.

I’m not a careful person by nature. But I think I’d like to become one.