(...) I learned something new about animal behavior last week, and it seems really timely. A reindeer cyclone is when a herd of reindeer facing a predator put the calves in the center and whirl around fast, making it difficult to impossible for the predator to pick off one reindeer. The more of us who speak up the harder it will be to persecute any single person who says trans rights are human rights or what’s being done to immigrants is terrorism. It’s not the only example from the animals. When threatened, musk oxen likewise circle up, facing outward with their huge horns, calves again in the middle of the ring.
Some say that murmurations – those beautiful flights of thousands of starlings undulating and pulsating as they whirl through the sky together – create flocks that are hard for predators to attack. There’s safety in numbers, which is why a lot of prey animals move in herds and flocks and schools. For those who dissent from what this new administration intends to do, we may sometimes be able to surround an Ice van or march by the thousands, but every time we dissent we make room for others to dissent. Courage, like fear, is contagious. For a lot of us, right now, we get to choose, and what we choose has an impact on what others choose. (...)
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