What Has a Wild Animal Taught You?
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From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Nina Kim. Coming up on Forum, when political advisor Chloe Dalton found an injured newborn hare near her home in the countryside, she decided to nurse it back to health. The two quickly formed a bond, and through their quiet companionship, the hare taught Dalton about trust, attention, and love.

preparing for loss, and the magic of engaging closely with the natural world. Her new memoir is Raising Hair. Have you ever been surprised by a connection you felt to a wild animal? Tell us about it after this news.

Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. So I'll be honest, I didn't think I'd get so drawn into a book about a wild hare, but Chloe Dalton's memoir Raising Hare, about caring for a newborn hare that she stumbles upon, was just what I needed. A reminder of the wonders of the natural world and our capacity to learn from and forge a deep connection with its inhabitants. For Dalton, a creature famed for its swiftness taught her to slow down.

Listeners, what has a connection to an animal taught you? Chloe Dalton joins me now. Welcome to Forum. Hi, Mina. Thank you for having me on. I'm so thrilled to be here. Oh, well, we're thrilled to have you. You've described yourself, Chloe, as perhaps the least likely person to raise a hare. Why? Tell us about your life before you discovered this baby hare or leveret, as I learned. Yes, absolutely. I learned the word too. Well, my

life up until this point was entirely based in the city in London I worked in politics I lived in Westminster I walked between my home parliament the foreign office if I wasn't in London I was travelling overseas

all around the world. I visited something like 50 countries in the course of four or five years for my work on foreign policy. So I didn't have any animals in my life. I couldn't have a pet living that kind of life. It would just be cruel. And, you know, with hindsight, I look back on it now and I realize even though I loved the way I was living, I was very, very far from nature. So that's partly why I say I was the least likely person to end up living alongside a hare.

So this pandemic took you to your home in the English countryside. Take us back to that moment that you found the baby hair. What did you see? Well, it was a grey, dull morning. We'd just come out of weeks of snow and sleet and ice. I was living in the north of England in a small barn that used, like, back in the day to be used for, you know,

storing animals and things over the winter. It's like a very small building in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields and woods and streams. And I was there in order to get out of the city because, you know, life was quite tough in London under lockdown and I was lucky to have somewhere to go. But

my mind was on my work. I was thinking all the time about things that were happening around the world because of the pandemic. I didn't really notice the nature around me. And one morning, the weather had sort of cleared a little bit after all of this snow that I mentioned. And I stepped out for a walk and I heard the sound of a dog barking and a man shouting. And I kind of went to see what was going on. And after I'd been walking for a few minutes,

I stumbled across this tiny creature lying out in the open in the middle of this track in this desolate spot. And I'd never seen a hare before, but I knew immediately that what I was looking at was a tiny baby hare, perhaps one or two days old, as it later transpired when I weighed it and worked out how old it must be. But it was totally different to anything I'd seen before. It was incredibly wild.

Hairs are not like rabbits. They're not born underground. They're not born with their eyes closed. They have a full coat of fur and their eyes are open. They are ready to go. They look like perfect miniatures of adult hairs. And I stood at a distance and I looked at this tiny creature and I marveled because it's not something that you commonly see as you walk around in the countryside in England in any case.

What made you decide to bring it into your home? I know this was a decision that you weighed really carefully.

Yes, well, I did what, you know, we probably all do when you come across animals in the wild. Even though I was a city girl, I knew that you don't go around picking up baby animals. I stood off at a distance. I gave it a wide berth. I hoped that if I left it, its mother would come back for it. And I only intervened four or five hours later when the lever was still lying in this incredibly exposed spot on this track that's used by cars and

with buzzards overhead, as I describe in my book. And I worried that it would be eaten or crushed. And so I had this idea that with hindsight, I realized was kind of naive. But I thought if I avoided touching its fur directly, if I wrapped it in the grass that was lining the track,

and that I carried it in, I could keep it safe until nightfall when I thought I would be able to return it to the field in the hope that its mother might find it if she was still alive. So that's what went through my mind. And that's what I did. I picked it up, I cradled it against me, and I carried it home. And then you called a local wildlife rehabber. What did he tell you?

Well, he told me the truth. He said to me, I'm sorry to tell you that, you know, there's a good chance his mother might have been killed or taken by the fox, sorry, by the dog that you heard. There's a chance that the dog picked up and carried this little leveret. It might be injured. And even if all those things aren't

true. He said to me that leverets don't do well in human hands. Hares suffer from this condition called capture myopathy. They die of stress if they are constrained. And that even though he'd been working in this field, he was a conservationist. Before that, he was a gamekeeper. For many, many years, he told me he knew people who'd raised all sorts of creatures, but no one who'd successfully hand-reared

a hare. It turns out that lots of people have done this. I'm not trying to pretend for a second. I ended up doing something that no one's done before. But they're not animals that have ever been domesticated. And this is an incredible thing about hares, you know, that rabbits we domesticated a long time ago, but hares are just as wild as they always were.

have been so he gave me this um kind of uh very like blunt you know advice and I I felt awful I felt mortified I thought oh there you go I'm a I'm a typical city dweller I tried to do the right thing I might actually harm this little innocent creature it might die because of me um

And so I, in that moment, standing in my house, staring at this tiny little animal that was on the countertop in front of me, blinking and looking, looking small and lost. I thought to myself, I've got to do my absolute best to try to keep it alive. I've got to work out what this little animal needs and it can't die on my watch.

Well, let me invite our listeners to join the conversation. Listeners, have you ever tried to rescue a wild animal or just felt a connection to one? And why? You can tell us by emailing forum at kqed.org, finding us on our social channels at KQED Forum, or call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786. And of course, we invite your questions about Chloe's experience.

You write that even a friend suggested that this wasn't a good idea for you to try to save this hair. But you say you felt an inner stubbornness stirring, that you will work it out. And when you reflect on that, do you know why?

I felt a sort of protectiveness. And I imagine that's what other people who've been in this situation rapidly feel, that somehow, even though, you know, I didn't have any background in this, I wasn't a...

I'm studying science. I looked after animals. I didn't have animals in my life that somehow if I was just careful and gentle and didn't do anything rash that I could try to protect this animal. And as I felt from the very first moment, you know, it didn't belong to me. It belonged to the wild. My job was just to keep it alive until it prospered.

could return to the wild. And the stubbornness, I don't know where that came from. It turned out to be quite a significant factor in this whole experience because later as the little animal grew, I was very stubborn about not giving it a name. I had lots of suggestions from friends and family. They were like, you know, call it Everett the Leverett and things like that. And I felt this stubbornness extended to this idea that

no, this isn't a pet. You know, we're used to thinking of animals as being pets or ours and to the idea of taming them. But actually, I felt that I sort of wanted to protect this little animal, even against the very natural instinct that

that I had and my friends and family had to kind of want to see it and hold it and marvel at it. But instead, I wanted to try to preserve as much as possible its wild nature. So yes, I was very stubborn about lots of things to do with this little hare, just purely out of instinct, not out of any prior knowledge whatsoever. I made plenty of mistakes along the way. One of the other things you did was you decided to let it roam freely in the house and it never left droppings.

This is an incredible thing. I didn't know this, but because hares live their whole lives above ground, they have to, you know, survive basically

by keeping as sort of almost as invisible as possible. And that extends to not creating a mess in the kinds of places where they rest during the daytime. So they are crepuscular animals that active at night. And then during the day, they basically sleep and sunbathe. It's a rather wonderful, beautiful, appealing life when you get up close and observe it. And so the extraordinary thing was that even from a very young age, because I left the house open and I let the lever go wherever it

wanted to go, it would sort of disappear onto the grass and I would sort of assume that it was doing its business, but it never once left a dropping in the house. And later on when the hare was moving between my house and the wild and coming and going completely freely for years,

It carried on this behavior. It could lie in the house all day long and not leave a single dropping. The only things it ever left were whiskers. Occasionally, I would find these little whiskers on the ground and I would pick them up like they were diamonds. They were so beautiful and precious. And is the hair in your home now or...?

Well, no, she's not in the home now. Sadly, you know, she may have run her final race, but her leverets and her leverets' leverets are still in the garden. So just in the last few weeks, three new leverets were born from offspring of her own leverets. And so my garden's become something of a hair nursery now.

But in those early days when you asked me about letting her range around the house, you know, she absolutely charmed me by very early on working out how to climb the stairs behind my desk that go up to my bedroom. And she would sleep under my bed during the daytime and then sort of toddle down the stairs in the afternoon to go out into the garden. And so I never regretted for a second letting her have space

free range. We're talking with Chloe Dalton about the profound impact on her of caring for a newborn hare. And listeners, have you ever felt a connection to a wild animal? Why and what did you get from it? What's the wildest visitor you've ever had in your home? Have you had an experience in nature that

change the way you see the world or even yourself. You can email forum at kqed.org. You can find us on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, Threads at KQED Forum. And you can call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786. More after the break. I'm Mina Kim.

Support for Forum comes from San Francisco Opera. Experience the soaring highs and heartbreaking lows of bohemian life this summer in John Caird's beloved production of La Boheme. Puccini's most adored opera transports us into the heady bohemian world of 19th century Paris as we follow a circle of starving artists falling in and out of love, living for the moment. La Boheme runs June 3rd to 21st.

Learn more at sfopera.com. Support for Forum comes from Rancho La Puerta, voted the number one wellness resort and spa by readers of Travel and Leisure magazine in 2024. In August, three or four people sharing a casita enjoy special vacation packages that include hiking, mindfulness, and fitness classes. In a garden setting on 4,000 verdant acres of nature preserve. Check in to summer at Rancho La Puerta, rancholapuerta.com.

This is Fora by Mina Kim. We're talking with Chloe Dalton, a writer, a political advisor, and foreign policy expert whose debut memoir is called Raising Hair, where Dalton finds herself nursing a tiny leveret and discovering that a creature famed for its speed can actually teach her to slow down. And you, our listeners, are invited to share what a wild animal has taught you.

So talk about some of your early observations, Chloe, of the hare's actions and demeanor that surprised and delighted you. I love the description of the way it would drum with its paws.

Oh my goodness, absolutely. Well, there were several things. There was the amazing fact that when I would feed the lever, bottle feed it in the morning, I would then put it back into this little kind of open box, this nest of field grass that I'd created for it. And it would hide there, stay in place, absolutely immobile until I came back for it.

And it was mirroring the behavior of hares in the wild, of leverets in the wild, which is that they only come out under cover of darkness. They're fed twice in the course of the night by their mother. But for the rest of the time, they hide absolutely in place. And therefore, it was amazing to me that even though there was nothing to stop this little creature when it was very small from venturing out of this little nest and going around the house, it would stay absolutely still. And then when it was a little bigger,

As you've just alluded to, it ventured out of its own accord. It wandered around the house and it had this enchanting habit of drumming on every soft surface that it could find. And I had in the back of my mind, I don't know from books when I was a child, that hares would drum with their hind paws, but actually would do it with its front paws, like drumming really, really, really fast.

And this like rattling sound. And if ever it was very rainy and the rain was drumming off the roof tiles of the barn, it would go even more kind of like enthusiastically into its drumming. And that was very, very enchanting, as is the fact that

they spend so much of their time cleaning themselves. They have to, in order to survive above ground, they have to keep their fur dry. They have to avoid any kind of scent that could draw a predator to them. So I would spend hours, I was supposed to be working and I would be at my computer, but looking across this little animal, washing its face and its ears and its flanks and taking a long time over it. And I found the site utterly adorable.

And you describe, it was really responsive to sound and you describe exchanging sounds with it almost like you were learning each other's language. Can you walk us through some of the conversations that you would have kind of?

Well, it was more my case, a kind of question of listening, because I tried to get hold of all the information I could find about hairs. And there isn't really very much. There's lots of sort of ideas about hairs that turn out not to be true, particularly in any way in the UK context.

And one of the things that I could find no explanation for was that when it was very small, it would just sort of chitter at me with its teeth. It would make this funny little, sweet little noise. And hairs don't have vocal cords. So it's quite hard to sort of

ascertain exactly how it made this noise but it would it would make this sweet little chattering noise I had no idea if it was communicating with me or it was just doing something that baby hairs do perhaps some of your listeners might know the answer to this but it's still a mystery to me and I would sometimes when it was um

when it would come down from under my bed and it would come down the stairs in the afternoon at exactly the same time every day, it absolutely amazed me the sense that the timekeeping, the inner mechanism this little animal had that made its behavior so regular. But when it would be sort of perched, you know, halfway down the staircase, I would come and sometimes look at it eye level and just listen to it chittering away and just wonder what was going through its mind.

I also love that, especially early, you would sing to it to try to soothe it anytime that you were coming toward it, right? Well, you know, we're sort of innately, I don't know, we have some mechanism inside us, which makes us sort of want to be gentle and tender towards things or people that are small and gentle. So I did, I wanted it to sort of know that it was me and my voice and not be

because obviously I'd read so much by now about how sensitive they are, how often they die in human hands. And really, you know, even when the lever had got a little bit stronger and it had survived the first couple of months of its life, I always worried that

that something might happen to it. It might eat something that would disagree with it. And I was trying to work out, you know, what the right things were to feed the little leveret all the time. So I always lived with this slight feeling that the experience could end at any time and that there was nothing foreordained about it.

including the fact that one day it would go off into the wild and I would never see it again. That's what I assumed would happen. So the bond on my side, I felt very deeply towards this animal, but I always knew that its destiny was to return to the wild. So there were kind of, you know, I had lots of mixed feelings about it. There was a poignancy to it from the very first days of the relationship. Well, let me go to Carla Raj in Palo Alto. Hi, Raj, you're on.

Good morning, Mina. I feel like I'm on an episode of All Creatures Great and Small with you and your guest. It's just lovely. I wanted to share a little story from many years ago when we were living in Morgan Hill at the time. And my wife and I had two young children. They were about six and three. And we were working outside. It was the middle of the summer, a rather hot day as it tends to get in Morgan Hill. And we were working outside.

And we had the garage door open and a little hummingbird found its way into our garage. As I told your producer, Mark, the hummingbird didn't know it was our garage. It just saw an opening and went in there and

And first we were charmed, and then it just kept flying around and around and around. And we tried to shoo it out. We tried to shout it out. We tried to take a broom, obviously not touching the hummingbird, but wave the broom at the hummingbird.

but it seemed to have found a strange kind of home. And it was time for lunch. So the kids and I went up, my wife made a delightful meal and they said, "But the hummingbird, the hummingbird." We said, "No, it'll probably be gone." We left the garage door open. They said, "It'll probably be gone after lunch."

We went back down and the hummingbird was not gone. It was still kind of very slowly flying around and then slowly found its way to the hard concrete of the garage. And my kids were just beside themselves. They said, do something, do something. And I didn't know what to do. Yeah. So we got to the garage.

We got a little bowl of water, put a little sugar in it. With a rag, we picked up the hummingbird, put it in the bowl, took it outside the garage onto the driveway. And literally within seconds, that little creature was revived and flew away. And I think our kids thought their parents were just heroes. Amazing. Well, thank you, Raj, for sharing that story. And thank you so much, both of you.

You know, you were saying earlier, Chloe, that there isn't a lot of information about hares. I imagine we probably have more about hummingbirds. But, you know, not only that, but you also note that even culturally, the hares are often seen in somewhat of a negative light. Oh, absolutely. It is incredible that for such a small animal, it's attracted so much folklore and legend and myth and

And, you know, hares are often written about as witchy creatures. You know, it did occur to me that a few hundred years ago, or not even that long ago, as a woman raising a hare, living alongside a hare, I would have been accused of being a witch.

It was believed to be, which is familiar often in many cases. And also beyond that, you know, in lots of, you know, Shakespeare writes about hares being cowardly creatures. So they've been, and there's the idea of the mad march hare. They

They've been accused, as it were, of being labeled as being these mad, erratic creatures. I mean, think of the fable of the hare and the tortoise. And so there was all of this kind of weight of history and culture around.

And then there was this, the reality of this tiny little creature that had these very simple ways, very calming, soothing, gentle presence, a really curious animal that whenever it was wandering around the room, it would kind of squeeze its way behind cushions and go into like explore behind curtains and just live this very, I don't know, peaceful life. And then later on, my mother,

The perception of the gap between how hares are commonly portrayed and the reality only deepened when it turned out that this little leveret was a female and went on to have leverets of her own. And one of the things people say about hares, even scientists write this, you know, that hares are absentee parents, that they're kind of bad mothers in some kind of way because they leave their young during...

to hide during the daytime and only come and see them at night. But actually, I've seen hares drive off crows, you know, big birds that are attacking their leverets with great kind of courage and tenacity. So it turns out that almost everything that I was reading about hares turned out to be wrong. We're talking with Chloe Dalton about what a deep connection with a wild animal can teach us. And you, our listeners, are sharing some of your own me-me rights.

I used to live in Santa Rosa up in the foothills, and about two weeks before the Tubbs fire, I was sitting outside. I heard a faint crying. I realized the cry was coming from a very young baby deer. I knew not to go near baby deer because their mothers are often very close, so I just sat on the steps by my house. Surprisingly, the deer saw me and walked right up to me, and when I crouched down, it lay near my feet.

It was a strange and beautiful connection. I felt so calm and so present in its presence. It eventually got up and walked to the back of my house. We hoped it found its mother. A few weeks later, the tub's fire ripped through my neighborhood.

Oh, that's beautiful. Oh, that's such a beautiful story. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. No, I'm so sorry. She puts it so well, that kind of sense of being in the presence of something beautiful.

beautiful and innocent and peaceful and with a kind of connection you can't put into words, but you just feel deeply as a human. I sometimes had the feeling watching the hairs that my blood pressure would sort of slow and still and I would become calm. I breathe more deeply. It's very, and I'm not somebody who would normally have that kind of reflection or open myself up to that sort of feeling, but I really felt it, that soothing feeling

feeling of balance when we're close to nature in the way that on some kind of level I believe we're meant to be. We live these lives that make us very, very denatured in many respects. Certainly I did. I'm sure many of your callers and listeners are much closer to nature than I was. But in many respects, modern life is just driving us further and further away from sometimes the things that make us feel most connected, most in balance, most in harmony with nature and ourselves.

Yeah, I really love that you talk about how at a certain point the hair treats you more as a companion than a caretaker. And that the fact that it saw you as safe and part of the environment, that it gave you a sense of approval, like that you belong here too.

Yes, I mean, I had so many strange realizations. And I realized at a certain point that I was in a way the interloper, the intruder into this patch of land. The hares have been in this part of the north of England for centuries, you know, for millennia, probably, in fact. And

I'm a recent arrival. I converted this barn, put a fence around the garden, do all the things that we do as humans. And somehow, even though a hare doesn't belong in a human home, it really belonged on that patch of land. And there was this incredible moment for me when the hare was four months old when she

leapt the garden wall. It's a high dry stone wall over four foot tall, so pretty tall for a small lever to leap. But they're so athletic that she leapt it very easily. And I happened to be looking out of the window. So I saw her go and I thought that was it. I thought, you know, she's got the whole wild thing

At her feet, she's going to run as far and fast as she could. And that's just as it should be. But I, of course, did feel a little sad for myself at the ending of a beautiful experience. But to my astonishment, she chose to come back. And that became the start of this new journey.

stage in the experience with the hare running the fields and woods at night and by day returning to sleep in my house. And that's why I say that at that point, I feel in some kind of way she associated the house, my home, perhaps my presence with a feeling of safety since she chose to do something which most hares would normally never do. I mean, if we're

Most of us, if we ever get to see a hare, it's because it's racing off in the distance. We might just catch a glimpse of ears and tail. And this was a wild hare that was choosing to return every day to sleep in a human home. And I didn't touch her. She wasn't a pet, but she just came and went of her own free will. And that brought about an incredible sense of, I don't know, peace and the possibility of a better balance between humans and nature.

Yeah, I was struck by your description that you would at times maybe with colleagues that you would downplay your sense of companionship or growing attachment to the hair. Why do you think you did that?

Oh, absolutely. This is me being kind of honest about something I'm not necessarily proud of, but it turned out to be the case that because I worked in politics, my job was to advise on foreign policy in particular, issues of war and peace and terrorism and things like that. And

I no one had ever said it to me but I had this sort of feeling as a as a woman in that kind of world you know advising the UK foreign secretary high level of government that I had to leave my feelings at home and that I needed to be you know analytical and calm at all times and and have a sort of I describe it in the book as having a kind of carapace around my feelings and so I

fit into any kind of image of myself I projected at work or in my professional life that I would be raising and nurturing a little hare and making changing aspects of my life to accommodate this animal and spending more and more time thinking about it. So I did at the beginning of the experience sort of think, well, maybe I shouldn't really tell people about this. They're not going to take me so seriously. And of course, that just reflects my own feelings.

you know, but they come from a true place, which is that it can be easy as a woman if you sort of lose your cool in the workplace and start crying, you know, that you end up feeling like you're not going to be taken seriously. And so somewhere along the line, when I was young, I went into the world of politics really quite young. I must have learned this lesson the hard way. But then over time, I realized, you know what, this is a beautiful, unusual experience. And

I started to tell people about it when we would be on Zoom calls discussing Afghanistan. And to my absolute astonishment, it just became this thing, this positive, beautiful story that everybody wanted to be part of in some kind of way. So I'm really glad that I started telling people about the hair and then ultimately had the chance to write this book.

Let me go next to call a Ray in Houston. Hi, Ray. Thanks for joining us. You're on. Hi. Thank you for letting me share the story about a wild creature that I've had for four seasons. It's a male toad. And

And he sits outside my sunroom window when I work at night on my computer and the light's on and he croaks and I croak back mimicking him. And he sings in the front gutter to call the females and I collect the eggs and hatch the tadpoles. And I have a nursery in the back. And he likes to swim around with all of his kids.

And this last week I found him. He often would hop out to greet me in my yard, but I found him, he was dead. And I have been astounded at how much I've grieved. It sounds strange that he's a toad. And I felt very sad, and we've had rains these last...

two nights and there were there was no calling you there was silence in front of our house usually he calls for the female and I and I've been grieving um I've just been grieving the loss of my uh little friend well Ray thanks for sharing that story I'm so sorry and I'm sure what you're feeling does not sound strange to Chloe right

No, not at all. And there was a moment in my experience early on, Ray, that I thought of as you were speaking, which is when one of the hare's leverets died. This beautiful, you know, I don't know, totally innocent, lovely hare. There's no reason I could tell for it to have died. But it died one afternoon. And the strange thing was that just as it died, a thunderstorm broke.

And it was an uncanny experience. It was something so moving about it. And I really cried, you know, cradling this little leveret and ultimately burying it and sort of grieving for the loss of its life, but also for, you know, for its mother and just for the fact that we form these very deep, powerful attachments with animals, I think. Yes, and we're talking about those deep attachments with Chloe Dalton. We'll have more after the break. I'm Mina Kim.

Support for Forum comes from San Francisco Opera. Experience the soaring highs and heartbreaking lows of bohemian life this summer in John Caird's beloved production of La Boheme. Puccini's most adored opera transports us into the heady bohemian world of 19th century Paris as we follow a circle of starving artists falling in and out of love, living for the moment. La Boheme runs June 3rd to 21st.

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You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking this hour with Chloe Dalton, a writer and political advisor and foreign policy expert in the UK. Her debut memoir is called Raising Hair, about the profound impact on her of caring for a hare. And we're asking you, our listeners, to share if you've ever felt a connection to a wild animal and what you got from that, or the wildest visitor you've ever had come for a visit.

Have you had an experience in nature that changed the way you see the world or even yourself? Let me go to caller Leslie in Walnut Creek. Hi, Leslie, you're on. Hi, thanks for taking my call. I really love this program. I have a lot of experience with animals. I have horses and I'm out at a barn all the time when there's a lot of wild animals. And, you know, my daughter was young.

young since we had horses, so we always find baby birds and so forth that we try to rescue or we take them to the Lindsay Wildlife Center in Walnut Creek. And I just wanted to share this one experience. I have a horse trailer and I found this baby mouse inside the horse trailer and we put him in a box and we had all good intentions to rescue him and we went over to somebody else at the horse stable and one

One of the people saw the mouse in the baby box and just said, throw it in the garbage. And it was such a shocking comment to both myself and my daughter because, you know, it's a living being. And I know people kill mice all the time and so forth. We try to use those live traps. But, you know, I could really relate to...

you know, your guest when she talked about finding the hair and you see this helpless little thing and it is a living being and it's like how can you just ignore it? Like, of course you would take care of it and try to rescue it, you know? So, I'm

I've kind of raised my daughter with that attitude. And we just, anytime we see an animal that's, you know, lost or whatever, we do our best to try to help it. And, you know, I think it helps a lot being around horses because horses, unlike a dog or a cat, they still have like a little bit of wildness in them, you know, and you have to kind of relate to them in a certain way to sort of mix with that. And it's,

It's a very much in-your-moment kind of relationship, and I think it's really healthy for people, and I think that's why people who have horses are very, like,

sort of obsessed with them because they get that back from the horse. Oh, well, Leslie, thanks for sharing that story. Another comment actually about a mouse. Anthony writes, a similar story of a human encountering and nurturing a wild animal can be found in the recent novel Sipsworth by Simon Van Boy. The rescuer is a very old woman. Her story and the relationship to the mouse she adopts and saves unfolds like a beautiful flower.

But Chloe, Leslie's right. Oh, you know the book. No, I don't. I'm going to read it. You know, Leslie's right. We do treat certain animals quite violently like mice. And in your research, you learn that there is a violent history in the way that humans have treated hares, right? Yeah.

Yes, absolutely. Well, in the UK and probably in many other countries, it has the misfortune to be the fastest land animal. And so therefore, if you were looking to like chase your race, your dogs and show how great your dog breeding is, you know, a hare in Britain is what you would set

them upon and so they've been they've been hunted for sport obviously they've been hunted for food and and that is very understandable you know back in the day it would have been a very important source of meat for many families but there's a sort of thing that the hare has this misfortune to be

to get it coming and going, you know, both in sporting and hunting terms, but also because it's one of these animals that, as Leslie was alluding to, you know, get treated as pests. And pest is a very negative word, you know. It comes from the plague, actually, originally, the idea of la peste. And there are some animals, obviously, that...

you know, get out of control in terms of numbers and we have to manage them. And I understand that's a very real problem for people who, you know, who are farmers and things like that. But I think sometimes we can, we can use this language and it can,

If it was a human, we talk about dehumanizing. I'm not sure what the technical term is for an animal, but it's that sense of if you label it a certain way, it becomes normal, natural to sort of disregard it and to kill it. And we think like that, I think sometimes with some insects. So I feel, for instance, in the UK, hares, or in England specifically, hares are the only game animal that aren't protected during the breeding season. You can kill a hare at any time of the year, completely legally, unlike birds.

deer or pheasants or other animals. So there's something about the hare, which I think invites reappraisal. It's time to say if there's so much beauty and value and dignity in a small brown animal that's commonly disregarded, then how many other things are there in nature waiting to be discovered and how many other things should we reappraise in a similar manner? Yeah. Do you feel like that...

Reappraisal is happening in politics. Protecting the natural world from habitat loss and species decline still feels so politically difficult these days.

Yes, I think sometimes the problem can be that we get overwhelmed with negative news, you know, that kind of feeling that it's almost too late or it's impossible. And I know, obviously, this is a very live issue in the United States, in various states, including this question of what you do with predators. But I'm hopeful, I think,

My own experience has made me hopeful. It's made me think that it's possible to find a better balance. Clearly, you can't hang everything on one story or one animal. But I've noticed that people have responded to this experience and this story in a particularly positive way because it has that feeling that all is not lost.

um we can i describe in the book various ways that because of my experience with the hair that i that i started to take an interest in in rewilding slightly the area around me and seeing the benefits that had your landscape that's better for hairs is better for whole load of other animals it's an important part of the food chain so i i do feel um

But I'm not naive about the political difficulties. And of course, you know, we have to take care of human interests as well. And it's a difficult time for that around the world. It's so true, though, we can connect with the relationship between a single hair because it makes the broader picture.

picture that we're trying to accomplish even more visceral and so much closer to us. The other thing that your book made me think about was the fact that we can also really deepen our relationship to a place, not just the inhabitants of that place, which it also feels like you went through as well. Yes, through this hair, but I've also talked with writers like Jenny O'Dell about the

Simply developing a relationship with a place that can feel very profound and very reciprocal through really close observation and engagement to that.

Yes, you're absolutely right. And maybe I'm just thinking as you're speaking, but maybe we're rediscovering something that our grandparents and great grandparents knew because they lived in a different era, you know. But I'm a classic example of how rootless modern life can sometimes be. I traveled around so much.

And I almost took pride in it in the sense that it is still important to me, that idea that it's important to care about all countries and to recognize that people in other parts of the world, that their lives have equal value and dignity and meaning to ours, even if they're very different. But I was missing that idea.

connection to one particular place. And I've really learned the value and meaning and dignity that comes from connection to a place through the seasons and the years. And also to realize in my mind, I'd always thought that excitement and interest was to be found by getting on an

Culturally, we're sort of encouraged to constantly seek out new and novel experiences. But I've come to realize that sometimes the most beautiful, meaningful, rewarding things in life are just around the corner or as in this case, just at the end of the garden.

Yeah. The story of when the hair cut off your internet, gnawed through cables, and you weren't terribly happy about it, but you didn't panic either. It was so revealing also of ways that you had changed for you in that way. What did that moment at the way you reacted to it sort of tell you about how you had shifted?

Well, I was lucky. I was grateful with hindsight that I wasn't mad about that because that was the act that preceded the hair giving birth to leverets inside my house, which was an astonishing thing that she raised these. And it's a beautiful part of the... Well, it was a beautiful part of the book to write. I hope it's a beautiful part of the book to read was the experience of watching mother hair raise her leverets in front of me and alongside me. But I did realize...

quite early on that my priorities were shifting, that habits that I was very, very attached to that I thought were really important to me, actually, I was quite happy to chuck out the window fairly quickly. And I think that other people might relate to this experience that sometimes we need to be shaken out of our habits. We think we like the way that we live, but actually, if something comes along that makes us change, it's a massive relief. It can bring new experiences, new joy, that sensation of

of opening up. It can be a disorientating feeling to change sometimes, but from my experience, this one was a sense of broadening, of slowing down, of being more in tune with myself and of discovering, like looking out of the window day after day and seeing things change and learning about the landscape around me. I found it incredibly rewarding and I think that's the great thing

beauty and wonder of nature that is there waiting for us whenever and whatever stage in our lives we happen to be at when we want to turn to it. It's there. It's very forgiving. It's very resilient. And you don't have to be an expert to enjoy it. So I have definitely, I found myself changing in the fact that

I thought the only things that really interested me, I mean, obviously, I'm interested in lots of things, but the majority of my attention was taken up with foreign policy and travel and meeting people around the world. And it became important to me through this process to be, I think I describe in the book, you know, as dependable and reliable and present in my kind of community and with my family and where I am and not just constantly, you know, jumping at the first opportunity to leap on a plane and go around the world.

Yeah. We're getting more comments from listeners. Eagle on Blue Sky writes, I volunteered at the San Francisco Zoo and the Animal Resource Center and developed many close relationships with the animals housed there. I learned that non-domesticated animals will always remain wild. Being in their presence and observing their behavior gave me a deeper appreciation for nature and the uniqueness that each animal possesses, much like no two humans are alike.

John writes,

The next morning I saw it dead in the road. To this day, I wonder if it had a better chance if I had picked it up and placed it into the tree. We're talking with Chloe Dalton about her new book, her debut memoir, actually, and it's called Raising Hair, about the profound impact on her of caring for a baby hair. And let me remind listeners, you are listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

And let me go to caller Shay next in Richmond. Hi, Shay. Join us. You're on. Hello. Hi. Yeah, I just wanted to actually talk about two things really quick. One is me and my son recently rescued a brown pelican a couple days ago. And Wildcare said that it's been, they sent like five different pelicans back.

just in the last week over to the International Bird Center where they focus on shorebirds. It was strange because we were sitting in the middle of the road, but there was no injuries. Like for a half an hour, we were stopping traffic until we were able to bring it over. And everything is fine with the bird except for that they...

They seem kind of thin, and so they're rehabilitating it, and this has been happening a lot. So I don't know, just like put our minds together and figure out what we can do and what's going on with just specifically the brown pelican.

And the other thing that I want to mention, yeah, I think I want to mention really quick is one of me and my son's favorite animals to rescue actually are bees, like honeybees and bumblebees and other, like if you, there's, you know, a problem with bees where,

They have the wing deformity, so they can't fly, you know. And it's been happening a lot with, you know, the rise of more and more chemicals in industrial farming. But we like to rescue these bees and just bring it into our home, bring it flowers every day. And they're just so, so, so sweet, you know, carried around on our shoulders, you know, just for fun.

a couple weeks of their life and then do a little burial. We do that a lot. Oh, Shay, thanks for sharing that. Actually, you're reminding me of my son who also really loves bees. Now you're giving me some thoughts about things that we can do with them if the bees find it helpful. I heard you laugh too. And you brought up insects too in the way we really don't think about insects the way we should, huh, Chloe? Yeah.

Well, I just think this is my favorite program ever because it's just the number of different stories, different perspectives, but one feeling uniting it all of this sort of care and tenderness and fascination and curiosity and desire to do no harm towards nature that's permeated every story we've heard from the hummingbird to the pelicans and the bees. So I just love it. Well, let me bring in Barbara from San Francisco next. Hi, Barbara, you're on.

Oh, hello. I can appreciate the relationship you have with that hair because I've had only one encounter with one. On a rural road with no shoulder, I pulled off into a dirt driveway. And I stayed in my car and this hair approached me and it sat on its haunches looking right into my window.

I kept the window closed because, you know, you never know. They get gnarly. You want to be safe. But they're beautiful. Those long ears, those dark eyes. Yeah, it sounds like you were captivated.

And I wouldn't believe it if I didn't have a good photo shoot from it. My goodness, right face to face with this beautiful, large animal. They stand about a yard high when they're sitting like that. So he could see right in the window.

It's huge. Yeah, that is huge. And really, one of the things that it's making me think about is your description, Chloe, of what it felt like when the hair would look at you. Hmm.

Yes, I felt like any wild animal catches your eye. It's an extraordinary feeling. But in this case, because the hare was at ease with me, she would really look at me for a long period of time. And a hare, when it looks at you really, really intently, looks at you with its head turned to one side because of where its eyes are positioned.

And there's something about the shape of their eye. It catches this like 360 degree reflection of the sky. So you really feel like you're seeing the whole of nature through the eye of a hare. And you don't know with animals, you know, what goes through their mind. But there is this affinity, I think, that we all feel, even if we can't always put it into words. And I certainly felt that when I was gazing at the hare.

Well, Antonio writes,

And they were scared, sad-looking birds. Today we are trapped with two wonderful little birds that fly all over the house and wake us up in the morning with their loud chirps. Now they watch TV with us, sitting on our head or neck. They live in a large cage that's open most of the time, and they are beautiful and delicate. Wow.

You touched on this earlier, but yes, here in this country, we are living in very uncertain times and it does trigger anxiety for some. And so any final last words gleaned from your engagement with a wild hare that could be helpful to us?

Well, I just find it, for me personally, interesting that having worked a whole career in politics and thinking that's where answers lie, I've been profoundly transformed by turning my gaze towards nature and the connections that it has brought me, not only with animals, but with other people. And I've started to think that maybe some of the answers lie in that

direction in remembering where we come from, who we are, how we relate to each other in the natural world and coming together on that basis. And for that reason, I'm hopeful. Well, thank you, Chloe, for reminding us to engage deeply and step lightly with the world like a hare. Really enjoyed having you on. Thank you, Mina. And my thanks to Jesse Fisher for producing this segment. And as always to listeners, this is Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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