Age is a thing to witness and cherish
The rhododendron stretched its arms, its boughs heavy with leaves. At its base, shrubs pushed forward. It was a massive tree, at the crest of a hill, looking like a chandelier in its complexity.
At a certain age, things in the natural world start looking a little different. A mature, windswept oak begins to look like a mountain—its trunk whorled with lichen, matted with moss, and transcribed with insects and experience, like a slope with a cave painting. A very old elephant or rhino can look a little like stone—ponderous and stoic.
In the forest, looking at an old tusker or matriarch is like looking at a body of experiences and stories. Their ears are often torn with age, looking like rivers splayed over deltas. Older tigers begin to get their noses splatted with black dots, a Rorschach blot of all the animal has learned. Mature trees and animals are often key to the areas around them. Older animals embody experience and wisdom that is crucial. But they are under threat.
In a new paper in the journal Science, Kopf et al write that old animals are important for passing on information and culture, shaping the dynamics of the ecosystem and holding resilience to disturbance. At the same time, older animals are under threat. Older animals can often be larger, and this makes them a target for poachers and hunters. Older fish may be harvested more. The authors point out the deleterious impact this may have on ecosystems, and argue for measures to specifically protect older individuals.
This year, I watched a Banyan tree—spread out larger than a four-storeyed building—in a forest in the Western Ghats. The tree had monkeys visiting, and a rumoured snake at its base. Small minivet birds whirled through the branches in a giddy spill of orange and yellow. A hornbill landed in its branches. All throughout the day, the tree harboured wild denizens. People had been there too, leaving their prayers at the bottom of the tree. At some point of its life, the banyan had moved from being a tree to a temple, a place to visit and revere.
And up in the mountains this year, a large, single kaafal tree—which bears a litchi-like fruit—was at the centre of a feast. Himalayan barbets gobbled its fruit. A Scaly-bellied woodpecker arrived to excavate insects, and a Greater-yellownape woodpecker disappeared into a hole in the trunk. On that same visit, I saw an old elephant at base of the hills. She was leading her herd, crossing roads with a sort of patience and skill that came with having thought this through on multiple occasions. Elephants pass on their knowledge—on how to behave, which routes to take, and what to feed on, to other herd members. Older animals are experienced teachers.
They say life is cruel for the old—the ravages of disease and time make themselves felt. At the same time, in a warming and disturbed world, life is hard for the young too. For animals that learn through social bonding, learning from leaders in their pack is crucial. And for the rest, we still need something to look up too—an old whale, a large tree, a bracket of bamboo that has stood for decades—these are pillars of the world around us, a thing to witness and to cherish, and perhaps to learn from.
Neha Sinha
Conservation biologist and author
Views expressed are personal
Posts on X: @nehaa_sinha