Wild Britain

JVAS President Dave Bonta will share his summer experiences visiting the UK. Great Britain is a crowded island with a landscape that has been profoundly reshaped by human beings since the Paleolithic. Top carnivores were eliminated centuries ago and forests are few and far between, but parts of it are still surprisingly wild — even in the city. And the rich archaeological and historical record is full of hints about a once deeper relationship with nature. During a two-month visit in summer 2013, Dave did his best to understand that relationship, now and in the past, with stops at a butterfly meadow in a London cemetery, a seabird colony on the North Sea coast, the largest remnant of the ancient Caledonian forest, a cave by the Irish Sea with 1500-year-old graffiti of strange beasts, and much more.