Laboring to explain
in Ants and Men: Island Apocalypse,
E.O. Wilson
quantifies how organisms
populate a mangrove island
and how his process of defaunation
involves shrouding the island itself
in airtight blue plastic
so the island can be gassed
with methyl bromide. First,
all original life has to be scrubbed out
of existence. Then, he says,
(“the natural world has always been
my greatest love”) he can measure the rate
at which new organisms repopulate
the roots and branches of a sterile
paradise. It’s his life work. Proving his theory
of ‘equilibrium.’ This white-
haired man from Alabama,
sitting in a rocking chair, as he grabs
his forehead and says to the camera,
“don’t think of me as an exterminator
of biodiversity.” He’s honored
to be filmed, to be celebrated
for what his studies of ant species have revealed
of human nature. Caught on camera, feeling
a bit too exposed, he explains carefully
“we are like bugs,”
And the island, well, was just “one among thousands.”
