As someone who works in ecology and conservation, I have had my fair share of abuse and ignorant comments, both during my day-to-day work and online. I can never quite understand why people get so angry at people who want to protect their environment and keep our planet a nice place to live, but that is for another debate. I’m a middle-aged male, pale but hopefully not too stale, so I don’t get as much abuse as some environmental professionals who are from a different ethnicity, younger, female, or combinations thereof.
I have had site managers standing inches from my face shouting abuse and prodding me in the chest with their finger when I’ve pointed out that they are doing something illegal and really ought to consider stopping it. I’ve had online abuse which I am not going to give the oxygen of publicity but needless to say, it can be pretty chilling to receive (climate change deniers and flat earthers, I am looking at you!)
However, over the years I have collected a few corkers, which I thought I’d share with you for a bit of Friday fun. I’m sure there are more you can add to the list below.
“Shouldn’t you be hugging a tree somewhere”, or variations thereof. This is incredibly original and comedy gold every time I hear it.
“It’s people like you who are ruining this country” said by a site operative I was chastising for attempting to pump dirty concrete water from an excavation directly into an upland stream.
“Why are you here wasting your time looking for mountain hares? There used to be 100s up here, we shot them by the dozen, but you hardly see any now. You should just %^%& off” said by a gamekeeper on an estate I was being paid to survey. I have had many species variants on this one sadly.
Whilst stopping a bloke from throwing a bin bag full of litter from the site welfare unit into an open excavation before he backfilled it, “Really? Why not? You’ll be wanting us to recycle it all next”. Actually, yes, it written in your Waste Management Plan!
“We killed an otter/badger/golden eagle yesterday”, a typically hilarious response to any environmental toolbox talk on species protection.
“So, it’s OK to stamp on newts then?” another timeless classic.
“Who do you think you are, David Attenborough”, I wish mate, I wish. Or a brilliant variation I had on that once “Who do you think you are, Richard Attenborough” – erm, No!?
“You like birds eh, yeah me too but not the feathered kind”. It’s not the 1970s anymore, even Sid James would cringe at that these days.
“Townies like you coming here telling us how to look after the countryside, why don’t you $%$^ off”, usually said by angry landowners. Where I am from is irrelevant, but if I had the energy, I’d tell you I grew up in a small village in rural Nottinghamshire, have lived and worked on farms, have a degree in the subject and several decades experience.
“%$£$£$£, so I can’t even cut this thing down in my own garden then?” the response of an angry home owner when I pointed out that the oak tree in his garden had a TPO on it and would also need bat surveys. He wanted to cut it down to stop pigeons from leaving droppings on his Range Rover which he parked underneath it. It’s fair to say I lacked sympathy for him.
Any my all-time favourite “Why the $%$% are we wasting time and money trying to protect water voles when there are hardly any of them left around here”. You, my friend, are missing the point.
In general, things are getting better for ecologists on construction sites and a lot of organisations recognise the need for us, both legally and in terms of public perception. Some of the above can be said half in jest and can be lumped into the category of site “banter”, which though sometimes misplaced, is not usually malicious. Often there is a safety in numbers. When you get most people on their own and not in view of their work colleagues, they will admit to having some liking or care for the environment, it just doesn’t seem to be the thing a lot of them want to admit to their mates for fear of being ridiculed.
When I first started, it did used to get to me, but I’m old enough and ugly enough to handle most of it now. Occasionally a comment will slip through my defences, and I’ll spend the rest of the day thinking about it. No-one should go to work expecting to be abused but sadly it does happen in many professions not just ecology. If you take one thing from this article, remember to be nice to your ecologist, you never know when you might need them.