A Wildlife Tragedy

In the humid Amazon rainforest, a capybara, who went by the name of Courage, was lying comfortably on her side as she ate some juicy grass. As she gazed above, the leaves of the trees shuffled and whispered in the wind. Howler monkeys yelled in the distance as a stream trickled nearby. At that moment, life was good.

Soon, a strange and unfamiliar smell tickled his sensitive nose. Out of curiosity, she followed the scent. After searching for a few minutes, the strong smell became too overwhelming for Courage. Along with the strong smell, it became incredibly hot around him.

As she was about to run away, she heard someone yelling for help. Courage hesitated for a minute until she heard it again. The voice yelled, "Someone, please help me!" Without a second thought, she ran towards the sound.

As the Courage approached, the jungle became unbearably hot. It was becoming difficult to breathe. The trees were no longer green, and the air was no longer clear. She saw many other animals running away in fear.

Courage figured out that it was a sloth who needed help. There was a huge fallen tree right beside the sloth. The sloth reached out to the capybara and desperately asked, "Can you please help me out?" Courage saw the terror in her eyes and, without another word, quickly bent down so the sloth could climb on.

Soon, both of the animals were coughing nonstop. The two animals knew they needed to get out of there fast.

Courage did not stop running until she reached green trees and fresh air. When they caught their breath, the sloth explained what happened. "I was just taking my daily nap until I felt the tree collapsing. I could not get out of there fast enough and ended up falling with the tree. Part of the tree fell on my leg and broke it. While I was trying to crawl, I saw everyone running away," said the sloth.

Courage tried to wrap her head around what just happened because she had never seen anything like it. She asked the sloth, "What's your name?" The sloth replied with " Tarda"

The two drank at a nearby stream as they pondered about the dangerous force that lay before them.

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A couple of months later, animals in Australia experienced the same fatal occurrence.

A koala bear named Ursulus Paulus, was eating eucalyptus leaves, which was his favorite meal. Under his favorite shady tree, he looked up into the clear, blue sky. On the nearby trees, Paulus saw other koala bears lounging around while other animals were grazing. Other than not having a mate, he was happy with his life.

That night, Paulus was quickly woken up; he could not breathe. As he opened his eyes, roaring flames permanently blinded him. The pain he felt became too overwhelming that he could no longer grasp the tree. Paulus slammed onto the ground. All the trees and grass were consumed in flames, and unfortunately, the fire continued to spread.

His mind was racing, trying to figure out what on Earth was happening.

Being unable to see, he called out to his friends and family. His heart dropped as he heard the painful cries of his peers.

Out of nowhere, Paulus was picked up by something and then placed onto a cool platform. He heard a weird roaring noise, and in a few seconds, it wasn't hot anymore. He could feel the wind on his fur and shortly blacked out due to the searing pain in his eyes.

When he woke up, all he saw was darkness and he heard obscured noises all around him. Later, he was taken to another place, which was filled with recognizable voices and familiar scents. As he smelled the room, his heart started to race as he picked up the smell of his mother. Despite losing his ability to see, Paulus followed his mother's smell.

Paulus'' family and friends quickly surrounded him. Tears were shed, and Paulus was grateful that they had survived. Since Paulus could not see, he did not know that both his parents were severely burned and that some of his friends did not make it.

Back in the forest, hundreds of koala bears faced the flames while others were saved.

Bibliography

"The Foolish, Timid Rabbit" by Ellen C. Babbit from Jataka Anthology. Web Source: Jatakas

Author's Note

This story was inspired by the Foolish, Timid Rabbit. In the original story, a rabbit thinks that the world is ending due to an odd noise. As he freaks out, the other animals believe him and start running away. When the animals ran into the lion, the lion asked why everyone was running. Instead of believing the others, the lion decided to check what the noise was.

For both settings, I included animals that fitted my narrative the best. For the Amazon Rainforest, I knew that capybaras lived there and I'm a huge fan of the creature. I used the sloth because I felt that it would shine light on similar situations that we never think of. Many jungle creatures such as the jaguar are fast and will probably escape the fire. However, animals like the sloth that are slow can't outrun the fire. When I wrote the first draft of this story, I featured a warthog instead of a sloth. After reading it over again, I decided to use the sloth instead. I named the sloth "Tarda" because it means slow in Latin. Also, Courage and Tarda are both females.

In the first story, the capybara is portrayed as curious and courageous. In real life, capybaras are super friendly towards other animals so I tried exhibiting those traits through the capybara's actions. Another thing is that animals are curious and in this situation, their curiosity can get them killed. I decided to name the capybara "Courage" because of her selfless acts.

When it came to the second story, I definitely had to feature the koala bear since it took place in Australia. Similar to the sloth, koala bears are not fast animals so it goes to show that these forest fires are detrimental to them. I decided to name the koala bear "Ursulus" because it means little bear in Latin.

My goal for this story was to portray the animals' perspective when it comes to these fires and how they were affected. In the Foolish, Timid Rabbit, the rabbit was scared of the world ending and with that idea, I wanted to expand on it. I executed my goal by implementing real-life events. First, I included the fire that ravaged the Amazon Rainforest in early 2019 and then, the Australian fires that are still happening. I wanted to show that even though these fires do not directly affect us, Americans, it's the end of the world to the animals that live in those forests and jungles.