Anima Mundi

Reason flows from the blending of rational thought and feeling. If the two functions are torn apart, thinking deteriorates into schizoid intellectual activity and feeling deteriorates into neurotic life-damaging passions. Eric Fromm

Muntjac

Our world is in crisis, and, regrettably, our way of doing science in the West has inadvertently contributed to the many problems we face. I began to realise that something was seriously amiss with our mode of scientific enquiry when I was 25 years old. I had just come back to England after three years away as an ecologist and teacher in Venezuela and Colombia. Feeling my usual urgent need to connect with nature, I had lost no time in finding a quiet wood, which to my delight, was peppered with the tracks of tiny cloven-hoofed beings. But whose tracks were these? Fascinated, I had hidden myself in a thicket overlooking a broad woodland path, waiting for the mysterious creatures to appear. As the sun settled on the horizon and dusk bathed the wood in a deep purple light, a tiny deer stepped out of the trees and stood out in the open, a creature so small that it was more like the duikers I had occasionally spied in the wild bush country of Zimbabwe than any deer native to the British Isles. The little creature exuded a deep peace and an easy elegance that totally captivated me, transforming the whole wood. In the presence of this being, a profound sense of the inexpressible beauty of nature wafted over me like subtle smoke, enveloping me in a feeling of deep peace and happiness.

The little deer was a Reeve's muntjac deer (Muntiacus reevesi), a relatively recent addition from southern China to the fauna of the British Isles, and one of the world's smallest deer, with a shoulder height of only 45-50 centimetres. I cycled back to the wood many times to see muntjac. It was during one of these visits that I was gripped by the idea of devoting the next few years of my life to delving into the lives of these enigmatic creatures. Soon after, to my delight, I was given the chance to do my doctorate on muntjac ecology and behaviour at one of the world's very best zoology departments, at the University of Oxford.

It was hard to find a good study area. For a whole year I laboured in vain in a dense thicket behind an army barracks trying to observe muntjac behaviour, but the best I could do was to take plaster casts of hundreds of muntjac footprints. Scientifically, these were almost worthless, but collecting them had at least kept me busy. Then of course, there was the inevitable collection of muntjac dung, which would at least yield some interesting information, despite the horror expressed by my housemates when they found plastic bags full of it in the fridge.

At last, in desperation, I contacted the Forestry Commission and asked them if they knew of a wood in my area which held muntjac and in which I could work. S