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As a native New Yorker, the closest I have come to nature, besides the Bronx Zoo, are pigeons and the occasional rat in Central Park. I knew moving to California would be a big change, but I never expected to encounter so much wildlife and quite a crazy bunch at that. One night, soon after I had returned from a camping trip with my California Environment Semester program where I had vowed to appreciate nature more, I was walking with friends to a house off campus when a giant raccoon appeared from the darkness, stopping us in our tracks. After a few loud shrieks, it made a vicious noise and attempted to shove itself through a sewer drain. We continued on only to be frightened by a stray cat that emerged from under a car thirty seconds later.
After this night, I began to reflect on all my experiences with animals at Oxy thus far. I recalled the skunk I saw (ran quickly away from) scurrying behind me up the paved path from Sycamore Glen my first week of school. I remembered the day when I sat on a bench in the quad and was disrupted by a squirrel that had lost its balance in its hurry to move from branch to branch at abnormally excessive speeds and fallen to the pavement only to scurry away as if it was no big deal. Possums have also been known to terrorize Oxy students like when a close friend was waking back to her dorm from the Cooler one night only to be startled by a possum along her route. Let’s just say we are not allowed to walk that way anymore.
As college students, we have enough safety concerns to worry about, especially walking around at night; do we really need the hazard of wild creatures on the loose too? While I think it is great to enjoy our beautiful campus and to embrace nature (what I consider nature at least) why do the animals at Oxy have to be so crazy?
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