A Naturalist’s Musings on Death

Walking in the shallows of Lake Superior, I recently encountered countless dying spruce budworm moths caught on the water’s surface. When still, they were nearly invisible. But when they struggled to regain flight, they spun in place, creating ripples that radiated outward, casting spiraling shadows on the sandy bottom. Their futile dance formed a vast ephemeral light show—one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever witnessed in nature—all created 
by the last flutterings of nondescript moths.  By morning, they had washed ashore in ragged rows. A day later, there was barely a trace. (View a video of this at z.umn.edu/CSHmoths)

Death, in the natural world, is never an ending. It is transition, redistribution—a passing of nutrients from weak or used-up bodies to younger, healthier ones. The moths’ bodies feed a host of creatures from microbes to fish, their brief dance not ending in silence but in sustenance.

As a deer hunter, I participate in this cycle more intimately. When I harvest a deer, I help keep the size of the herd in balance with their food supply. The venison feeds my family, and what remains—the bones, fat, and entrails—I return to the forest near our home. We watch as ravens, woodpeckers, and chickadees perch on the bones, pecking them clean. A few months later, even those bones are gone, consumed by mammals for the marrow and calcium. Everything has returned to the woods that once nourished the deer itself.

To witness this is not morbid—it is deeply uplifting. Nature doesn’t sequester death. It honors it by ensuring nothing is lost. As a naturalist, and someone who finds comfort in these cycles, I’ve come to see death not as the opposite of life, but as its equal and necessary partner.

There’s humility in this, and beauty. The moths on the water. The deer nourishing both forest and family. Death, endlessly recycled into life. Even beyond ecology, there is an evolutionary purpose in this process. Each death makes space for new life—offering, in time, genetic variation and adaptation to meet the ever-changing world.

At 71, I think about this not only biologically, but socially. Like many elders, I feel the subtle drift of time. I can’t type on a phone with my thumbs, and I’d rather talk than text. I struggle to follow conversations spoken at lightning speed by the young. I don’t love the crowded and overheated planet we’ve created, and I hate tailgaters. Each year I feel a bit more out of place. Eventually, death will become not something to fear, but something to accept—perhaps even welcome.

When my time comes, I hope to be returned to the forest that sustained me. Not locked in a sealed casket, shielded from decay, but in a way that allows my body to nourish the land. Green burial is a return—not just to the earth, but to the truth that we were never separate from it to begin with.