Kendra Coulter, Associate Professor in Labour Studies, wrote a piece recently published in the National Post about the constant series of tasks and challenges wild animals take on every day.

Coulter writes:

Like other nature lovers and rural residents, I have been marvelling at the many animal courtships and other mating preparations that accompany the arrival of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

The brilliant-red male cardinals who seek out the best seeds and then tenderly feed their female mates, beak-to-beak. The robins who dutifully solicit and assess building supplies as they carefully construct their nests. The squirrels who remember which nuts have been buried where — and whose organizational skills rival the best administrative assistants.

Along with my endless delight in watching chipmunks stuffing their cheeks to refill their networks of food burrows, as a labour studies scholar, I also recognize that these dynamics are examples of work.

Wild animals work. They work hard.

The idea of work still tends to evoke particular images of manual and blue-collar jobs, but the realities of people’s livelihoods have always been and continue to be much more diverse. This is true for people and animals alike.

Daily life for wild animals involves an elaborate and constant series of tasks and challenges.

Continue reading the full article here.