Companion Species Caregiving in the Midst of Climate Catastrophe: Supporting a Horse Through Wildfires and Heat Waves in the Pacific Northwest

• In Event: Redefining Care in a Global Pandemic: Problematizing Relational Models in Socio-Ecological Systems

Abstract

Purpose: This presentation seeks to explore the complexity, emotions, anxiety, and stress sparked by caring for a horse as a more-than-human deeply exposed to climate impacts increasingly felt in the US Pacific Northwest. While this is an intimate portrait of the kinship between one person and one horse, the story explores the larger phenomenon of how human-animal relations can deepen the severity and extent to which climate change impacts are felt. This poster also seeks to highlight an alternate perspective on climate change impacts by highlighting impacts on a companion species.

Theoretical Framework: This presentation is influenced by literature on kinship with the more-than-human (e.g. Wall Kimmerer, 2003) with an emphasis on multispecies caregiving toward multispecies flourishing (Haraway, 2016). The presentation brings these literatures into conversation with coping and living with climate change anxiety (Ray, 2020). I also conjure Haraway’s (2016) urging to stay with the trouble despite the challenges in these anxious times.

Methods & Data: This autoethnography (Ellis, Adams & Bochner, 2011) details my first year as a horse owner in the US Pacific Northwest. Through this narrative account, I explore the ways in which my connection and care for my horse overlap and interweave with climate anxiety for her safety as we navigate unprecedented climate challenges in our region: wildfires, weeks of hazardous air quality from smoke, and record-setting heat waves.

Results: This autoethnography lays bare the raw emotions, stress, and anxiety of caregiving for a companion species that is particularly vulnerable to the increasing impacts of climate change. The narrative confronts the irony that a stress-relieving hobby instead brought me agonizingly closer to the frontlines of climate change. The narrative also illustrates how oddkin (Haraway, 2016) are created across people caring for horses, against the backdrop of contemporary stark political division.

Significance: As climate change impacts are increasingly experienced throughout the world, more species are made vulnerable. This autoethnography explores, from lived experience, the dangers and stresses of climate catastrophe as it impacts horses as companion species. Moreover, humans involved in caring for horses are politically diverse, consisting of both climate-concerned and climate-skeptics. I hope that this account will raise awareness of the perils that climate change is currently presenting in the US Pacific Northwest and the ways these impacts are felt on a highly charismatic companion species. I also hope to facilitate activism on behalf of horses facing climate change impacts.

Author

• Sarah Stapleton, University of Oregon