During the last rainy/fog-filled month I have been combing the forest I love for mushrooms. I am not a forager; I am a naturalist/ethologist who returns to the same places on a regular basis year after year to observe and record what I see, or not. Oh, the remains of fungi are evident on tree trunks but where are the Oysters? The early edible mushrooms have disappeared.
At first, I thought perhaps it was a poor year for fruiting fungi for unknown (to me) reasons but then I joined a mushroom group to find out if others were having the same kinds of experience. Oh, I was so wrong. What I witnessed week after week was deeply distressing. Pictures of mushrooms stripped from the forest with captions like these: ‘What a haul’, ‘Free Food for the taking’. I could go on here. People seemed to be taking every mushroom they could find, leaving not one behind.
During the last couple of years ‘foraging’ has become a new pastime for hikers – it’s more than a hobby – there have always been some folks who seek out wild mushrooms to eat especially in the European countries like Italy and Poland. But now mushroom hunting seems to be becoming one of American Culture’s newest obsessions.
As some folks know, mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of about 20,000 fungi that are part of the complex, poorly understood underground mycelial network. What happens to the ecology of the forest when too many mushrooms are removed from an area? I don’t have an answer to this question. But I have learned as a lifetime naturalist that Nature never does anything that isn’t important to the health of the whole forest.
I decided to do some research to answer my question and came up with only one study that had been done in Switzerland that seemed inconclusive. Harvesting mushrooms probably does not affect long-term production. Probably? Doesn’t that mean that they don’t know?
I also wrote to Dr. Rupert Sheldrake (plant physicist) and his son Dr. Merlin Sheldrake (Merlin wrote the best-selling book Entangled Life) and asked for their opinion on this issue. Rupert said that no studies had been done in the UK; so, he didn’t know what the long-term consequences of intensive harvesting might be. He did point out that taking all the mushrooms one could find was an issue for him because he is not a fan of greed (I am still waiting to hear from Merlin who is out of the country).
When I discussed my concerns with scientist/naturalist Al Falster at MGMM he immediately responded that if some fungi produced mushrooms with spores, it was important to make sure that some were left to reproduce even if we had no idea why. He believes as I do that at the very least there will be long-term negative consequences for the forest if we continue to harvest irresponsibly.
He also brought up a point that reminds me of what Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer says about the importance of reciprocity when harvesting any of nature’s bounty. She believes, as he and I do, that the first plants (in this case fungi) need to be left where they are, and then as long as there are enough, it is important to ask permission to harvest before taking some – and to never take them all.
To me, it’s just common sense not to remove all fungi/plants from one location without leaving some for the next generation.
Maybe it is time for mushroom hunters to begin to comprehend that fungi are not growing in the forest primarily to provide “free food” for humans; they are there as part of a complex biome with her/his own agenda.
Please, let’s be prudent. It’s time to step back and reflect on what we are doing – and why.
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