Each species experiences the world differently, and many species have capacities that are far different from ours. They can show us the unimaginable. Thus, the greater our empathy with a variety of animals, the more we can learn. For example, nobody on their own would seek to collect a fluid that is practically indistinguishable from water out of a specific kind of tree, then evaporate it to produce sugar. But the Iroquois, the native people of New York State, say that maple syrup was discovered by a boy who noticed a squirrel licking some maple sap at a wound where the water had evaporated. He had discovered a squirrel’s winter food. Curious, the boy tried the sap himself. Finding it sweet, he began the tribe’s use of a new resource.

~ Bernd Heinrich, Winter World