This hare who taught Chloe Dalton to slow down
During the lockdown, the British writer and political advisor took in an abandoned leveret. She made a point of not taming it. In "What Your Gaze Promise," recently translated into French by Fayard, she recounts how living with this wild animal transformed her.
Baking your own bread—and failing at it—sweating in front of your computer during an online workout, rushing to the supermarket to buy tons of toilet paper: this is how most of us have been spending time in lockdown. Chloe Dalton, on the other hand, has preferred to raise a hare.
On a February morning with a “metallic gray” sky, Chloe Dalton discovers a leveret, barely larger than the palm of her hand, in the middle of a muddy country lane. Abandoned by its mother, it is at risk of being crushed under the wheels of a tractor. Unaware that any human intervention could cause it a shock that could kill it, she wraps it in a handful of dry grass to avoid touching it and takes it home. [She then considers offering it shelter until nightfall, but a conservationist she contacts reveals her error: despite her precautions, she has transmitted her human scent to the animal, which will no longer be approached by any of its species if she returns it so small to the wild. She therefore resolves to keep it at home, without taming it, until it grows up and becomes independent.]
Taking care of a baby
Courrier International
