Tyler Million - Man's place in nature

Throughout this course a topic that has often occupied my mind was man’s place in nature. Humans by definition are animals, same as anything else that roams the wild; however we do not view ourselves as such. Anything man brings into nature, or takes from nature, is seen as unnatural even if the object in question is natural. A good example of this is one of your friends who hiked the Appalachian Trail. When this guy reached the top of mount Katahdin he wanted to leave his walking sticks at first, but then decided it wasn’t right to disturb others wilderness experience with his presence. My question is, would it be different if a dog had carried a stick up the mountain and left it there? The stick is equally out of place but I believe it would be accepted because it was nature that brought it there. However if we follow that train of thought we are not viewing humans, and their actions, as nature.