Mayhem in the Animal Kingdom
I saved a nuthatch the other day. It was sitting quite stunned in the middle of some steps downtown, easy prey for clodhopper feet or the odd passing peregrin. Anyway, I scooped it up and deposited it in a cozy gap between a concrete banister and handrail, the kind of place no one sees but is roomy and safe for a wee nuthatch. Cute little thing. It had flown off when I checked back a couple of hours later. I of course had spent the time worrying that it was wounded and dying of dehydration or some such.
It makes me wonder at the endless mayhem we humans wreak on unsuspecting animals - birds flying into window glass, the legions of animals killed on highways (that tell-tale dark brown smear across the ashphalt), poisonings, habitat theft, sport hunting, eating, the list goes on and on. They say humans are at the top of the predator chain. That would be alright if we were actually eating all those animals. Most of the time, we're just killing them.
The only salve for my conscience is to give money to the local animal rehab society, http://www.aiwc.ca/ which does simply fabulous work. I'd love to go up there and see what they do. Maybe next open house...
It makes me wonder at the endless mayhem we humans wreak on unsuspecting animals - birds flying into window glass, the legions of animals killed on highways (that tell-tale dark brown smear across the ashphalt), poisonings, habitat theft, sport hunting, eating, the list goes on and on. They say humans are at the top of the predator chain. That would be alright if we were actually eating all those animals. Most of the time, we're just killing them.
The only salve for my conscience is to give money to the local animal rehab society, http://www.aiwc.ca/ which does simply fabulous work. I'd love to go up there and see what they do. Maybe next open house...
posted by zouzou at 11:52 a.m.
2 Comments:
You do have this thing with birds don't you? (Hhhmmm... echoes of a recent Bast post here...)
I recall two other times when you saved the life of birds... once a fledgling was lurching around in my driveway and you helped it find its wings...
And the other time we drove to the vet with the injured magpie, with you driving and me in the passenger seat with the poor critter wrapped in a towel in my arms. (The fact that he/she/it died on the way to the vet has left me permanently scarred, by the way... My only consolation is that I'd rather it have died in my arms than on the road.)
But I don't know anyone else with your heroic bird-saving capabilities! You're building some rockin' kharma in the bird world there, girl!
What, by the way, is a nuthatch?!
Saving birds *is* good karma. Except when our cats decide to go hunting them, when my karmic lines get all blurred and I have to side with the cat because it is a wonderful and most natural hunter-beast-kitty. Not that my cat ever actually hunted birds - she does ack-ack at them through the window though - seems not to harm them. Karmic balance restored. I am at peace.
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