The recent well-considered postings about "nature red in tooth and claw" by
Dale Goble and Burt Guttman again lead me to say how wonderful this new
forum is--a soapbox not only for college professors but hopefully for
everyone concerned.

Since we are in the clarifying mode, I hope that no one who read my posting
thinks that I lack respect and empathy for the animals with which we humans
share the world. I do; I think they're wonderful. But at the same time, and
as Burt noted, I don't think they're the same as humans; I don't have an
animal (other than human; of course I think of us as animals) for a mate, a
parent, a sibling, a confidant, a friend (again, I'll stay away from pets).
And it seems somehow inappropriate for us to agonize about the deaths of
animals as a *natural* consequence of their lives. I feel terrible when I
see a bird strike a window (because we humans placed the cause of their
death there, and no bird evolved to avoid plate glass) or washed up on the
beach covered with oil (ditto) or hit by a car (ditto) or caught by a cat
(ditto, although birds in fact can avoid cats just as they avoid other
predators, and cats are among the more "natural" impediments we humans have
put up to the survival of birds). These consequences somehow seen "wrong"
to me. But I would have an entirely different response if I saw the same
bird (in each case, say, by its incompetence) fly into a tree trunk and
kill itself or starved to death on the beach because it couldn't catch fish
or dashed to its death in a wind storm or caught by a sharp-shinned hawk.
These all seem "right," even though the bird is just as dead. They are part
of nature, which I consider "right."

One can easily proceed beyond this and incorporate the concept that
humans--as a natural animal species on this planet--are part of nature too,
and try to be a bit more accepting of the effects of humans, the
environmental damage we wreak on the planet. However, this concept is too
hard for me to accept when I consider that, because of our intelligence and
communication with one another, we do have the potential to avoid at least
some of this damage. Then I read again and again that animal-rights groups
stand in the way of attempts to alleviate substantial human-caused
environmental problems such as the presence of pigs in Hawaii or goats on
the Channel Islands, because of their philosophy espousing the sanctity of
the life of individual animals. It's the same mentality that wants the gull
shot because it's eating pigeons, and akin to the attitude that feral cats
are OK.

I think that, for better or worse, human death in our (American? western?)
society has been imbued with such terror that we can't think of it as part
of life any more. There has been a lot written about the fallacy of this
(in other societies and at other times, death is/was not feared), but I
don't think it has changed many peoples' fear of death. I think we have
then taken this attitude and extended it to our fellow animals, at least
the ones that we empathise with--big, brown eyes, etc. So now not only is
it "bad" for humans to die, but it's "bad" for other animals to die. Thus
the fight to keep this from happening ("I hope the eagle doesn't kill the
coot," or "you'll control Canada geese over my dead body"), no matter how
inappropriate. I think this misconception of what nature is really all
about is what has turned me from a potential supporter into a critic of
many aspects of the animal-rights movement, in particular the extreme
viewpoint that nothing should be killed.

It's hard for me--as someone who cares about animals--to decry a movement
the basic philosophy of which is humane treatment of animals, but I can't
emphasize strongly enough how short-sighted some aspects of the
animal-rights movement are. Feral cats don't have "rights" to decimate wild
bird populations, and feral donkeys don't have "rights" to overgraze
delicate ecosystems, any more than a murderer or rapist has the right to
continue to walk the streets. Canada geese don't have special rights, just
because they are alive, or because we like them. We caused their numbers to
increase beyond anything reasonable for their habitat, and we should have
the responsibility to reduce their populations if they turn out to be pests
by some reasonably objective definition. Of course it's not their fault
they are pests, but we may have to control them ultimately in the same
sense that we have to control the dumping of garbage beside the road or the
amount of cars that can park downtown on the same day.

As I was writing this, the posting about animal-rights extremists came in,
and underscored my point quite well. If we will have to get rid of Norway
rats from our yards by releasing them to a "nature environment" rather than
dispatching them with a club (of course humanely), Pogo was right again:
"we have met the enemy and he is us!"

Ingelligence and emotions often vie with one another, and I think we need
to use our collective intelligence to counter the emotions of a very vocal
minority of "animal lovers" who (again, I permit myself the indulgence of a
label) de facto are "nature haters." We need to speak out against the
hypocrisy of those who don't want a goat killed but won't acknowledge that
by leaving it alive every other animal in its environment is endangered.

I wonder if the originators of bulletin boards ever have any idea how far
they can evolve from the original intent...most of the postings today
aren't of bird sightings!

Dennis Paulson