Hi Tweets,

Richard Rowlett writes:

>97-12-13, Michael Price writes [and I'm always replying to Michael it seems;
>something about his coy wit, encyclopedic knowledge, colorful presentation, or
>something, stirs up some far flung memory or anecdote that, if at all, *might*
>be barely tethered to the current message board thread] --

Hahaha. It's because way back when I promised to buy Richard a beer when we
eventually get to meet. He's keeping me buttered up. '-)

>Swallow-tailed Gull (_Larus furcatus_). Mythical poetry in flight...
(snip evocative images)

>There is also something else very strange about the Swallow-tailed Gull, and
>it's going to break your heart. Being such delicate, graceful, and fearless
>creatures, they are devastatingly loyal to their comrades in trouble. In the
>name of science and research being as it is, often requires collecting
>specimens for study and museum collections. I know. It was my life once-
>upon-a-time way back in another life when I was a bio-techi at the
>Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, and after killing and stuffing a few
>thousand specimens, I decided I'd had enough; setting the traps, pulling the
>trigger, whatever. A whole flock of hovering Swallow-tailed Gulls can be
>taken out with one shot. I've seen it; haven't done it thank God! Or, one by
>one, a whole flock can be dropped one right on top of the other in less than a
>minute; a half-a-dozen or more. Bang-plop, Bang-plop, Bang-plop, and so on,
>then the whole collection is scooped up with a single sweep in the dip-net.

You're right: your report breaks my heart and the pieces float on a sea of
grief and fury at what we humans continue to do to the innocent animals with
whom we share this world, and the nobility we give to the motives we have
when doing so. And it enrages me that wholesale collecting still goes on.
Sometimes an entire flock of birds will die violently for something as
paltry and arrogant as knowing the range in the length of a set of tail
feathers, for pete's sake. Well, one's person's murderous waste is another
person's Ph.D or a museum's excellence. Were it a choice between killing
scores of these beautiful birds for knowledge and remaining ignorant of
their precise measurements or stomach contents or sexual maturity, I'd
rather enjoy them in life than know them in death; the price is just too
high otherwise, in my opinion. Good god in heaven, there's got to be a
better way than the shotgun: it's nearly the 21st Century, for god's sake,
not the Nineteenth.

>And I can tell you I don't like it one little bit! And I never will! Leave
>this bird alone!! Sorry if I get emotional.

Under those sickening circumstances, Richard, if you didn't, you wouldn't be
human. Science without conscience or compassion is dangerous to our
humanity, whether in the big stuff like weapons-research or small stuff like
wasting an entire flock of Swallow-tailed Gulls for science. That's easy to
say in the abstract, but the personal applications of that are very
difficult, and one risks being branded as 'emotional', 'too subjectively
involved', 'sentimental', etc., as though to have feelings about work like
this is a character flaw, when it's actually anything but. To me, it's a
sign of healthy conscience.

>Strange, becoming philosophical,
>especially given my background, how these compartmentalized emotions are.

No problem there: it's philosophy which helps us look at the wellsprings and
true consequences of our actions. And whether killing a bird or a fellow
human, it's this compartmentalisation and rationalisation which enables
humans to perform many acts of callousness and cruelty which they'd be too
ashamed of to tell their mothers. The more integrated a personality, the
more aware the person, and the more difficult such behavior becomes.

>I
>mean I probably wouldn't have such remorse if the target had been any and no
>limit amongst the myriads of 'regular seagulls' gathering over sewage lagoons
>and land fills.

Even they, Richard, deserve to live to whatever age they can. They've done
nothing to deserve a violent death at our hands except take advantage of the
abundance of food we offer them. There's already far, far too much we humans
need to answer for.

Michael Price We aren't flying...we're falling with style!
Vancouver BC Canada -Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story
mprice at mindlink.net