Subject: Re The great suffering bird debate
Date: Jan 23 22:01:13 2000
From: Steven Kimball - sdkimball at earthlink.net



Thank you, Michelle, for this message, and for how poignantly you told the
story . I too would probably have euthanized the bird in question. Your
decision illustrates a key consideration in the current debate. My
objection in this discussion (and I suspect that this is the position of
many others as well), has not been too death, which as the adage goes
"happens," but to the needless prolongation of suffering. Whenever one
can,
by reasonable means, alleviate suffering (and I'm talking about pain here,
not the despair of Hamlet or Macbeth) , one should.

Sometimes that may mean taking an animal to a rehabber, sometimes it may
mean killing it, and sometimes it may mean leaving it as you found it, if
that seems to offer the animal the best hope. On the other hand, what it
NEVER means is making any of those choices merely so that we or others can
claim to have seen something or add it to a list.

I have no problem with keeping lists of birds that one has seen (I keep one
myself) but one also needs to keep one's list of priorities in life
straight, and compassion towards others (human and non-human) strikes me as
being several orders of magnitude greater in importance than "scoring a
lifer."

Steven Kimball
Federal Way, WA
sdkimball at earthlink.net

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <MBlanchrd at aol.com>
> To: <TWEETERS at u.washington.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2000 7:21 PM
> Subject: Re: The great suffering bird debate
>
>
> > In a message dated 01/23/2000 6:46:01 PM Pacific Standard Time,
> > pwebst25 at concentric.net writes:
> >
> > << Who pays for the
> > injured bird? Etc., etc.
> > >>
> >
> > No one. Most rehabbers are people with more compassion than money. Most
of
> > their efforts are paid for out of their own pocket. If you are going to
> take
> > an animal or a bird to a rehabber or someplace like Olympic Wildlife
> Rescue
> > (in McCleary..that's the nearest one to Ocean Shores that I can think
of,)
> > then please, go with the intent of donating enough money to help the
bird
> or
> > animal.
> >
> > On the two or three occasions I've taken a wild creature to the vet or
the
> > rescue, the poor thing was more frightened of being in a "predators"
hands
> > than if I'd just left him alone. What I usually try to do is place the
> bird
> > in a spot where he's not going to get eaten, where it's hidden and
> peaceful,
> > and leave him alone.
> >
> > I've had to kill an obviously sick bird. It was a AHY female pheasant.
She
> > was stumbling, going in circles, falling over, her head wobbling without
> any
> > control, and one foot was dragging and seemingly useless. She'd
collapse,
> > then pick herself up and work her way closer to my home. When one of my
> local
> > harriers flew over, she exploded in a fit that looked for all the world
> like
> > epilepsy..she was terrified and tried to hide from the harrier (useless
as
> > the grass was so short) and her body kept betraying her. All she could
do
> was
> > whirl around in confused circles, she couldn't run in a straight line,
and
> > her head acted as if the bones in her neck were completely disconnected.
> The
> > harrier made several dives at her, but for whatever reason, she turned
> away
> > and flew off.
> >
> > I confess folks...I shot her. I didn't know if she had a dreadful
disease
> > that would be transmitted to my feeder birds..or to me or my other
> animals!
> >
> > When I went out to pick her up...she was skin and bones. Her vent was a
> mess,
> > she had not an ounce of meat on her body. I could feel her keel as
easily
> as
> > I feel these keyboard keys. I could even feel her pelvis. Her feet and
> legs
> > had something on them, like sores, but it wasn't avian pox, I don't
think.
> > They were all gnarled. The useless one was so tightly clenched that the
> claws
> > had worn holes in the flesh of her foot. She obviously hadn't eaten
> anything
> > in a very long time. And she smelled. She smelled......sweet. Not a nice
> > sweet, just oh god, a ghastly, sickly sweet. Like she'd had gangrene or
> > something.
> > I could probably have hit her with a broom and killed her, but she was
> > already terrified..........
> >
> > Of course I feel badly about it. She was heading for (what I fondly
> imagine)
> > she thought was sanctuary, and I shot her. But I like to think that I
put
> her
> > out of her misery. She had already spent weeks dying slowly........I
> merely
> > hastened it. Poor thing.
> >
> > All things die. We are the only species that seems to try to forestall
it,
> > but all things die in the end. Nature is seldom pretty about it.
> >
> > Michelle
> > MBlanchrd at aol.com
> >
>