I do what I do for my wild patients for principally two reasons. I want them back home and I deeply enjoy the opportunity to help them get there. Home to their world. A world that is so radically different than the one we humans enjoy. Their world is absolutely unforgiving. The weak, the lame or those with infirmaries are quickly eliminated by predators, competitors or starvation. So many of us refer to their world as a cruel world. But it seems to me that their world is a more perfect one than ours.
If those creatures could discuss their observations with us, they could provide a tangent point of view about the human world. They may point out that if the reader were to reflect upon just the written human history, a tiny fraction of the time of our existence in this world, it becomes uncomfortably apparent that it is our world that is the “cruel world”. We, as a species, have repeatedly demonstrated a remarkable inability to co-exist with one another, let alone enjoy any harmony with the natural world.
We have always and we continue to slaughter one another for reasons of religion, race, nationality, family name, sex, tribe, neighborhood, money, poverty, and a multitude of other “reasons”. Taken as a whole, this component of human behavior must be downright exasperating to an outsider looking in. I suppose our overwhelming arrogance precludes our ability to learn from this “skeleton” in the human closet and effect some change in our behavior.
Don’t think that I am about to cross over into the wild kingdom. I wouldn’t last very long and I do cherish life. I don’t think I’ve become nuts even though to some, I have always been. I just love critters, all kinds of critters and especially those who don’t have “owners”.
Last week, a couple of my Pelican patients went “home” along with a recovered lead poisoned Red Tailed Hawk. This week a little Sharp Shinned Hawk, another Peli and a Red Shouldered Hawk. “Hootie”, the Great Horned Owl, has all the orthopedic stuff off his wing now and will start his flight conditioning later this week. As I have said before, I hate goodbyes, but to have a small part in purchasing a ticket home for these beautiful animals genuinely shivers my soul. The more I learn about them, the more I stand in awe of their lives and their world.
2 responses so far ↓
Melissa Starbuck // April 28, 2009 at 2:26 pm |
It is so rewarding to know they get to go home, and so rewarding to have the privilege of interacting with them to help them get there. The species called Man is so arrogant…we don’t “fit” on this planet anywhere. A very few of us try hard…like you. But it still doesn’t make up for the rest of us.
This is the perfect context in which to share one of my all-time favorite quotes, by Douglas Adams from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
“…on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons.”
Keep on keepin’ on, Norm……you make us proud.
Becky Jones // May 5, 2009 at 3:52 pm |
Whether it be luck or fate, whatever brought “our” gentle, kind (and highly skilled) Dr. Griggs to our community, all living creatures will benefit. He serves as an example of the good that one person can do, yet he does so with humility and honest intentions. Regardless of age, we all have much to learn about our relationships with animals and certainly with our human counterparts. Change for the better comes slowly, but is ever so much easier if there is a good leader to emulate. We have one among us. Now we all need to try just a little bit harder, but maybe a little bit more gently.