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October 31, 2003 ~ Hunting
Friday.
Morgan and I saw Winged Migration again at the second-run theater tonight. The filming in that movie is simply incredible. It leaves you awestruck and longing for wings.
There is one scene in that movie which most people say stuns them the most out of all. A flock of geese are flying over a pond, a flock that the camera has been following up close from an ultra-light aircraft. The entire movie has built in your mind by this point how very graceful their flight is. As they skim by in a beautiful camera capture, a shot rings out and one of the geese shudders in its graceful flight, begins to fall, gracelessly, end over end, wings giving a few feeble flaps, until it plunges into the lake with a splash, and a dog races in to retrieve it. People talk of how jarring that is, how it stuns them and makes them think. A beautiful creature, suddenly stopped, suddenly lifeless and suddenly lacking the grace that it just had.
Well. Yeah. It was just shot. Sad, yes, but at least it had a free life, at least it had the chance to fly. And it is fitting into the ecosystem by being prey, by being food. Honestly, and this may sound a little strange, coming from a vegan, but that scene didn't really stick with me or shock me very much. Maybe because being hunted is a very natural end for a wild prey species. It was no more disturbing to me than the scene where a bird with a broken wing was killed by crabs on a beach, or the scene where the predatory bird ate the baby penguin.
As far as saddening scenes in that movie, scenes that made me think, scenes that I found (rightfully) critical of humanity, there were two that stuck with me, and they did not include any of the hunting scenes. Instead, they featured what I consider to be unnatural lives and deaths of birds.
In one scene, a flock of European red-breasted geese are flying over a huge, dark, industrial complex. Those beautiful birds with their sharp black and white coloration and vivid red chests stand out strikingly against the grimy machinery, smoke-spewing stacks, cement, and waste.
They land amid the machines and buildings, walking through black water and mud, dodging the large moving mechanical hulks. As they walk, you realize that the mud is an oily, tar-like substance, probably waste from the complex. They feed as they go, and you cringe, because, heavens, they are putting their beaks in that horrid tar-like water, and they are ingesting whatever it is that is in it.
The geese wade through, but one bird suddenly hits a much deeper, stickier, thicker patch and becomes stuck. He struggles. His wings flap, but become bogged down in the tar mess as well. Slowly, his vivid colors turn black; he panics, flaps some more, but only manages to work the oil further into his feathers and to sink deeper into the tar. The rest of the flock takes off, and he is left floundering in the tar. Stuck. He is not likely to free himself, and his death will be a very lonely and frightened one, reminiscent of sea birds in an oil spill.
Our pollution causes deaths like his, so that scene makes me think. I think of how we force other species to try to live in our ugly mess. The way that we choose to live takes away their choice.
The other scene that really touches me shows a goose in a small pen on a farm, being raised for food. A flock of geese, migrating, flies over, honking. Frantically, the captive goose starts honking loudly, looking up at the sky, running against the wire. The flock, hearing his honking, turns, circles. He backs up against one end of the enclosure, runs the few measly feet to the other side, spreading his wings, trying to take off, to follow that wild flock. But he meets with wire. He watches, still honking, as the flock flies way. His frustration and disappointment are tangible. His instinct is strong, but impotent.
To live life in a cage, eventually to be slaughtered, yet to know, instinctually, what he would naturally do. Now that is heartbreaking.
I've always said that if I were in a position where I needed to eat meat, I would hunt it. Most people are shocked by this. "How could you kill an animal with your own hands? You, a vegan!" (This is often followed by commentary on how 'barbaric' hunting is). I'd much rather kill my food myself than pick up some meat in a supermarket, thanks. Meat that came from an animal that lived its life in a cage, in an enclosure, instincts denied, freedom unknown. An animal domesticated, fed hormones and chemicals, on a farm that generates a pollution problem due to run off of too many animals in one centralized location. An animal that required large grain crops for its food, grain crops that are often raised in environmentally harmful ways. An animal that was led to mass slaughter (which must be a terrifying experience, much more so than one chance shot from a gun).
Yeah, I'd rather hunt. Hunting is far more ecologically sound when done respectfully and in moderation. (Many hunters whom I've met have also been some of the most dedicated environmentalists I've known). Heck, it can even be far more ecologically sound than massive, non-organic, vegetable agricultural endeavors. Right now, I have the luxury of knowing that the farms where I get my vegetables from use environmentally sound farming practices, and they are local and small. If I didn't have that luxury, however, I could see myself hunting. If I were to hunt, at least then I'd be personally and directly aware of the death that must happen for me to live. And I greatly respect those who, if they choose to eat meat, at least face the death of their food in that way. I feel that the way that death is sanitized and erased from the process in those tidy plastic packages at the supermarket is far more harmful to our ecosystem than responsible hunting. It creates the mindset that makes people more horrified by hunters than by modern animal husbandry, that keeps people from thinking about the life before the tidy plastic.
Oh, yes. That bird, shot, its flight suddenly cut off, its fall--it was tragic. But at least it had that wild freedom.
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