It is unfortunately a fact of life: We all need to eat. If it is a 100% vegan diet, if it is a 100% lab-grown meal, if it is a meal made from almost only meat and slaughtered animals, the fact remains, that we need to eat. Being in the wild, looking at wildlife, it can sometimes be cruel to watch nature at her worst: the gulls killing shellfish in the most gruesome of manners just to open the shell so that they can also eat.
They drop the shells from inhumane heights, dropping them onto rocks, breaking the shell open with their beaks...
If we were to write a novel, or a screenplay about the murder of these shellfish, especially from their perspective, it would have been the worst and most gruesome of horrors. But if we can trust science (which should be taken with a grain of salt) we can rest assured that shellfish do not feel pain.
There is more than enough for us all. We can live in relative harmony, but for some reason (that is, capitalism and neo-liberal politics) we cannot live in freedom and peace. Everything is commodified, sold, destroyed, and made into capital. We see so much death and destruction around us, and when we see it in nature, it feels strange. It is almost as if I wanted to walk up to the gulls and ask them: Did you pay for this? Did you consider the environmental impact before you killed and consumed the defenceless shellfish?. But I knew this was absurd. Nature abides by her own rules.
Nature abides by her rules, and rule number one is that there is no wastage. Everything either gets consumed or is busy with consuming (the consumed). It is funny, when I work in the compost, I am reminded of this fact - nothing is spared. In a matter of weeks and months, everything is turned into black gold for the garden, which in turn will be consumed by roots and turned into foliage and fruits, which will be consumed by birds, ad infinitum.
The gulls played by their own rules. I had no access to what they said to each other. Even if I could I would not understand. Their worlds were radically different from mine, with different conceptual frameworks that would not allow me to enter their secret world. I wondered, though, what they were talking about. It was a constant chatter and screaming, no silence in sight. The shellfish was passed on from one gull to the next, or not passed, but stolen. Each gull relied on the other to do the hard work of catching the shellfish so that they could steal from the hard-working ones. Lazy buggers.
Alas, it was a short moment until everyone flew to different shorelines, where other food sources remained. Scavengers of the ocean. But oh, their sound is lovely in the late afternoon when you smell of fish and chips and the ocean breeze hits your face.
Happy birding, and keep safe.
All of the musings and writings are my own, albeit inspired by the vinegar and fish on my fingertips. The photographs are my own, taken with my Nikon D300 and Tamron 300mm zoom lens.
