Teens kill endangered birds, setting back conservation efforts 10 years

That gruesome sight in December 2015 soon became a crime scene, one that eventually implicated six students and recent graduates of a prestigious Honolulu prep school whose alumni include former president Barack Obama. While on a camping trip the night before the hiker’s arrival, authorities alleged, the boys and young men had hiked to the Ka’ena Point Natural Area Reserve and mercilessly slaughtered at least 15 Laysan albatrosses, federally protected birds that have been the focus of a 26-year-long conservation effort. Nearly a dozen of their eggs were crushed; six other eggs failed to hatch due to the death of a parent.

With a magnificent seven-foot wingspan, the Laysan albatross is found mainly in the uninhabited northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

In Hawaii, the albatross killings were particularly shocking because they implicated privileged young men who allegedly committed the crime for the fun of it - and who should have known better. All are former classmates from Punahou School,

“Sunning on the beach is not something light complected people do anyway.”

LOL! I’ve been light complected all my life. The last time I went swimming without a tee shirt was when I was 15 or 16 years old. I learned very early that I burn and do’t tan.

There was a light complected girl in my class when I was a high school sophomore. One day she fell asleep under a sun lamp, causing her to suffer numerous first and second degree burns. Needless to say, she was quite a sight for a few weeks afterwards.

In 1969 I went on a raft trip down the rand Canyon and had to ear a long sleeved shirt and long trousers to keep from being brutally sun burned.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name.

It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.’

‘God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.

PART II
The Sun now rose upon the right:
Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariner’s hollo!

And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work ‘em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!

Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
‘Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
‘Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

And some in dreams assurèd were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.

And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834

I don’t think it is irrelevant. I notice that the bleeding hearts for animals and animal rights are often the same ones that march for abortion rights. It tends to be kind of an “animals first”, “earth first”, man in the toilet mentality.

Actually, I don’t see where the ongoing bloody infanticide of +/- 100 million unborn is ever irrelevant. It is THE most shameful development in American culture and the world in modern times.

If we’re going to weep for the destruction of the birdies, let’s weep for the bloody murder tens of million of innocents. It’s at least worth mentioning IMO. I guess I feel like if people spent as much time and effort on stopping abortion as they do trying to save the animals and the earth, maybe millions of unborn lives would be saved. I guess that’s why I think it is relevant here and worth mentioning.

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