Posted on 12/26/2004 1:07:53 PM PST by AlaskaErik
Somewhere in America today, a child is going hungry while well-meaning people go to great lengths trying to save oiled Alaska birds destined to die shortly anyway.
Why? Because rescuing these birds makes some people feel better about themselves. Because rescuing these birds makes them think they're doing something to benefit the environment.
There is no doubt the intentions of bird rescuers are good. The reality, though, is that oiled-bird rescuers and the people who back them are little different from the people who take in stray cats and dogs by the dozens, sometimes hundreds, until they are overwhelmed.
They do this, they believe, for the animals. But really they are doing it for themselves.
If the bird treatment people truly cared about birds, they'd be advocating we put oiled birds out of their misery as quickly and as painlessly as possible. They'd be buying ammunition for gunners.
Don't read me wrong here. These are not the words of some heartless thug.
When Pale Male, the red-tailed hawk rendered homeless by the occupants of a ritzy New York co-op, futilely tried to rebuild his nest on a newly spikeless facade that would no longer hold branches, I was moved almost to the point of tears. That the filthy and apparently heartless rich could do this to the hawk and his mate simply because the corpses of the pigeons and occasional rat they eat are considered unsightly struck me as truly inhumane.
(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
(snip)
What data is available on the survival of oiled birds after treatment and release is grim.
After the vessel Sea Empress leaked 70,000 tons of light crude oil into Miflord Haven Harbor, Wales, in 1996, rescuers collected 3,100 oiled birds. About 800 of those suffered and died on their way to treatment centers. That left 2,300 birds to be treated.
Of those, about 40 percent -- slightly more than 900 -- suffered until they finally died at bird treatment facilities. Of the 1,400 who survived the torture of oiling and treatment, most are believed to have died shortly after release.
British scientists didn't keep track of them all. But they did monitor the guillemots that survived oiling and treatment to be returned to the wild.
Seventy percent of them were dead within 14 days, scientists later reported. Only 3 percent -- yes, only 3 in every 100 -- lived as long as two months.
The numbers will be startling only to those unfamiliar with a study done after the Exxon Valdez smeared Prince William Sound with 11 million gallons of crude in 1989.
Just under 1,900 oiled and suffering birds were collected in the wake of that mess. Only 800 of them survived treatment. Of those released back into the wild, most were dead within two weeks.
Ornithologist Brian Sharp later calculated that the average Alaska guillemot lived 9.6 days after release. Oiled birds spent more time enduring the horrors of treatment than they did in freedom.
And for this, the cost was $41 million.
(snip)
A very telling, stand alone statement.
Amazing.
Same with people who treat pets as though they were people - with doggie cardiologists and psychiatrists - even MRI diagnosis!
loved my dogs, cats, pony and my horse as a kid, but pets were never considered equal members of our family.
I tend to oil my birds(Goose,chicken,doves)before I cook them which would solve the hungry child problem
Money better spent on crewing and instrumenting the Exxon-Valdez.
Exxon paid out 3.5 Billion dollars for the Alaskan accident that killed 250,000 sea birds. 250,00 seems like alot until you compare it to the fact that 250,000 birds are killed DAILY, striking plate glass windows the the United States.
Or another way, the same number killed by domestic cats every two days in Britain.
It is too bad you didn't feel the same way they did.
Since then, the process of oiled-bird rescue and litigation has been simplified. Bird rescue is no longer a government function. Now it's a business. "The owners of the (Selendang Ayu) have actually contracted with International Bird Rescue Research Center,'' Woods said. This is where it becomes a crusade. All your liberal crusades have, at the core, someone protecting their gravy train.
...
Obviously, it's about the money. I wonder how much a sleazy ultra-leftist lawyer gets, per head? Kill the bird - right? But save the money for me? That's environmental activisim, in the nut's own shell.
You are treading on dangerous ground here.
So is it the shock of being handled that kills the birds or is it the oil?
Many environmentalists consider human beings to be "dandruff" on the earths surface. They believe there are far too many humans on the planet already, why would they spend their money to sustain others?
Liberalism: Stealing millions from the middle class to pass along pennies to the poor.
Only one thing to say, then... this is your loss (to feel this way)...
though they may not be "equal" it's because we are the head of the pack, not them, but they are most definitely much-loved members of the family who get the best medical care we can afford and whom, when they are too ill or disabled we humanely let them leave this world in peace and love --
This doesn't make me a liberal, either, it makes me human.
There were demands of either relocating the deer, or giving the deer "birth control." They actually tried relocating some of the deer to other parts of the state: However, they found that of 80 deer relocated, 70 of the deer had died within a year, so it's simply not a good idea.
I've got a cousin who's a big time "animal lover," who got very upset the other night when I mentioned that they were opening deer season in local parks to thin the herds, and she called me a barbarian! I asked her where she thought that briscut she was eating came from, and she actually told me that it's not venison, and it's completely different!
How is it that liberals can actually drive cars, since it seems that their frontal lobes are completely undeveloped!
Mark
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