Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
Member Is Offline
|
|
Ugly Chicks
I just did a search for this old piece and couldn't find it so I guess if it's that old you wouldn't mind if I run it again.
Ugly Chicks
"What the hell was that?" I bolted upright, shielded my eyes from the sun with my hand, looked skyward. There it was, low, hovering, right over the
swimming pool. A turkey buzzard. A vulture, not a buzzard. What the hell did I know? I hurried to the room, got my camera. Back at the pool I got
four or five nice shots as two of the large birds wheeled, floated just above the pool patio of the Mission Hotel in Loreto, Mexico.
I had seen these birds many times but never this close. They were majestic; I thought, a symbol of Mexico, primitively romantic. That was almost
thirty years ago. My thoughts about these birds are very different now. Maybe I've just seen too many of them.
It's not that I've learned much more about them. Mexicans call them by their Indian name, Zopilote. They pay them no regard. If there are myths or
legends about the birds, I've not heard them. I've always known they were scavengers. They aren't the only ones. The Cara Cara, the Mexican eagle,
looks like a cousin of the secretary bird; long thin legs, black body and white crest that sticks out in the back of the head like a cowlick. These
two and a few ravens clean the one long paved highway that brings people and things from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas and back again. I can't be sure
but it seems there are many more of these carrion eaters now (at least in southern Baja California) then there were in the past. My little pueblo
near the beach is home to hundreds of these birds. They soar above my little house. Scores roost in small desert trees and cardon cactus at the
edges of the town dump.
Guesswork. It's been my trademark since I was a wee lad. I never let hard facts get in the way of my intuition about things. When it comes to
these birds I am going to guess that their numbers follow those of the human population wherever they exist. My thinking is; most humans eat meat,
fish and eggs. They just don't eat the whole thing. What they leave behind feeds these birds. Humans keep animals for food and as pets. Pets, left
unprotected are food for these birds. Farm and ranch birds and animals left unprotected become food for these big birds. Unless buried or burned,
all the unused (uneaten) protein from animals raised for food by humans feeds the birds.
Here in the low desert things were probably not so rosy for birds that hung out with the Indians. Gatherers more than hunters, the Pericue and
Cochimis left little for the carrion eaters -- snake and lizard bones, the skin of small rodents, fish bones and scales. No roads, no cars, no
roadkill. These, so called New World Vultures and the Gelele, another name for the Cara Cara, were forced to survive on dead or dieing animals that
had succumbed to disease, accident or old age. There must have been just enough. They hung on until the New World People arrived. The Spanish
explorers, navigators, missionaries brought salvation for the big birds. On the big sailing ships: horses, cattle, goats, pigs, sheep, dogs, cats, a
grand smorgasbord. Too bad the birds cannot read or write. What grand bird tales they could tell about the "olden days" -- the days with the Indians
and later, around 500 years ago, the Great Meat Delivery. Since the lifespan of vultures is about ten years I guess it is too much to hope that the
story could be handed down through a couple of hundred generations of big talkative birds with good speech and perfect memory.
When there is enough carrion, the vultures make more little vultures. The female lays one or two eggs, both parents disgorge predigested meat to
feed the chicks -- often only one chick, the strongest, survives. It usually kills the weaker brother or sister. These are the creatures about whom
it is said "... looks only a mother could love". They don't take on the horrific smell the adults carry with them (from having their heads inside the
carcasses of dead animals) until they are able to fly, get their own food, but they are frighteningly ugly.
And so it goes. A puppy (the color of wheat) sleeps in the sand/dirt street of a small Mexican village. A car runs over it in the darkness. The
next morning it becomes food for the vultures and their chicks. More people, more puppies, more cars, more vultures, more chicks.
These things have not gone unnoticed. The Ladies have been very observant. Long after the explorers, missionaries, pirates, came the gringos. The
gringos have wives. I shall call them (out of common courtesy) The Ladies. They do not like the big birds. They do not like the ugly chicks. They
are waging what amounts to a war on the birds. No formal declaration. No cannons roar, no flags have been unfurled but it is war, all the same.
These people are well organized. Divisions, battalions, platoons, squads of brave warriors are sent forth.
Squads of soldiers in shorts and halter tops take to the streets of Cabo San Lucas, San Jose and the many little hamlets in the vicinity. They knock
on doors, casa a casa, not to pillage and plunder but to enlist and inveigle. To convince, energize and galvanize the populace. The message: SPAY
AND NEUTER EVERY PET IN BAJA CALIFORNIA, NOW! The message is not easily conveyed -- often not completely understood. The gringas come prepared;
conversational Spanish learned the hard way: some the Berlitz tapes, some formal schools, others informal lessons given them by their maids,
housekeepers, cooks, baby-sitters. The door-knocking begins about 11:00, just after The Ladies have finished their Waterobics in the condo pool. The
exercise music is usually chosen by the platoon leader.
At this hour the neighborhood doors are usually opened to them by the women of the house. The soldiers have learned that long sentences in broken
Spanish to explain animal tubal ligation, uterine removal and castration are often wasted on the spouse. The smiling, wide-eyed Seņoras seem confused
and invariably say that decisions about removing sexual parts of their household pets is the domain of the husband -- one of his jobs.
Uncountable campaigns: Pen up your chickens. Repair and replace walls and fences. Control your pets. Control your farm animals. Shots for every
living thing. The Ladies are tired of watching animals becoming carrion. They are heart-sore, weary. At each formal debriefing they voice their
frustration. "How can these Cholleros have such steely hearts that they do not weep when they find their un-neutered, flea infected kitten dead in
the street, a meal for the vultures?"
Sometimes all a professional soldier has is THE WAR. These are professionals and they have found the perfect war -- one that will never end. This
land and its people, its animals is tailor-made for such a war -- you give the desert a bit of warm meat and it will be gone in seconds. The coyotes
will eat the turtle eggs just after they are laid. Give a female mongrel a little food and it will produce puppies on a par with the best (or worst)
puppy-mill. The puppies will not be kept in the house; not be protected by a wall or wire fence. The puppies will feed the vultures and their
chicks.
The battle lines are indistinct, dynamic. Some years there will be more puppies, kittens and baby turtles, others more vulture chicks. Both armies
are equipped with formidable weapons. The Ladies have 24 hours of every day to wage the war. Hearts big as cruise ships. The big birds have
incredible staying power and an unholy sense of smell. The birds have been seen circling pregnant pets -- armed with preternatural knowledge that
some protein issue will die -- at birth, killed by other animals, the wonderful cars of the night. Like the lions of the Serengeti they sense which
animals are weakest, show some lack of movement, some miniscule defect we cannot see.
I have said the war will never end. Everything adapts. Far into the future of this war some of The Ladies may develop telepathy, Spanish telepathy.
The Senoras (and perhaps even their husbands) may gain new compassion for their animals; a better understanding of the problem. New walls, fences,
leashes may appear. The puppies may develop a kind of bioluminescence -- the tiny Oxycars will have time to swerve, just miss them, glowing softly in
the dust of the street. I will not tell you what the vultures might have. It's not my job.
These days The Ladies find no special solace in my words when I encounter them on their forays. I tell them it is too early in the war to expect to
see pet cemeteries and pet funeral parlors springing up. I never fail to remind them: at least Mexicans (and Indians) bury their dead; the custom
long before the first missionary came to this place. They have never once smiled or thanked me. Soldiers are so damned serious.
|
|
|
Martyman
Super Nomad
Posts: 1904
Registered: 9-10-2004
Member Is Offline
|
|
Nice, always enjoy your writing.
Where can I get an oxycar?
|
|
|
sancho
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 2524
Registered: 10-6-2004
Location: OC So Cal
Member Is Offline
|
|
Ugly Chicks, nice Lure, I'm still trying to get
the trebles out of my mouth. at least if
that was not a portion of your intent,
I've really hung myself out to dry...
[Edited on 9-9-2011 by sancho]
|
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
