FreeLists / birdky / [birdky] Old acquaintance is Killed

[OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx]

A tragic loss,

In the fall of 1986, I read an article in the news, they had decided to 
capture the last three wild California Condors in an effort to save the 
species. I was stuck that I might never experience these birds and hurriedly 
got a few friends together and we journeyed out to California. We went to the 
regular places and stood around for hours and on our last afternoon we stood 
at an overlook with a group of students talking. Suddenly, directly above us, 
a rustling in the wind and there in a slow glide and low enough to hear the 
wind flowing over its wide out stretched wings was a wonderful bird, no a 
magnificent bird. 

A silence spread across the group as each discovered the bird and after it 
had sailed out over the valley, you could hear everyone exhale and a nervous 
chatter spread through the group. Only then did I notice that not only I, but 
every other soul that had a camera, never once thought to take a photo. It 
was the type of experience that happens a few times in a birders career, you 
just stand and stare.

We did manage to see all three of the wild birds that afternoon and I do have 
a shot of three distant dots in the sky. I think of that experience time and 
again.

Today, the California Fish and Game Commission, in a press release, disclosed 
that condor # AC8, the last condor born in the wild to wild parents, was 
found dead on Feb. 18. The bird had be re-released back into the wild after a 
long stay in captivity. My mind raced back to a time some 17 years ago when 
this bird had graced me with its presence and a great loss was felt. Even 
more remorse and guilt followed when I read the bird had been shot. 

We have a lot of work to do, we have to bring more people to the same 
understanding that some Indians had; we do not own the earth, nor its 
animals, nor its plant life, but are stewards only. We have a trust that is 
slowly, much to slowly coming into focus for more and more each day. Will the 
realization come too late? 

I have no qualms with hunters nor hunting but I would like to know just what 
went through that persons mind, when that creature fell from the sky. He 
cannot take away the experience I had on that mountain side, years ago, but 
there is a vacant feeling in my heart which will take time a long time to 
heal due to his callousness. I take this murder personally.

Good Birding!!!

Jeff R. Wilson
OL' COOT / TLBA
Bartlett Tenn.


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