[va-bird] A Movie Star Who Favors Pigeon Meat

New York Times, May 31, 2002
By JOHN TIERNEY

For some time now, Pale Male has been a subject best not mentioned in the 
company of pigeon-loving New Yorkers. But we can't keep avoiding him much 
longer.

Pale Male is more than ready for his close-up. This red-tailed hawk, who has 
built a home and sired a family on Fifth Avenue near 74th Street, is the 
star of a new award-winning documentary narrated by Joanne Woodward, and he 
may be going Hollywood soon. Nora Ephron hopes to start filming a feature 
movie next year about the people who watch him from Central Park.

To some pigeon lovers, these are welcome developments. They see any news 
about New York birds as good news, especially if it manages to depict the 
city's bird-obsessed humans without making them look too weird. In this 
case, there's no denying that "Pale Male," directed and produced by Frederic 
Lilien, is a beautifully made documentary about a hawk paterfamilias and the 
community of humans following him with binoculars, telescopes and cameras.

But to other pigeon lovers, this is no heartwarming story. This is a pigeon 
snuff film.

Mr. Lilien's script doesn't dodge the tough ethical questions even as it 
celebrates Pale Male's pioneering spirit. It describes how this young male 
arrived in 1991 and became the first red-tailed hawk known to settle in 
modern Manhattan. He chose a ledge a few floors above Mary Tyler Moore's 
apartment.

"He was young, perhaps less than a year old," Ms. Woodward narrates. "Yet 
already he was bold, focused, self-assured. The bright lights and the big 
city did not intimidate him. This was a hawk with the right stuff. He had 
come here to hunt, and the Big Apple was a feast spread before him."

The ingredients of the feast didn't know what hit them. "It's been uncounted 
generations since the creatures of Central Park have had to fear a predator 
in broad daylight," Ms. Woodward explains. "Now a serial killer is on the 
loose."

Is this fair? "In a way," Ms. Woodward concedes, "Pale Male violates 
everything Central Park is about. It's supposed to be an experience of a 
romantic, utopian nature. It was never intended to harbor the real thing."

The documentary shows Pale Male swallowing a rat and catching a squirrel, 
but the most dramatic hunting scenes feature him dive-bombing pigeons and 
bringing a victim back to the nest. The film shows one appalled 
pigeon-lover, Richard, who sprinkles pigeon feed daily in Central Park. He's 
not the greatest ambassador for pigeon lovers ? many of us think public 
feeding is way over the line and terrible for our image ? but he makes an 
eloquent argument:

"This is not the wild, and it is not really a pleasant thought or sight to 
see city birds being attacked and devoured by the hawks. It's simply an 
inappropriate habitat for them. What I abhor and deplore is the attitude of 
people that say, `Well they are doing a good thing for the city by getting 
rid of pigeons, you know.' This is intolerable to me."
Intolerable? I sympathize with his distress, but maybe it's time we learned 
to tolerate Pale Male. Even if pigeon lovers don't approve of his hunting, 
we have to admit that it's a better spectator sport than watching pigeons 
root around in garbage. And the more popular Pale Male becomes, the more 
public pressure there is to keep him and his family supplied with healthy 
pigeons. Several years ago, when some New Yorker was killing pigeons with 
poison, it wasn't until the chemical worked its way up the food chain and 
killed a red-tailed hawk that the poisonings caused much public concern.

The hawks give pigeons a reason for living that makes sense even to the most 
cynical pigeon-hating New Yorkers, the kind of people who could barely sit 
through the "Circle of Life" number in "The Lion King." In his own way, Pale 
Male is saving pigeons' lives, and there's no danger of his hunting doing 
much damage to the species. He's been here for a decade, but there are still 
eight million pigeons in the naked city.



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