Eat or Be Eaten

“I don’t eat anything that had a face,” the young woman explained in describing her vegetarian diet. My ill-advised follow-up question, “What about potatoes? They have eyes.” ended the dialogue as she moved off to a less cretinous conversationalist.

How many of us, I have often wondered, would continue to eat the meat of face-bearing animals if it required killing the animal, field dressing it and processing the meat?

Using nature as our guide – and the human race is as much a part of nature as the tse tse fly and the sparrow – all is fair in the name of survival. The mantra is Eat or Be Eaten.

Nature has a way of illustrating the point to us, often with a ferocity that galls the tender of heart. My home is in the dead center of suburbia. We embrace nature on our acre of wildlife sanctuary, playing host to several clutches of bluebirds throughout the summer. One of our favorite times is when the fledgling bluebirds leave the bird house on their maiden flights. Tentative and clumsy, the fledglings are encouraged to leave the nest by their parents from nearby trees.

Having witnessed two of the young blues awkwardly leave the nest, we hit a dry spell where the remaining fledglings were resisting all encouragement to take flight. We took flight on an errand of our own and returned shortly. I spotted what I thought was a water stain running from the hole in the bird house to the hydrangeas underneath. Closer inspection revealed not a stain, but the ass end of a snake.

I pulled the snake out of the hole and flung it over the fence. The snake did not seem to have ingested anything, yet when I opened the bird house, I found two dead fledglings, eyes closed and no respiration. I removed the bodies to a shaded area up the hill, hoping that they were only suffering from a fear-induced shock. Snakes really piss me off.

Pondering on the event later, I had to admit that the snake was just doing what snakes do. It was not emotionally constrained by the fact that birds have faces. It was acting under a more rigid imperative - survival. Nature had equipped the snake to climb bushes, slither through holes and ingest face-bearing, feathered fowl. And come to think of it, nature had equipped the bluebirds with wings to evade snakes and pursue face-bearing insects (not all faces are attractive).

This has been a banner summer for finding mammal remains and entrails in our yard. The bird bath seems to be a popular place for feathered predators to leave the odd chipmunk leg or unidentifiable cartilage. A gathering of flies clued me to what – judging by the fur – was a puddle of rabbit entrails in the wooded area behind our house. I guessed that the remaining sweetmeats would be gone the next day, and indeed they were. Only a small tuft of fur remained to remind the world of the rabbit’s existence.

And that is not necessarily a bad thing. The rabbits have spent the past winter and spring procreating like – well, rabbits. They have proved to be a scourge to my wife’s garden, eating tender shoots and buds a’borning. They have no fear of humans. Only the well-aimed rock has moved them from their feasting, and then only by a few feet. This is the first year that I have cheered the coyote sightings, forgiving their transgressions against small pets. ‘Go get ‘em, boys!’ I cry and point to the closest warren.

And the deer. As bucolic a sentimentality as they portray when seen at dusk, grazing with their fawns in the neighbor’s yard, they have been worse than the rabbits at decimating the garden. While lilies may not have faces, they DO have throats, and the deer snapped off more than 100 helpless buds before they had the chance to bloom – taken before the flower of their youth. Had we a hunting rifle, my wife would have culled the herd, despite city ordinances against such activity in the ‘burbs.

Among the backyard atrocities we have witnessed we can include: a blue jay carrying off a cardinal chick from its nest; a hawk nailing a starling on the ground and spreading its wings over the victim as it delivered the coup de grace; a larger hawk snatching a squirrel from its repast and disappearing over the rooftops; a crow fending off attack as it attempted to abduct a mockingbird chick; and a neighborhood cat carrying a baby rabbit off to show to its homeowners (cats have no owners, only homes). All the victims had faces. So did the victors.

I also have no doubt that, were I to have an ‘episode’ in the back yard and lie dead or helpless, other face-bearing creatures would have no problem in feeding on me. The crows would come first, to feast on the sweet moistness of my eyes and any other fleshy portions readily accessible. The coyotes or neighborhood dogs would follow to rend flesh and open the body cavities to the gut and prized heart. Insects would follow quickly to feast and lay eggs, and the vultures – God’s recylcing experts – would remove remaining soft tissues and stink.

Back, then, to the earlier question. How many of us would continue to eat the meat of face-bearing animals if it required killing the animal, field dressing it and processing the meat? Probably more than we suspect, since that would indicate we were thrown back to a more agrarian way of life, where survival depended on taking advantage of every food source available throughout the seasons.

Plus, nature has equipped us with the tools to eat whatever we need – eyes to see, ears to hear, brains to track prey and fingers to pull triggers. We have incisors to cut through lettuce and cabbage; canines to rip flesh; and molars to crush nuts and grains. Eat or be eaten. I am nobody’s smorgasbord.