It was sundown at the bait receiver in the Santa Barbara Harbor. The human attendants had long since gone home for the day and birds had taken over.
The usual feathered suspects were lined up along the edge of the floating wooden dock, and five birds’ heads turned slowly in unison to watch a school of baitfish swim by, just inches too far below the surface of the water to reach. The birds were all waiting and hoping for a fish or pinniped to drive the bait to the surface within reach of their quick, hungry beaks.
It was a scene of absolute concentration but with a sense of comic relief. Each bird had such a characteristic shape and stance that each one brought a celebrity to mind.
The night heron, with its hunched neckless form could be none other than Ed Sullivan before a “really good shew.” The pelican had a Keith Richards look. What really scares me about global nuclear war is that everyone would be dead, except of course for Keith Richards, who would somehow carry on our species.
The gaunt snowy egret looked like Steve Martin doing his best gawky-walk. The tall blue heron, with his feathers ruffled, reminded me of Jimi Hendrix preparing to kiss the sky. The final suspect was a cormorant doing a Jim Carrey stretch.
I find much to be amused at in nature and I am thankful because it keeps my head screwed on straight, as long as I never lose sight of the reality of nature and survival. The savage life and death struggle of the food chain is an ever-present disciplinary force in the lives of nearly every critter besides us humans.
We risk losing sight of that basic truth when we assign human characteristics to critters. Movies like “Bambi,” “Lion King” and “Finding Nemo” distort the realities of the natural order. Those are wonderfully entertaining movies, but I too often hear people talking about animals as if they believe the values from those movies actually exist in nature or between people and critters.
Fisheries management and shoreside wildlife management include carefully controlled fishing and hunting as a method of keeping all the critters of nature in balance. If we wrap our arms around a portion of the food chain, we had better be prepared to wrap our arms around the entire food chain and manage it holistically, rather than protect by the cute factor (which says the cutest critters get the greatest protection).
We are wisest when we manage for sustainability, rather than let preservationists talk us into locking people out of the process. Hunting for the family table is an important function of management and a sacred tradition for many folks who would rather put truly fresh meat on the family table than store-bought food which may not be so fresh and may have been fed questionable chemicals.
Those birds I was musing over at the bait receiver were hunting for their families, too.
— Capt. David Bacon operates WaveWalker Charters and is president of SOFTIN Inc., a nonprofit organization providing seafaring opportunities for those in need. Visit softininc.blogspot.com to learn more about the organization and how you can help. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
