Saving Birds is Catching

 

There must be something in the air.  Yes, as always, there are birds, but
sometimes they fall to the ground, and that's when people step up to the plate.

Such was the case of Anaheim Angel relief pitcher  Dane de la Rosa last week during a game with
the Oakland Athletics. He spotted a pigeon in trouble in the bull pen area and
did something about it - he picked it up until he could turn it over to someone
who could protect the bird. After he did he went on to retire the next 3
batters with only 10 pitches, and the bird was released back into the wild.  Nicely done!

 

 

In my own world, we had a nest of wrens on our front porch,
which I thought was empty.  The wind blew
down the nest and I taped it back up. In the process I saw that the nest held 4
chicks, which successfully fledged a week later, thank goodness in time before
we were to leave the house for good as my spouse had gotten a church position
in White Plains, NY.  

 

Taped up nest back where the wrens made the nest on our porch

 

A nest for of wren chicks about ready to fledge from our home in Florida, as were we

 

So we left Florida
and on our first full day in New York were told of loose birds in the sanctuary
of the Community Unitarian Church at White Plains.  I was called upon for advice and discovered
that wrens had made a nest in the sanctuary and could come and go from
the outside through a hole in the rafters. I asked the church staff to be on
the look out for fledglings as they would not be able to fly out of the hole and
would be trapped inside. Sure enough, a week later we got a call for the church
administrator and my spouse, the Rev. Meredith Garmon, the newly settled minister at the
church, and I went up to help the administrator, Liliana Keith, catch the chicks, chase the
adults out of the sanctuary, and release the chicks where the parents could see
them and care for them.  It was quite
comical to see a little bitty weeks old bird scamper away again and again from
our hands while a parent was chasing us both with a bug in her mouth.  While on wren duty, we also noticed a robin's nest with 3 chicks.  I was so pleased that our new church home was
indeed a sanctuary for all beings. Nicely done CUC!

 

Successful Robin's nest in outside rafters at Community Unitarian Church (CUC)

 

We can't save them every time however.  That same week my spouse gave me a call from
New York City, only a short train ride from our new home.  He was attending a conference and during the
lunch break was outside at Union Square. Noticing a sparrow unable to right
himself and thrashing around, he wanted advice on what to do. After discussing
possible disease or injury, I told him to catch the bird and place her in the
shade out of the hot sun and under protection from predators. There was a
chance that the bird had run into a building and would recover shortly as long
as she could be safe. So my spouse spent his lunch time standing guard by the
struggling bird, who was joined by another  sparrow. 
 Before returning to the
conference he went to see how the bird was doing, and there, along with the
other sparrow and a couple of other humans, they discovered that the bird had
died.  The three humans bowed, hands
together to honor and mourn the life that had passed.

Another three humans honored a long dead wren chick we found in the sanctuary when we were chasing live chicks. Apparently this bird was from a previous clutch of wrens that had not been as fortunate as the ones that the CUC staff saved.  After a moment of silence we placed the still form up in the church's memorial garden.

 

Sometimes all we can do is witness, and that's
important.  To be present to life, to
death, to beauty, to suffering, and to compassion is a gift we all can give the
world.  It's a gift that can be catching, even for pitchers, and can free us all, birds included.

 

Stone sculpture at CUC with plaque that reads, "Roots hold me close, wings set me free."

Dare To Rise To Compassionately Care for All Beings

Here is a music video I produced that speaks to the wondrous interconnection of all life.  By truly seeing and feeling, we humans can dare to rise to compassionately care for all!

 

Gopher Tortoise - No better church!

I have fallen in love with a gohper tortoise in my backyard.  She makes all my days glad, and here I hope this time with her brings joy to your life too!

 

 

Zanesville Massacre

 

In this video, I offer a short memorial service for those 49 animals that were killed in Zanesville, Ohio on October 18, 2011, and for Terry Thompson.  May we know that their light is always with us.

 

 

 

Snakes Over a Plain

While in Belize last month I witnessed a small snake attacking and carrying off a frog, whose size was much greater than the snake's head.  I reflect on how we all are caught in the predatory/prey cycle and if we can nurture this nature, perhaps we can find a way to live sustainably as we live the solution.

 

 

 

Food, Justice, Hope

 

 

Recently as we Unitarian Universalists seek to bring justice to the world through food, I have heard pain and discouragement regarding how much we wish for the well being of all humans and nonhumans, and how far off that dream of the beloved community seems. Even after the passing of the Ethical Eating SOC, or especially so.

I know intimately this despair regarding the challenges of nourishing a world, let alone my companions in Unitarian Universalism.  For the hope of offering support to you, I would like to offer these words. I was going to speak them from the “pro” plenary mike in support of the statement, but we ran out of time right before my turn. Here are those words, only slightly changed to account for a future not asking for the passing of the statement, but for the implementation of the statement.

 Hello. I am the Rev. LoraKim Joyner and I am a delegate from the UU Fellowship of Gainesville.  I come before you today as a Community Minister in Multispecies Ministry and Compassionate Communication. I have also served as the president of the UU Animal Ministry for 8 years and am their current Reverence for Life Coordinator.  I also enjoy serving on the Ethical Eating Core Team.  In addition, I am a wildlife veterinarian working largely in Latin American conservation. I say all this to let you know that I know how difficult it is for us to talk, and to take action on food.  We doubt that we can love enough to take care of all beings given what we perceive as a perponderance of needs and claims that compete with one another. 

They do not.

I have just come from 2.5 months working in Latin American to support environmental justice and conservation of birds.  The people there who live close to the land know that their well being is tied closely to the well being of animals. One group of indigenous people with whom I work, the Miskito people of Honduras, are literally dying to protect their wild birds, while they themselves do not have enough to eat.  To insure that they have enough to eat and can nourish their families, birds, and trees, they have opened their hearts to protect all life, together.  Everything is at risk they told me, and so they are willing to risk everything.

Their hearts are big enough.

Our hearts are big enough. 

The needs are urgent; there is no time to lose.

Everything is at risk.

So let us risk everything we can today.

Let’s implement this statement by using it as a tool to crank open our hearts so that the world can fall in and fill our lives with ever increasing love and compassion.

I and others remain dedicated to what is not just a 5 year Study Action Item process, but an effort that will span our lifetimes. 

We will find a way to breathe hope and justice into this statement, making it a living covenant with all of life.

 

Owls Get a Kick Out of Soccer

 

There is nothing as liberating as a good soccer game.  It can also be dangerous in parts of the world as soccer has been the inciting stimulus for riots, death threats, murder, and in one case, a war between Honduras and El Salvador. Recently this harm extended to an owl.  A tame barn owl, the mascot of a Columbian soccer team, flew down to the field during a game and was hit by the ball.  While still stunned, Panamanian footballer Luis Moreno kicked the bird off the field.  The bird died two days later, suffering a broken wing and shock. The crowd yelled "murderer," and Moreno had to leave the game under police escort.  Since then he has received threats.  He won't be prosecuted because Columbia has no laws against animal cruelty, although the soccer league penalized him by requiring a fine and banning him from the next two games. 

 

 

This is a painful reminder of how humans in their worst moments do not have the capacity for compassion and care, even when beauty of game and bird surrounds them.  But sometimes we do.

In a 2008 soccer game between Finland and Belgium, a great-horned owl visits the game, flying around the stadium and landing on the goal posts. The officials stopped the game and the crowd cheers and applauds the owl. Smiles and laughter abound.

 

 

 

In another instance, rescuers remove another Great-horned Owl that had become entangled in a soccer net.

 

 

 

There is beauty all around us, and there is nothing as liberating as people responding by loving and saving the birds of our world.  How though do we make sense of our complicated natures where we both get a kick out of birds and kick them?

Sufi poet Rumi writes, "There is a field out beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing. I'll meet you there."

On that soccer field, great apes and owls are neither wrong or right. Instead  we are caught up in our goal directed lives, and make tragic choices that harm ourselves and others. 

May we this day see the beauty within and without, and in our gratitude, not penalize the beings of this earth.

 

 

Compassionate Communication with All Beings

Dr. Ursula Aragunde Kohl, me and participants at the CC Workshop in Puerto Rico

 

 

Last weekend I was in Puerto Rico offering two separate workshops on Compassionate Communication. One was to the Puerto Rican Parrot Recovery Project and the other to a conglomeration of animal welfare, social services, and faith organizations in San Juan. This was the first time I had chosen to concentrate on organizations that deal with nonhuman animals. My goal in so doing was to support and nourish the humans so that they in turn could help all beings flourish.

In my home faith tradition, Unitarian Universalism I am also gearing up to offer workshops in Compassionate Communication to those interested in the interweaving justice issues that include nonhuman animals. I will do this as part of the Reverence for Life Program that the Unitarian Universalist Animal Ministry is offering our congregations. Now is the time to struggle with how we covenant with earth and her beings as our association of congregations deals with the Study Action Item: Ethical Eating and Environmental Justice. In the last few weeks congregations and list serves have been abuzz with commenting on the Draft Statement of Conscience that deals with this compelling and complex topic. Comments on the draft are due February 1st and we as an association will vote on the final draft at General Assembly in June, 2011.

How shall we come up with a statement that includes the wide diversity of who we are and yet challenges us to hold the needs of all species ever more tenderly?

My response to this question, at both the workshops and to my fellow Unitarian Universalists is this:

It’s important to think of how animals feel and suffer, how their evolution has brought them to where they are , and what they are thinking as we research how their brains work. Yet, we can never know what is “best” in the morass of ethical vagueness that cloaks humanity. Let this complexity be not a death shroud for any. Instead, let us lift up the few things we can know:

    All beings have needs that connect us in an interdependent web of inherent worth and dignity.

    We can bring kindness to every moment.

    Everything is a practice ground for the skills of compassion.

 

May this be our prayer in intention, word, and action in the months to come.

Companions and Compassion

 Exodor 

I
lived with a Nanday Conure by the name of Exodor for 23 years.  He died in 2003.  I still have his egg and have an image of one
of his feathers as a tattoo.  More than
anything the image of his beautiful and graceful self is engraved in my heart
for ever.  He had such spunk, courage,
deep intelligence, and loyalty. He lived with me all over including California,
Alaska, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, and Guatemala.  There are hundreds of stories I could tell
that would testify to his inherent worth and dignity, but perhaps more than
anything I recall is the beauty of his flight as he flew across the room to
join me with that high pitched call that screamed out "I'm so alive, I'm
so glad to see you, I'm such a conure!"

Because
of my deep bond with him I am especially attuned to others of his species.  A few years ago I was in St. Petersburg. I
heard a squawk and my heart leaped. Sure enough there was family of Nandays
coming in and out of a nest cavity in a palm tree in a parking lot.  I was so enamored with them that I took my
spouse back there a few months later to celebrate our anniversary what we now
fondly know of as "St. Parrotsburg." 
We spent the day walking around the down town area chasing Nandays,
Quakers, and various other kinds of free flying parrots that were far from
their original lands. 

 

Nandays in Sarasota 

The
countries of origin though don't seem so far away now that I have known
Nandays.  Through Exodor I am forever
called to pay attention to wild parrots, and care for them.  For now I know how they are like feathered
angels, gifting us with a picture of heaven on earth where all beings
belong. 

 (photo by Robert Blanchard) 

Others have been
gifted to with this connection of wild and companion birds.  Recently I have become friends with Marc
Johnson and Karen Windsor of Foster Parrots. 
I am so taken with them and their projects in in
Guyana.  I interviewed them and highlighted their work on my other blog, Lafeber Conservation and Wildlife.   Here's is what I found.  They know power and are yielding it well, if
not with discomfort and pain on their part. Because in their work with
companion birds where they love them, care for them, sacrifice for them, and
witness to their beauty and their suffering, they can draw on authentic  motivations to address the situation of the
free flying wild counterparts in Guyana and other countries.  They do not
keep their heart and dedication enclosed into a box, but extend it out to other
species, including their fellow great apes - humans.  This is perhaps the hardest piece, loving our
human neighbors as ourselves in our mixed species communities. 

I have
struggled mightily with this, for I wish to blame someone for the pain and loss
of our beautiful world.  Somehow, though,
I know that blame is not the answer. For simply, if there is not enough love,
compassion, or beauty in the world, then I will do everything I can for there
to be more, and not less.  This means
that I must undertake to see the beauty in all of life and in the whole. This
includes we humans.  We need us all at
the table so we can nourish one another, so that the earth and all her beings
may flourish. 

A
simple message, but a most difficult one to follow through on.

So I
write here to gather us all together so that we might support one another
towards a more compassionate world - liberating ourselves as we liberate the
birds we love.

Thank
you Marc and Karen. For through your work, you give we humans the opportunity
to be who we are and were always supposed to be.

 Marc Johnson, Karen Windsor, and Friends 

American Federation of Aviculture Convention: The Magic of People and Parrots

 

 

On Saturday I gave a
presentation at the American Federation of Aviculture (AFA) Symposium in St.
Petersburg, Florida (my spouse and I call it St. Parrotsburg because of all the
naturalized parrots flying around).  Some
20 years ago I was a regular attendee at these conventions when I was more
active as a veterinarian of captive birds. 
I returned to be with these aviculturists because I need them, and so
the people and parrots of the world.  The
goal for my paper, "Wild Psittacine 
Chick and Nest Assessment: A Green Paper" was to convey my
conviction that we need every one at the table to help solve the complex and
often overwhelming problems confronting us in avian conservation, especially in
Central America.  From my view point,
everyone is on the conservation team for parrots.  If you work towards the well being of
yourself, others, and birds - no matter where you are - you are contributing to
the well being of the planet and all communities of mixed species.  We are one planet and we share one
health.  The audience at AFA gave me many
wonderful and clear suggestions, and already I believe I can share this
information with those with whom I work more closely with on my various
conservation teams.  Imagine what we
might accomplish if more people become involved?

I ask you, therefore, if you
would be a participatory member of this team. 
One thing you can do is read this paper, and contribute to it.  I have it posted as a google document
at:   https://docs1.google.com/document/edit?id=1EsNt-a3dengFR5YVdI2iWYKTcVNiY5btWF41yHakPyI&authkey=CKOSgoMJ&hl=en#.  You can make comments, edits, additions, and
deletions directly there, or email me with your changes. If you have trouble accessing the document in google, email me and I will send you a copy of the paper.

 Please do distribute
this document to others so that together we can build the kind of world we wish
to live in.

 

 In gratitude,

LoraKim

Fiddling While Rome Burns

“We need an inclusive movement and need to eliminate
anything that stands in the way of that.” 
These were words during the presentation, “Fiddling While Rome Burns,”
given by Shane Mahoney  the plenary
speaker for the International Congress of Conservation Biology.  I couldn’t agree with him more. In fact, my
efforts in conservation in the last decade have been committed to finding ways
to support the human dimensions of conservation so that we can get along, not
just for greater satisfaction and sustainability on conservation teams, but for
the sake of all life.  The earth needs us
now, not some time in the distant future when we might decide to work with others
who are different from us, or who think of wildlife differently. 

 

A pertinent and timely example of this comes from the
placement of the Lafeber Conservation and Wildlife booth at this
conference.  I am on “Trapper Row.” On my
aisle of the exhibit hall are 3 trapper organizations and one safari
group.  Just to my left are the skins of
lynx, wolf, beaver, and wolverine and examples of many kinds of leg traps.  The most common question I get from people
who pass by is not “what do you do,” or “what is Emeraid,” but “how do you feel
being next to trappers?”  That’s a good
question, I tell the people, and then they proceed to give me their views.  The thought is that trappers don’t have a
place in true compassionate conservation solutions. I have also talked to the trappers
on my row.  They say they love the
animals and their habitats, and want the same things I do – sustainability,
diversity, and abundance.  Yet, our
strategies are so very different.

Though the strategy of trapping brings up pain for me, if I
think that I do not share the same universal needs as the trappers, then I
won’t be able to empathize with them.  If
I can’t empathize with them, then we won’t be able to see each other as
belonging on this planet, belonging at the table, and belonging at the
conference. 

Shane ended his talk by saying that we are human because of
the different other and that in all of us is some part of God.  Without talking to him about this I can’t be
sure what he means. What he says to me is this. 
Though my heart aches to imagine the suffering and stress of an animal
bound in a leg trap, I will not close my heart to that pain and that
conversation with the different other. For if I close my heart to the pain, I
close my heart to the beauty, the joy, and the possibility of what we might
create together.  I also diminish how I
can be the change I wish to see in the world. For if I settle for blaming the
trapper, the hunter, the cattle rancher, I risk settling for not looking at my
own complicity in harm in the world.  So
dear trappers, thank you for being at this conference so that I might just get
to know your mind, and in the attempt, get to not just know my mind, but change
it to feel interconnection and empathy with all beings. May the traps of the
mind so free me, and all beings.

 

Rehabilitating Beauty

Today I travel to the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association Annual Symposium in Bellevue, Washington.  It has been a long time since I have worked in avian rehabilitation.  As an avian veterinarian I have always taken in wild birds, or referred them to others.  Somewhere along the line I lost hope in this work as it seemed a band-aid type of approach when the world was suffering such degradation and extinction.  Charitable acts to return injured, young, or ill birds to the wild seemed like a drop in the bucket compared to what outdoor cats, pesticides, habitat destruction, hunting, and poaching did to bird populations the world over.  I strove for changes and the healing of the human heart that could impact social systems so that we could would not just consider the needs of all beings, but act from a biocentric, and not a human centric ethic.  I also wasn’t sure that taking care of individual birds was always n their best interest, given the stress and pain of captive management with many species. 

Indeed it is a complex world. The web of suffering cannot be eliminated, nor can the interweaving of beauty that happens in multispecies encounters.  I no longer feel that I have the answers to how we might live in beauty and have it eternally fly over us.  I journey then to this symposium, knowing that I share with others of my own species a respect, wonder, and care of the beauty around me, though we each make take different paths.  On all these paths, however, there is beauty before us.  We walk in beauty.  We work in beauty. We rehabilitate in beauty.

Seizing the Earth

(Green Iguana, Guatemala) 

 

A friend of mine contacted
me recently about this story that appeared in the Star-Telegram on  January 6, 2010:

The Dec. 15 seizure of 27,000 animals from U.S. Global
Exotics in Arlington — and the seven days of municipal court testimony as a
judge decided whether the company or its owners could regain custody of them —
must have startled many people who were not yet aware of the exotic animal
trade.

The thought of 27,000 animals in one private building is
shocking enough.

The episode also showed a well-tuned, thoughtful and
balanced court process in Arlington as the city first took control of the
animals after receiving evidence of mistreatment and then carefully and
extensively followed state law to protect the owners’ rights. Municipal Judge
Michael Smith ruled Tuesday that there was indeed ample — even abundant — cause
to terminate those rights and turn the animals over to the city for proper
care.

Conditions at U.S. Global Exotics, as described in
Smith’s ruling, were deplorable:

(full article: http://www.star-telegram.com/242/story/1874134.html)

On
this same day I heard on National Public Radio a report that there is  not one place on earth that is not seeing
alarming declines of numbers of animals, all except for the human animal,
although in pockets their numbers decline as well due to famine, genocide,
war,  and disease. 

We
humans are seizing the diversity around us as earth goes through what might herald
the a death seizure of earth.  There is a
hurt place in me that wants to cry, "I told you so" after all my
years in the Exotic Bird Trade and then front line conservation in Latin
America.  But then I would only be yelling
at myself, cager of birds and veterinarian of exotic species.

It
is with some relief that the United States passed the Wild Bird Conservation
Act in 1994 that ended the wild bird trade into the United States (well,
mostly).  Isn't it time we seized the
initiative and did this for all species? 
Perhaps we don't do so because we are not aware of the magnitude of
suffering and loss, and perhaps it is just too difficult to face the reality of
what we do to this earth and her beings, especially when we see no clear way to
make a difference, to do good in the wake of such tragic loss.

I
don't have any solutions that can guarantee that hearts aching with pain or the
earth quaking with devastation will end, or can end.  I only know this.

The
beauty within we Great Apes is a marvel, and we are not separate from life. We
are neither less nor more than other species, so the harm we do is who we
are.  But underneath there is a greater
truth, we are not alone and hence we evolved out of the beauty that is our web
of life to care compassionately for those we understand, and hence come to
love.  I have ultimate faith that we as a
species are capable of so much more than the terrible handling of exotic
animals in the animal trade.   If we could just see our beauty, understand
one another and other species, then out of that empathetic embrace, we would
seize the day, and not capture the beauty that was born in freedom and lives in
our hearts.

Coyote Sparing and Sparring

 

 

Growing up I saw a lot of Wiley Coyote cartoons.  The coyote was sparring with the road runner and always ended up harmed in some way, and never caught the bird.  These days in the news we are hearing that coyotes are proving more successful, catching more and more prey. Around Gainesville, Florida where I live there are reports that they are killing outdoor cats, and while visiting Canada, the newspapers told of how two coyotes attacked and killed singer Taylor Luciow.  She had been hiking alone in a National Park when the two came upon her.  The singer’s mother today asks that the coyotes be spared, saying “We take a calculated risk when spending time in nature’s fold – it’s the wildlife’s terrain.” 

 

Coyotes, birds, cats, and humans all end up harmed in some way no matter how we live or die and this earth is all our terrain.  How then do we negotiate this complex arrangement we call life?  For me I see an example in the pain of this daughter and this mother.  We risk to be in beauty and keep our hearts open to one another, no matter the loss.  In this way we may dare to care.