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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 5, 2016)
FRIDAYEXTRA ! The Daily Astorian Friday, February 5, 2016 Weekend Edition Do we really know all that much about them? 6hould we? By MATT LOVE Special to The Daily Astorian S ome six or seven years ago, I heard a story about an employee of a coastal restaurant who beat a one-legged gull to death with a stick out back of the establishment. Apparently the gull served as the establishment’s mascot, and for whatever reason, if sociopathic behavior can be said to have logical reasons, the employee bashed the bird to death. The man who recounted the incident to me heard about it from an eyewitness who later called the police. An investigation ensued, but the perpetrator wasn’t arrested, even though killing a gull constitutes a crime under federal migratory bird law, punishable by a maximum ¿ ne of , and the possibility of a Mail sentence . The tale of the senseless and horri¿ c murder of a gull has never left my mind. I can also never forget driving behind a pick up truck and watching a male driver purposely swerve into the shoulder of a highway and kill a gull. Who are these people? What happened to their moral development? What books do they read to their children? If I had had my cell phone with me that afternoon, I would have called the police and the local of¿ ce of the 8.6. )ish and Wildlife 6ervice, the federal agency charged with enforcing migratory bird law. Most likely nothing would have happened, but I hope the man had to explain to an of¿ cer why he committed the murder — with his kids listening. ‘I prefer gulls to most human beings’ )rankly, I much prefer gulls to most human beings. They are my close friends on Oregon’s ocean beaches and have many advantages over us. )or one thing, they can À y and ride the thermals with an effortless grace I envy. I prefer their clucking language to English. They also don’t talk on cell phones in restaurants. Nor do they use leaf blowers, murder one another over religion, experiment on primates, or snort methamphetamine. Yes, they do eat terrible fast food, but that is only because some human being came to his senses and threw it away. Gulls are such a ubiquitous presence on the Oregon Coast, but really, do we know all that much about them? 6hould we? I don’t know who wrote it, but somewhere I read something to the effect that, “It behooves us to know the names and interesting details of the sentient crea- tures we see and interact with every day.” I have at least one interaction a day with gulls, either on the beach, walking near my home or to work, or strolling Astoria’s Riverwalk. ‘Gulls fascinate me’ Gulls fascinate me and I’d like to take this oppor- tunity to educate people about them. )or that I am indebted to a charming little book called “Gulls: A 6ocial +istory,” written by )rank Graham -r. with photographs by Christopher Ayers, published in . In this long out-of-print book, Graham writes: “We would be poorer without gulls than they would be without us; these beautiful and fascinating crea- tures add to the marvelous natural diversity that enriches our lives.” Amen to that. Nothing enriches me more than watching gulls À y over- head, and, if the lucky opportunity pres- ents itself, exam- ining their well- worn, nicked faces up close. What are they thinking? )or starters, there is no such creature as a seagull. There are 44 different species of gulls and some live as long as years. I learned about their interesting mating, inter- species breeding, migratory patterns, and that even the sharpest birders have dif¿ - culty telling many of the species apart. Eggers, milliners and the government I also learned that not all that long ago, many local populations of gulls were nearly wiped out across North America by eggers, milliners, and the govern- ment, the latter spreading poison to arrest the prolif- eration of certain species in favor of other birds. It’s a ghastly tale, biologists killing wildlife to save certain (politically) preferred species, and it still plays out in all its lunacy today. Yet the gulls survived, by adapting to various wasteful human trends, like land¿ lls, and as Graham writes, “We are contemporaries in a sense, riding the runaway vehicle that is the modern industrial world.” +e wrote that line two years after the Arab o il e mbargo and 26 years before the debut of the iP od. One does sort of think that when human beings wind down their time on Earth, which is inevitable, gulls will remain. They’ll adapt and keep on À ying. Matt Love lives in Astoria and is the author and editor of 14 books about Oregon, including “The Great Birthright.” His books are available through coastal bookstores or his website, nestuccaspitpress. com Submitted Photo Gulls don’t use leaf blowers or murder one another over religion.
