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.