Showing posts with label Granite Dome. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Granite Dome. Show all posts

Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Sadness of Captive Birds

A couple of days ago I revisited the VINS rescue and rehab organization in Quechee, VT.  It was a cold blustery day. Walking along the roofed over semicircle from cage to cage with eyes following me, I found not much had changed from three years ago. The two Bald Eagles, disabled by injuries, who arrived in 2000 and 2002, were still there.


 Back then a couple of volunteers were crawling around on the ground cleaning the cage to the great annoyance and vocal complaints of one of the eagles.



Sounds like an upset chicken, right? Eagles are so imposing that  they probably had no need to evolve a voice to go with it, I guess. Maybe they just needed enough voice to comfort their offspring.

Also still here:
Golden Eagle (since sometime in the 90's)

Peregrine Falcon (since 1995)

Broad-winged Hawk (since 2007)

Snowy Owl (since 2006 - raised in captivity)

Common Raven
Common Raven couple preening (the male since 1997 and the female since 2001)
Common Ravens are smart, they are curious, they investigate their environment. But what if there is nothing to investigate? Nothing to stimulate their minds, just a bare cage with wooden perches? Their cage was, I guess, adequate in size, but how humane is it to keep birds, who cannot be released back into the wild,  in barred cages, as if they were automata, for years if not decades? I am not criticizing VINS - their means are limited. I am posing it as a more general question to which I have no answer.


I didn't want to leave this post on such a depressing note. The day before, a beautiful late fall day, I had walked with my dog Chance up to the top of Black Mountain.

Black Mountain Granite Dome

The  leaves on the huckleberry bushes shone like little red light


The Connecticut River Valley in the distance

The West River runs like a silvery ribbon through the valley. The cars on the road next to it are so small that from this height the world looks like a toy shop.


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