The little duck that could
Via Natalia Antonova, I’ve come across the truly amazing story of a little Floridian duck named Perky:
A duck that survived being shot and spending two days in a refrigerator has now overcome major surgery — despite briefly dying on the operating table.
Florida vets working to repair gunshot damage to Perky’s wing panicked when the duck twice stopped breathing.But they managed to resuscitate the bird, who leapt to fame when she was found alive in a hunter’s fridge two days after being shot.
Perky now has a pin in her wing, but is expected to make a good recovery.
Wow. Read the whole article. It really is an incredible story.
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Three thoughts in response:
1) Have I mentioned recently that I’m looking forward to the time when the hunted become the hunters? Well, I am. And I mean it. If and when ducks shoot back, I’ll be on the side of the ducks. Or the quails. Or the deer. Or…
2) This is why I’m moving — slowly but determinedly — to vegetarianism. Sure, I’ve had duck before. Many times. But no more. I just can’t. And won’t.
3) Anyone who isn’t touched by this story, who doesn’t feel for Perky, who doesn’t wish her well, is, in my view, to put it politely, under-evolved. So are those who treat animals as commodities to be used and abused. Those who abuse animals deserve severe punishment. Period.
29 Responses to “The little duck that could”
What the heck, that’s one Mighty Duck.
Like the BJ story about the BibleThumpers affecting book sales in National Parks this story doesn’t add up. A hunter or fisherman doesn’t put game into a refrigertor before cleaning, skinning and gutting. I am not a fan of Cheney game farm hunting, or limosuine Liberal duck hunting, but people hunting to put food on the table is almost OK. This is like a story of a presumed deceased person jumping up at a funeral home.
Not to drive the thread far off-track, but this really did happen to my great-grandmother. (except it was the morgue, not the funeral home…)
Dunno about the duck, but strange things do happen sometimes.
Hunting is natural, eating meat is natural. We lived for ages under the thumb of Mother Nature, and lived by her harsh rules. And even though we’ve grown much more sophisticated in making day to day life less random and violent, we still ultimately live by her rules.
I think feeling sympathy for this one duck and not for the other animals that will die because we eat meat is a form of hypocrisy. I think I’d have to feel sorry for all of them, which is an emotional burden that would snap anyone. Things must die so that others can live. You may value a duck more than a cabbage, but that cabbage lives too. Life is a struggle, and we didn’t make the rules.
I know it sounds rediculous to compare a hunter who can just go down to the store to buy meat to a wild animal that has no other options, but the issues stem from the same ultimate, ancient act of living.
Hunting, if you have other ways of procuring meat, is cruel and unnecessary. Animals that are shot or trapped are very often not killed instantly, suffering greatly before dying. Some aren’t wounded enough to be caught, but eventually die because of a lame leg/wing or through infections. Animals are not playthings. I can understand eating them, but since we have a decent source of domestic animals that presumably we can kill in a way that minimizes their suffering, then hunting stops being legitimate to become a form of entertainment through torture of animals.
Animals are commodities, to be used but not abused. I support ethical treatment of animals and I won’t eat veal, for example, because the treatment of veal calves is cruel. There is room for improvement in the treatment of all livestock, but generally speaking we do kill animals in the most humane ways possible. Those interested in this issue may want to read the fascinating story of Temple Grandin, an autistic individual who fought for more humane treatment of beef cattle.
The local Tallahassee paper has three story and names the hunter. This story maybe real, the hunter should stay out of the woods. He is probably more dangerous than Cheney.
Democrat Duck Killer
The local paper is The Tallahassee Democrat, I wonder if the hunter is an Independent?
MMMMM Duck alorange
Actually if hunting was banned, certain species would overpopulate and die of starvation and lack of habitat, Lynx. I don’t understand the enjoyment of hunting, myself, but I do respect that hunting is necessary for more reasons than just putting food on the table.
Well Lynx I see what you’re saying, but all wild animals die painful deaths. Its always one or several of the following: Starvation, disease, exposure, being eaten alive. None are pleasant, no animal dies in its bed surrounded by loved ones. Maybe because those occur “naturally” you feel them to be less evil than a human shooting an animal, as if we are somehow outside the cycle of life. The slaughter of domestic animals is no less gruesome or painful for the animals except in rare cases on special farms.
So whether or not I do it myself an animal dies to feed me. I believe its our own fear of death that leads us to feel for the death of an animal. It is impossible to contemplate the taking of an animals life without contemplating your own life being taken. You may feel it is morally bankrupt to hunt animals when you can buy meat, I feel it is equally bankrupt to let others do your killing for you and yet disparage those who do it “on the side”. It is in fact part of nature, and to deny that is in my opinion to misrepresent the way the world works.
Sam, true, there are no pleasant ways to die in the animal kingdom, but that doesn’t mean we are justified in adding one more cause. I recognize myself as hypocritical in the sense that I don’t question too much the conditions the domestic animals I eat were brought up in or killed. I do try to buy from those “special farms” you talk about, but I can’t always do it, the meat is very expensive (though worth it for the better taste alone, never mind the cleaner conscience).
While we still eat from other living beings we will never be completely free from hurting, true, but we can try to minimize our damage. Getting rid of blood sports and restricting animal killings to controlled environments (and then striving to better those conditions) would be nice.
C.Stanley, I see your point certainly, but I find myself rather skeptical. It seems just a tad convenient that those animals people hunt are always edible or look nifty as a rug. No one seems to be going after excess porcupines. Also, this does not address the MANY cases where animals are raised to be shot ala Cheney.
If that had been my refridge, I’d have grabbed a frying pan, and WHack!
Duck l’Orange.
What!
I’m just saying they were willing to eat it when they shot it a couple days ago, what changed?
LMAO.
Personally I prefer to sneak up on the critters and hit ‘em over the head with a rock. It’s more sporting that way–and there’s no shot damage to spoil the meat. Mmmmm, Bambi…nothing tastes quite as good as that free-range organic meat! Then there’s those coyotes that keep eating the family pets…we asked them nicely to stop, but they didn’t listen.
Anyone who throws an undressed bird in the fridge and leaves it there for two days isn’t a “food” hunter or much of a hunter at all, they’re a moron–one courting food poisoning. Such stupidity carries its own reward in that regard. And the wife taking it to the wildlife sanctuary for thou$ands in treatment? These folks put the “fun” in dysfunctional!
I have been a semi-vegetarian (still eat seafood) since the summer. At first it was difficult- especially at Thanksgiving, but I kept thinking of the animals that weren’t being slaughtered for my meals, and it got a lot easier. I agree with Lynx- there’s enough cruelty in the world- we don’t need to add to it unnecessarily.
During high school and college I lived in the South and almost every male I knew owned a gun and went hunting. It really bothered me, but I think its a matter of individual conscience. There is absolutely no excuse for animal cruelty, though. If you’ve ever been really close to a pet, you know they have the same emotions we do. I believe that is also true of farm animals and animals in the wild.
BTW, Michael Stickings, thanks for the story about Perky. It does sound a little farfetched, but is heartwarming anyway.
I read her book.. Can’t recall the title but something about “Animals in Translation”.
Were it not for the tragedy of her downs syndrome I’d have demanded a refund. She certainly did some good work in the meat packing industry, but most of the book just struck me as idiotic.
Let me add that though I hunted a lot in my youth, it no longer appeals to me. But for none of the reasons mentioned. I just hated sitting in a tree stand at 6:00AM in freezing weather. And I’m fortunate to have enough friends still hunting that I’ve got a good supply of venison sausage without actually having to go kill a deer.
But keep in mind hunters and anglers are at the forefront of effective environmental conservation. Whether you are a fisherman or not, this is a fantastic organization to support.
MMMMMM Epicurious has some tastey recipes for Duck.
I think Temple Grandin is high-functioning autistic (Asperger’s), not some one with Down’s Syndrome.
In some parts of the USA there are too many deer and they need to be hunted. The meat can go to soup kitchens. I had a deer accident a few years ago:
The Salvation Army in Michigan accepts wild game to feed the homeless and hungry. A hamburger is still a cow slaughtered and shipped to a supermarket. I imagine even the homeless would enjoy a Roasted Duck. If the duck was dead for a couple days and not gutted, chances are the meat would have been spoiled. Now if someone gets a woody killing game or lawyer friends(in Texas) that is ‘sick’.
Holly You should have swiped the deer and shipped it to a shelter. But your lucky the deer didn’t end up inside the car with you.
Calling folks who feel differently about a given subject “under-evolved” isn’t exactly the most tolerant, understanding, or moderate position one could take…
Thank you all for you comments. Needless to say, I don’t agree with all of them, but I’m pleased that my post about such a heartwarming story provoked a good response.
To the last commenter: I intentionally used the word “under-evolved” in order to be humorously provocative. But I would say that compassion — and even, as in this case, compassion for animals — is a sign of a higher humanity.
But I would say that compassion — and even, as in this case, compassion for animals — is a sign of a higher humanity.
MvdG- Yes, that is what I believe as well. They say that one sign of a future mass-murderer is a child that abuses animals for kicks.
Kim,
That was MS, not MvdG
And while I certainly agree with your statement about cruelty to animals, I still feel that a lot of people go too far in equating animals with humans (and I say this as a veterinarian and an animal lover.) Prevent cruelty to animals, absolutely, but it’s rather convoluted when some people feel it is perfectly justifiable to kill humans during certain stages of their development or lifespan but that we ought not to kill animals at all.
CS- My apologies to the parties involved, lol.
What about killing hundreds of thousands in a war based on hyped intel? Isn’t that about as immoral as you can get?
Kim,
First of all, there’s considerable debate on whether the intel was hyped or just poorly analyzed, and second, there could still be moral reasons to bring a country to war (if for example, one believed that more people’s lives would be lost or ruined by inaction than by action-by continuing the sanctions, for example. And even if Bush and the neocons proved to be wrong about that, it still doesn’t mean that this wasn’t their belief or intention at the outset.)
C’mon Stan, Bush & Co. clearly lied about the “evidence” leading up to the war. They couldn’t have had proof because the the things they said they had proof of didn’t exist. They wanted a war, they told the public and Congress what they needed to tell them to get that war.
I have to agree with Sam, CS. There is plenty of evidence that the prewar intel was hyped. Even poor Colin Powell was a dupe, using false info in his speech to the UN. They used him because he was the most trustworthy man in America.
The VP went after Joe Wilson and his wife because he had the audacity to report that Saddam wasn’t getting uranium from Niger- but Bush put it into the SOTU anyway.
Put the clues together and you’ll realize that this wasn’t some well-meaning administration that got fooled by the CIA, but one that contained a lot of people who were determined to tie Iraq to 9/11 so that we could justify the invasion. Read Michael Isikoff’s Hubrisif you want to know how this war was sold to us. I know you’re a lot smarter than that last post.
OK, Sam and Kim, so did you bother to read the link in my comment, at all? Do you care to explain exactly which part of it you refute?
And why is it not conceivable that some members of the administration were determined to make the case for going to war with Iraq AND the CIA also was fooled by the evidence that they had and their faulty analysis of it?
Kim, I’ll give your comment right back at ya…you’re smarter than that last post too.
ok, CS- It is conceivable that some in the CIA were fooled by the evidence. I believe it was both. But I also believe that the evidence was manipulated and some that was known to be suspect was presented as factual. Also our intelligence agencies became politicized, rather than acting as independent agencies. But above all, I believe that Bush and Cheney were so determined to take us into this war, that they did not fairly present or review the intel even when it was known to be suspect.