Carefully Compiled Consonance

I caught a glimpse of this squirrel banking a robin egg out of a tree as a kid. “That’s what mother nature looks like,” my father smirks.

Bug eats the plants, fish eats the bug, bear eats the fish and whale eats its trainer in front of hundreds of people at Seaworld. Whole lot of mother nature going there. I thought a front row seat on the food chain was enough when I saw a furry little creature negotiate tree limbs and fence posts to eat a baby oriole in my youth. I can’t imagine how jarring a front row seat at sea world would have been Wednesday.

Among my first thoughts after the incident was an article I read out of GQ magazine entitled “Violence of the Lambs,” by John Jeremiah Sullivan. The article describes Sullivan’s theory that all animals are some how staging a revolt against humans. The article shortly followed the tragic death of Steve Irwin, citing freak animal attacks like Irwin’s as case and proof that animals are ganging up after on humans. Zoologist Marcus Livengood testifies to a world-wide increase in animal attacks against unsuspecting humans as proof that the members of the wild are plotting against us. As if they have a score to settle against humans for jumping the gun on cognizance and industrializing a majority of the earth.

Sullivan reluctantly points out in the end of his article that Mr. Livengood is as fictional as Irwin was fearless, and the compelling theory of a hostile animal take over is a hoax. Sullivan had merely compiled a stack of clippings about bizarre animal attacks over the years and incorporated them into a tall tale.

I like to think that animals might have a complex set of critical thinking skills that we humans are unaware of. I also like to think about what different animals would sound like with Mexican accents. This subject of animals with advanced logic and reasoning was briefly highlighted in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

Okay, who didn’t see this Shamu thing coming? They are called “killer whales.” Caged animals are still animals, and animals haven’t exactly submitted to Rousseau’s social contract just yet. They can not be held accountable to their actions. Animals are more focused on survival than anything else. They are selfish like that. Unfortunately for the trainers at Seaworld whenever their big wet colleagues have a spring of selfishness and feel like horsing around before the show mother nature kicks in real fast.

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