If you look closely, you will see that this bird is bleeding. I was walking up Fillmore on my way to my favorite scoop shop, Three Twins Ice-Cream, when I saw a collared cat bounding down the street, bird in the grip of its teeth, obviously having a field day. The cat reminds me of one sweet cat that I used to play with, but this one is trim, more athletic, a ready plunderer. No wonder, considering it is being let out like a dog and allowed to hunt like a cat, with the proud owner in tow, who obviously was also having a field day. The owner-dude chased the cat around the corner. Trophy discarded. The freed prey hobbled over to the wall for its photo op, contracting into its own huddle.
Now don't get me wrong. I do not like pigeons. Especially when they shit in front of my building, fueled by the bread crumbs that the building manager's wife likes to throw at them. (I will never be caught dead feeding pigeons in the park, not now, not when I'm 90 and old and decrepit and crumbly.) I also have no problem with how the food chain works.* We shouldn't circumscribe the free expression of basic animal instincts, mine or yours or our companion friends'. But we, as human beings, can do better. If we're in the business of domesticating canines and felines and feigning civilized behavior, then the following applies: dog owners should pick up, scrape up, scoop up whatever consistency presents; and cat owners - if your toy-pet or pet-toy has halfway bitten through a bird, it is your responsibility to put the victim out of its misery. It is the decent thing to do. I would extend the same courtesy if I'd accidentally - or not so accidentally - run over your cat.
*A tenuous tie-in to the health care debate (+ Darwin + Buddha), but I will attempt ... Compassion FTW, yes. Universal health care? Largely anti-evolutionary, if you ask me. We are getting very good at managing and eliminating physical pain, but until we confront and dissolve the root cause of suffering - attachment - we will stay on the same karmic wheel as the pigeon and the cat and the cat owner and the people of Congress. Just so our little bird does not die in vain, I will make three points to send it off to its next incarnation: 1. An enlightened mind does not get attached to tax dollars, because the IRS will collect anyway; or to life, which will end anyway. 2. Compassion is a trait of evolved human consciousness; it does not engender a "right" to health care, or to anything else, for that matter. 3. I am totally okay with the idea that I may end up as roadkill someday; nobody owes me any expensive extraordinary measures to keep me alive. Just clean up the mess afterwards and don't ruin another person's ice-cream appetite. That's all. C'est la vie.
