Living with the animals

Neither here nor there - I felt the fleeting caress of the tiny, infant bird's foot on my skin, exposed between the straps of my sandal. Only hours-old, the little ball of fluff scurried past me and disappeared into the tall grass beside the kitchen door of the house.

Like everything else this spring, the birth of the spotted sandpipers was later than normal. I had been worried for weeks that they might not come at all. Some catastrophe might have overtaken them on their migration north from their winter homes in the Caribbean.

Then I saw the first adult bird. After that, I saw adults flying along the beach and more than a week ago even surprised one in the long grass that covers the point.

The sandpiper delivered the classic theatre performance, feigning an injured wing, staggering and flopping along the ground, trying to lead me away from the spot where I was almost certain an egg-filled nest was concealed.

I stepped away carefully, backwards, checking each footfall before making it. If there was a nest, then there was a chance of another litter. I dared to hope. One day I spotted them: the father, followed by four puffballs in a ragged file, stumbling among the rocks trying to keep up. Rocks as tall as your knee with inlets of salt water between them were great mountains and broad bays to these little birds whose life history could be counted in minutes.

Even if birds have imagination they couldn't possibly imagine they will be flying over this landscape in a month's time and to the beaches of the Caribbean by the time the trees began to shed their leaves. I was talking on the phone to a voice in Calcutta when I first spied them below the second storey bedroom window. I wanted to blurt out to the voice at the other end of the line my joy at their appearance, but thought better of it.

The voice in Calcuttta was walking me through the re-connection of my satellite television receiver. Living in a city with a population 40 times the number of this province, he would probably not share my elation at the return of the next generation of shore birds that are my beloved summertime companions on this rock in the North Atlantic.

Or maybe he would have. After all it is city dwellers worldwide who for the most part contribute the multi-millions of dollars to animal protection campaigns that make life such a misery for the sealers every spring.

Ironic isn't it that people who live in places where there are many tall buildings but few animals are far more devoted to critters than those who actually live among them? Or maybe not so much devoted as unrealistically adoring of the beasts of the earth, the birds of the air and the creatures of the sea.

I was born a city dweller and began my life as member of this cult caught up in the cloying cuteness of precious little baby animals that all the urban kids I knew indulged in.

But, at the age of seven I first came to the island of Newfoundland and saw in the bays and along the shore how people here co-existed with animals. The kids on the now-empty islands of Bonavista Bay had pet kittens and bunnies jut like my friends and I did on the mainland, but as soon as they were able were standing at a splitting table swimming with blood helping their families get food and make a living.

As they got older they shot ducks and turrs and went ashore to set rabbit slips and kill moose in the autumn. They were able to reconcile their love of animals with their utility to humankind. There is a term that describes this ability. It's called growing up. Very soon the European Parliament will vote on a resolution to ban the import of all seal products. Loyola Sullivan who, after being driven out of the Williams government, found work as our federal ambassador for fisheries, has been trying hard to explain the seal hunt to the citizens of the EU. It is hard work, made harder by the huge budgets for propaganda the animal rights lobby has in its coffers to falsify the facts, thus guaranteeing the money keeps rolling in. Good luck to Ambassador Sullivan. If only there remained even a shred of co-operation between Ottawa and the Confederation Building there might be a chance to turn back this impending EU legislation. We could try to do that by bringing Europarliamentarians to rural Newfound-land and Labrador to see for themselves that the seal hunt is just one of the many links that unite people here with the creatures they live among.

If they came to my house I would try to arrange for a baby bird to tread on their bare feet, a feather light touch with more weight than a metric tonne of propaganda.

Peter Pickersgill is an artist and writer living in Salvage. His column returns Aug. 4

pickersgill@mac.com