Column: Practicing what you preach is not always easy

Published 5:01 pm Thursday, June 15, 2006

By Staff
You know, the baby bird that fell out of the nest and the abandoned babies, either real or imagined. Most of you know I've always preached to just stay out of it; let things be; allow nature to run its course. All baby animals are not supposed to survive. It's nature's way; survival of the fittest. However, recently I found that practicing what you preach can be a hard pill to swallow.
I begin the story by admitting to being a bad boy. A while back this cute little raccoon began raiding our bird feeders. That called for a coon guard on the feeder pole. She was so fun to watch it was hard to cut her off, though. I started putting a little pile of sunflower seeds on the ground for her every evening. One evening, to our surprise, we noticed milk faucets protruding from her belly. Though barely half grown, she was a mom. Stupidity reigned and soon “Darlin” was taking treats from my hand. I knew at the very least I was creating a family of problem coons, but…
It was a big event when Darlin' first showed up with her four little ones. Like mom, like kids; they considered us family. Then came the awful night. It was around 1 a.m. and I was totally zonked out. The wife awoke to horrible screams coming from the front yard. Flashlight in hand she went outside to find an adult raccoon attacking one of Darlin's babies. Wife shouted and clapped and the assassin retreated a short ways. She woke me up and I stumbled out onto the porch, only ticking on a cylinder or two. There at the base of the porch Darlin's baby hunkered, peering helplessly up at us. It made that twittering sound that I associate with happy coons, but this one could not have been happy. The rogue coon boldly stood a few yards away, bent on murder.
My sleep fogged mind tried to sort things out. Is the baby hurt? If so, how bad? We're not going to adopt an injured baby coon. That's illegal. It goes against my preachings. Where's Darlin'? Finally, I told my wife we'd just stay out of it; leave it up to nature.
Just then the assassin again attacked, grabbing the baby and running off. We went back in the house. The screaming and wailing outside was one of the most gut wrenching things I've ever heard. I couldn't stand it. I grabbed my pistol and ran out the door only to meet Darlin' racing toward the frenzy. She had surely been ushering her other three babies to safety. As we followed Darlin' into the darkness the wails weakened into sporadic moans. Then, all went quiet. We, I, was too late. I found the baby sprawled on the ground fitfully gasping for breath. There was no sign of the assassin or Darlin'. The pistol's roar ended the suffering. I spent the rest of the night with those screams in my head and half sick to my stomach, telling myself over and over that at least I practiced what I preached, sort of.
Several nights later, Darlin' brought things into perspective. She had continued to stop by seemingly none the worse for it. Then she again brought her babies, now down to two, another presumably lost to the rogue. Things were different now. She was downright mean to the babies, snarling and snapping at them whenever they neared her. She's running them off when they're too young to survive. The confused little pair huddled on the step peering at me. Darlin’ saw her chance and ran off. The babies milled around, but at that point I vowed to not feed her or the babies again.
Yesterday they were back, as was Darlin', but not together. Without food they soon moved on. The separation is complete all the way around and I've relearned my lesson.
As I write, the pair is now one and it's out under the feeder. Soon the rogue will get it, too. The teenage mom did a bad job and will not contribute to the gene pool.
As for the rogue, there's this human thing called revenge. Carpe diem.