On Shooting Wildlife

I’ve gotten into interesting discussions with friends who claim that I’m a barbarian for wanting to kill defenseless animals – often as they eat a hamburger. The disconnect between food and nature is strong in our society. Personally, I’ve only gone hunting once, and ate what I shot, and until today I’ve always believed that hunting was OK as long as you ate the animal (and, or course, it was not endangered, etc).

Today I’d like to add another category of animals – birds that shit on you and/or your laptop. I was working outside, enjoying a rare moment of warm, intense sun in London, doing work while actually getting a tan. And suddenly, WHAP! A  giant splat of brown & white liquid hits my wrist, laptop, and laptop sleeve case. It was truly disgusting – not the dry stuff that has hit me before, but looked like this bird just ate a bowl of worms and then a few Ex-lax.

Had I had an air rifle, I would have shot the damn thing. Sadly, I washed it off before I could take any great pictures.

The Spanish (and Ukranians, I also learned today) will tell you that when you are shit (shat? what is the past tense?) on by a bird, that you will find new money. So I’ll buy a lottery ticket today, and we’ll see what happens.