Killing Pigeons
December 5th, 2009 at 22:58

One of the major creationist arguments against evolution is that no one has ever “observed” evolution happen, and therefore God definitely did it. The trouble with this argument is obvious – the creationists have never actually observed nature. Nature is horrible and if a deity were to create such a system, they’d have to be sick in the head. Today I was unfortunately a partipant a very vivid example of nature at it’s most horrendous.

Our next-door neighbours have a cat, and far from being adorable, it’s actually a vicious killing machine, and regularly deposits the corpses of pigeons in our garden – or worse still, their still living, half-mangled corpses. Earlier today I looked out of the window and saw a distressed, half-dead pigeon.

So we did what we thought was the most responsible thing – call the RSPCA. If anyone can fix a wounded animal, and cure it of it’s ailments, it’s probably going to be them. And this is when the most horrifying thing happened. The RSPCA turned up and decided that the best course of action was to put the pigeon out of it’s misery. So the man took the pigeon out to the van and killed it right there and then in front of our house. Or so I’m told anyway – I couldn’t bear to watch.

Of course, there was probably no other option – it’s probably pretty difficult to make pigeon-size wheelchairs, and helping all pigeons is probably uneconomic – the RSPCA man wasn’t just the death panel, but the executioner too. But it was still quite upsetting, because as the person who first discovered the pigeon’s plight and triggered the RSPCA being alerted and therefore hastening the pigeons death… did I kill it by proxy? Do I have blood on my hands?

It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions – I think I must feel like the general who orders troops into battle knowing they weren’t coming back alive. Or perhaps more precisely, the general who orders the doctors to treat a patient only for the doctor to instead go on a killing spree.

And I bet the RSPCA man wasn’t terribly happy either. I bet he grew up loving animals, finding them fascinating, enjoying trips to the zoo, and then training to be a vet because of his love of animals and wanting to help them… only to then find out he’ll spend most of his career murdering them.

I’m just glad I didn’t give the pigeon a name, or something that would make the story even more loaded with emotion. In fact, re-read this blog-post but imagine the pigeon’s name was Dale. Dale the pigeon.

Nature is horrible.

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