Written 17 July 2025
The Vultures
Today, I think most of the turkey vultures in the lower Gales Creek valley must have been congregated here at the farm, circling in the air and roosting in the maples and alders along the creek at the northeast corner of the property. I thought I should go see what the big stink was, so I took the canoe up past the deep swimming hole by the dock to the bend in the stream where the vultures were hanging out.
There, at the top of a riffle, half submerged in the water, was the body of a large doe. A vulture was perched on the carcass and several others were on the surrounding gravel bars, and on branches hanging over the stream. They had opened the gut cavity and were well on their way to picking the bones clean of flesh. I imagine the crayfish were working just as diligently on the carcass from below. There were many of them at the tail-out, attracted by the scent of rotting meat in the water, claws waving and ready to carve off a piece of the feast that fortune had presented them.
I imagined the end of the doe’s life, how she managed to end up in this peaceful, lovely spot with water rushing around her. She was a healthy animal, from the size of her and the robustness of the flesh that remained, so it is nearly certain that she was struck by a car or a truck on the highway, which is carved into the steep slope above this reach. I imagine that she was struck in the hind-quarters and thrown over the guardrail, and from there was able to claw her way down the slope and into the stream where her spirit slipped away into the water.
There are certainly worse ways to end up. At least she died in a peaceful spot on a warm day, when the water was cool and pleasant. I hope she found peace at the end.
I do not fault humans for killing animals any more than I fault wolves or coyotes or orca whales for doing the same thing. I eat animals, and have killed my share for food and I am grateful for it. But I despise this kind of indifference. Suffering and death is part of life, but this particular brand of suffering and mindless killing is a unique by-product of our modern technological system, and it happens on an incomprehensible and largely unacknowledged scale.
Somehow we have to reconcile our words and our actions. We can’t honestly advocate for wildlife protection on the one hand and mow them down with our vehicles on the other. One way to identify these kinds of disconnects is imagining how we might explain them to a three-year-old. Think about that..