Born-Again Predator - Tracks and Shadows: Field Biology as Art - page 165

Twelve hours later some sixty black and turkey vultures occupied a snag over the
sow, which lay untouched except for a few flies and carrion beetles. After three days,
only a pig-sized stain and hundreds of prickly pear seeds from her stomach marked the
spot, the nearby skeleton and scraps of fur testifying to my role as carcass-providing
carnivore. Then things took a bizarre turn with discovery of two shoats mired at pond's
edge, with sludge over their eyebrows yet ears up, as if alive. A vermillion flycatcher sal-
lied overhead, lending color to the morbid scene. As I moved closer the shoreline lique-
fied underfoot, implying the pigs' fate was a mud bath gone bad; they weren't bloated or
smelly, nor were there signs of struggle. That evening, because swine wallow, David and
I discussed whether the shoats could have somehow been holding their breath. Next
morning, my first glimpse through binoculars revealed a dark cloud flapping free of the
muck and squabbling over bloody chunks of pork. Vultures were eating the drowned
pigs from above, like macabre picnickers spooning the flesh out of watermelons.
Almost four years since that first trip to the Double Helix and all this ragged com-
plexity must be admitted, especially that my experiences are tame compared to stalking
elk with a longbow, let alone spearing a woolly mammoth. I've shot eleven deer and two
feral pigs, not Faulkner's mythic bruin in Go Down, Moses, 17 and when everything's
said and done, there's blood on all our faces. Bragging rights are in the eyes of the
beholder—the domain of aesthetics rather than ethics, Cornell philosopher Jim Tantillo
points out 18 —and as my Texas sportsman-conservationist friend Robert McCurdy says,
beyond healthy meat and clean kills, what hunters most stand to gain is an honest, per-
sonally illuminating experience. While I'm on provocative topics, though, let's inquire
into mouth-watering barbeque from aquifer-polluting pork factories, of prime rib aujus
from urine-soaked feedlots; let's keep in mind the biological richness of well-managed
ranchlands compared to soybean fields. And let's continue asking what it means to be
part of nature, redouble efforts to keep the ecological theater well staffed, and promote
a richly acted evolutionary play.
Meanwhile, I'll keep practicing offhand with the Winchester but hunt with my newer
rifle, under circumstances that make filling our freezer with environmentally healthy,
humanely harvested meat more likely than not. And I'll never forget walking up on that
first doe at Lower Pond, when instead of cosmic revelations my mind simply flashed
sacred —an improbable draw from an agnostic's vocabulary—followed by intimate and,
finally, grateful.