The other day I was walking down my driveway when I noticed a small bird’s egg, broken and splattered. That got me thinking about the ways we encounter death from day to day, without going out looking for it.
By Bill Lawyer
The other day I was walking down my driveway when I noticed a small bird’s egg, broken and splattered. That got me thinking about the ways we encounter death from day to day, without going out looking for it.
That broken egg touched me. Here was a potential life that had been snuffed out before it even got started. It reminded me that we usually think about spring and early summer as the peak of nature’s fecundity and procreation.
All around Rye we can see the signs — osprey chicks being raised at Edith Read Sanctuary, owls tending to their young in hollow trees by Manursing Lake, mother raccoons patrolling our garbage cans for food, and so on.
But this season is also a time of high death rates among wildlife. Some are inadvertent — rabbits, skunks being run over by cars and trucks, to name a few examples. Baby animals are particularly susceptible to injury or predators.
One inadvertent death that I and some of my neighbors recently witnessed was that of a young squirrel, which was trying to leap from one branch to another high up in a tall tree. The squirrel slipped, fell about 50 feet, and landed with a thud on the street. It tried to get up and go back to the tree, but it was dead within a few minutes.
Anyone who jogs or bikes around Rye this time of the year can’t help but encounter dead animals in varying stages of decomposition along the roads.
These types of encounters can be particularly stressful for children, who may find it hard to accept that the animal is dead. They somehow think that we adults can “fix” anything – “Please make it better!”
Years ago, when my son was about 4, we were walking along Blind Brook at the Rye Nature Center when we discovered a dead muskrat. The Center’s building was closed at the time. Not knowing what else to do, we just left it there.
In general, as long as the animal isn’t in a place that would cause problems for people, leaving it alone is probably the best thing to do.
While it’s hard to think about the death of wildlife in the broader perspective, such encounters can give parents the opportunity to help their children think about death, as well as understand that death is part of the circle of life on earth.
And, we can use such encounters to teach about the specific animal we’re looking at, and learn more about it’s attributes, adaptations, and place in that circle.
All life is part of nature’s food chain, from the top of the chain — large predators — to the smallest microorganisms. Among the most common and versatile predators and scavengers are crows. I have frequently encountered them in my walks, shredding up the remains of dead squirrels or raiding the nests of songbirds.
One widely accepted definition of the circle of life is that it’s “Nature’s way of taking and giving back life to earth. It symbolizes the universe being sacred and divine. It represents the infinite nature of energy, meaning if something dies it gives new life to another.”
By the way, in case you’re wondering what to do about a dead animal on or by the road, the first step is to notify Rye’s Department of Public Works at 967-7464. If it’s on a City road, they will take care of it. If it’s on a County road within the City, like Playland Parkway, they will help you contact the Westchester County DPW, especially if it’s a large animal like a deer or raccoon.
For injured and/or orphaned wildlife, the Rye-Harrison Veterinarian Hospital has information about what to do on their website, http://rhvh.com/health-care.
