[obol] Death of a Glaucous-winged Gull

[Cindy Ashy]

Death of a Glaucous-winged Gull

It is with a very heavy heart that I post this message.

Today at the Newport South Jetty there were at least 200 gulls at the gull
puddle. They were concentrated close to the road with one gull barely in the
road. I circled around and parked just across the street from them so I could
study them from my open window on the driver's side. I found 3 Glaucous Gulls
(and another by the bridge coming in) and was also studying first winter
Glaucous-winged Gulls and possible hybridizations between the two (more about
that later).

I was fully concentrating on the minute details of the gulls with my bins when
a sports utility vehicle whizzed by at great speed and as it did so I heard a
heart-wrenching implosion approx 6 feet from me. I knew in an instant what had
happened and out of the corner of my eye I saw the back tires of that multi-ton
vehicle running over the fragile body of a precious gull that I had
meticulously studied and admired only minutes before. Chills ran down my spine
and I could barely breathe while I watched the life drain out of it. I could
hardly bare to watch but for some reason I just had to watch. I was strangely
connected to this gull in the last seconds of its life. In retrospect, it was
probably alive for maybe only 15 more seconds but at that moment those seconds
seem to drag on as if everything was happening in slow motion. I was hoping for
a miracle that the tires had somehow missed it and I hadn't heard what I
thought I had heard....but I knew when I saw blood seep from its beak there was
no hope. The other gulls instinctively knew the millisecond its life completely
ended and they all flew up screeching and flying erratically. The whole sky was
filled with them and you could hear the horrification in their screams. They
don't even sound this intense when raptors attack. Then every last one of them
left and didn't return as long as I was there.

I couldn't bare to have it lay there in the road and get run over again by
other vehicles. As I got out of my car and the wind hit my face I realized I
was crying. As I walked up to the gull I really lost it for about a minute
before I could bare to pick up its limp body and carry it across the road. I
can't really explain why but I placed it behind a large rock and stroked its
beautiful soft feathers. I'm always amazed at how remarkably soft gulls feel to
the touch. It's like petting a fluffy Maine Coon cat. It was a first cycle
Glaucous-winged Gull. I can't explain why but I almost felt like I owed it to
this gull to study it up close...to soak in every detail. I wanted to take a
feather but I didn't. I got chastised last year for "collecting feathers from a
migratory species" (another dead seagull) by someone I really admired and the
echo from that scolding wouldn't let me take one.

This experience really rattled me and the sound of the implosion and the sight
of that helpless gull afterwards is still haunting me 10 hours later.  I was so
close and right there at the moment it happened and I've worried many times
that these gulls were going to get run over. I know that if a predator had
captured it and eaten it right in front of me, the experience of watching that
would not have affected me in this way. What I saw today was a totally
senseless ending to a bird that had not even lived a year on our planet. Two
adult gulls courted, mated, built a nest, carefully watched over an egg keeping
it warm and protecting it from predators, hatched it, fed a cute little fuzzy
chick multiple times, communicated with it in a special language that no human
understands yet, and protected it from harm until it grew up and
fledged....only to have it squashed under a speed demon car driven by a
reckless human just half a year later. 

I'm sharing this painful experience with all of you because I want people to
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SLOW DOWN when they're driving on that road or driving on
any road where gulls and/or other birds congregate. I'm sorry if this sounds
preachy but I am overwhelmingly compelled to ask people, in fact plead with
people, to be more careful. We are living in a time when the contact between
wildlife and humans is only going to increase and we've got to learn how to
co-exist better. I may be preaching to the choir for some of you but I have
personally seen birders speed down that road too.

And I don't really want to debate about whether or not to feed the gulls but I
do ask that if you're going to feed them, please do so in an area where people
don't drive. Yesterday, I watched a little girl and her Mom feed large amounts
of bread to the gulls in the parking lot at "D" River in Lincoln City. It
created a feeding frenzy of a few hundred gulls and it was in an area where
people had no choice but to drive right through the flock or they couldn't
leave. I've seen people throw bread into and/or very close to the road at the
Newport South Jetty. If you are going to feed them, I'd rather see this take
place on the beach or closer to the jetty rocks or in any other place where
they are won't get run over.

And please show the same courtesy to gulls as you do for other birds because
they are amazing creatures if you get to know them....and they deserve our
respect, our protection, our intellectual curiosity, and our admiration just as
much as other more popular birds.

Thank you,

Cindy Ashy



 
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