Recently I wrote about the BugZooka, a great tool for catching bugs without hurting them. I'm still wildly happy with the contraption but ...
The other day I was contending with the tiny moths that have moved into my kitchen. (I think they come from the rice or maybe a wheat cereal; I'm not sure. They certainly don't come from the 50-lb sacks of wild bird seed all over my house.) Anyway, I caught four or five of them and then saw another one.
Unfortunately, it was flying. It's hard to snatch them out of the air with the BugZooka. You have to wait for them to land. So I waited, and waited -- and I noticed the moth kept flying toward me, no matter where I moved. Finally I stood still to see what it would do.
It landed on the end of the clear plastic BugZooka tube. It wanted to be with its fellow moths! And then it walked right to the very end of the tube, which allowed me to pull the trigger and suck it inside.
There are no holes in the capture tube, so it's hard to understand how the moth could hear its pals inside. That's a mystery. And I was constantly moving, as was the moth, so how could it see that there were moths inside the tube? I can't understand how it knew where the others were. Thinking about all this reminded me how little we know about the perceptions and inner life of other creatures.
Afterward, I went outside and set them free. But the moth's actions left me feeling sad. We don't understand any other creature on this planet (okay, maybe dogs) yet we feel we own them all and can kill or torture them at will. It just ain't right. Who knows what the lives of these creatures are like? They could be finer than our own lives. We just don't know.
Don't kill anything. It's mean and wrong-headed.
The other day I was contending with the tiny moths that have moved into my kitchen. (I think they come from the rice or maybe a wheat cereal; I'm not sure. They certainly don't come from the 50-lb sacks of wild bird seed all over my house.) Anyway, I caught four or five of them and then saw another one.
Unfortunately, it was flying. It's hard to snatch them out of the air with the BugZooka. You have to wait for them to land. So I waited, and waited -- and I noticed the moth kept flying toward me, no matter where I moved. Finally I stood still to see what it would do.
It landed on the end of the clear plastic BugZooka tube. It wanted to be with its fellow moths! And then it walked right to the very end of the tube, which allowed me to pull the trigger and suck it inside.
There are no holes in the capture tube, so it's hard to understand how the moth could hear its pals inside. That's a mystery. And I was constantly moving, as was the moth, so how could it see that there were moths inside the tube? I can't understand how it knew where the others were. Thinking about all this reminded me how little we know about the perceptions and inner life of other creatures.
Afterward, I went outside and set them free. But the moth's actions left me feeling sad. We don't understand any other creature on this planet (okay, maybe dogs) yet we feel we own them all and can kill or torture them at will. It just ain't right. Who knows what the lives of these creatures are like? They could be finer than our own lives. We just don't know.
Don't kill anything. It's mean and wrong-headed.
