Needless Suffering

One of my favorite movies is Winged Migration produced by Sony Pictures. The movie covers a whole year of bird migration. You are privileged to follow along with the migration of different groups of birds.

There are heart wrenching parts of the movie. In one sequence after you have followed a group of geese through the spring migration and raising a brood of chicks, the geese set out for the fall migration and suddenly they are shot at by hunters. Even as a meat eater, I feel a minute of sadness as a couple of birds fall.

But the parts that bring tears are the senseless loss of life; one bird falls into an oily retention pond at a factory.

And then there is the poor duck that goes the whole year with a string tied to his leg. Every now and then during the year he tries to peck the thing off of his leg but never does. Even as the credit rolls he still wears his tiny piece of human garbage.

Anyone who has ever seen a bird at the beach with a piece of garbage tied around a leg, neck, or wing will know what I'm talking about. The bird will suffer; sometimes starve to death, needlessly.

I have found miles of ribbons once attached to balloons on beaches. This garbage endangers wildlife. Don't release balloons with ribbons attached. Ribbons can be recycled. Balloons should be disposed of properly.

Pass the word.