I chuckled when I first saw this comic by Jim Benton. It's the right amount of unexpected punchline and visual humor. However, I got to thinking about the reality behind the joke (my neurodiversity makes me something of an overthinker).
In the birdwatching classes I teach, I include some photos of common birds my students may expect to see in their neighborhood. One of these photos features a Cooper's hawk with a fresh kill in someone's back yard. I always use this opportunity to remind folks that when you put bird feeders out, you may end up feeding birds you weren't expecting--to include opportunistic Accipiters.
I follow a lot of groups and communities for birdwatchers and other nature-lovers, and I've lost track of how many times I've seen people bemoan the loss of their beloved songbirds to hawks and other predators. Just this past weekend I bit my tongue over a comment thread where multiple people were talking about deliberately chasing hawks away from their yard (in one case, while also deliberately feeding opossums!)
I've written before about having as much compassion for the coyote as the rabbit. But this reminds me of how sheltered some people are from the realities of nature, and how an ecosystem relies on all its members, not just the ones we think are cute and cuddly. Predatory animals play an incredibly important role by keeping other species in check and removing weaker, sicker, or otherwise less fit individuals from the gene pool.
And this isn't a new strategy. Ever since the first unicellular being figured out it could just engulf another cell instead of gathering its own molecules of sustenance, there have been countless beings whose evolutionary niche involves eating other beings. Predators don't just include the meat-eaters, either. A deer is a predator of the tree it browses on; bison prey upon grass. Unless you're capable of creating your own food through photosynthesis, you are a predator of one sort or another.
We may chase the deer from our gardens, but that's not because we think our plants are cute and cuddly. It's because the plants are something we feel ownership over and we don't want wild animals destroying what we've put together. And yet, the people who chase hawks away often speak of the songbirds as "their birds", thinking to possess them as much as they possess the roses they planted.
This is a great example of how we erase the boundaries between wild species and our own, trying to treat them like domesticated pets instead of seeing them as their own beings. In that, we do them a great disservice. Wildlife do much better overall when we respect their wildness and the boundaries between us. It may be argued that we're already blurring the lines by putting feeders out, but that's a debate for another time.
For now, I ask: Why is a hawk less deserving of a meal than a robin? Ecologically speaking, it's not for us to say, and a hawk shouldn't go hungry because of our sentiments and biases.
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