The elements are (of course) the federal government, journalism in witless mode, and a public sensibility of such softness that it is not far from emotional rot. Specifically: (1) the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; (2) the Washington Post; and (3) that excessive public sensibility, alarmingly pervasive, that shudders when a flea or a frog is summarily dispatched.
The riveting episode began with a three-column story on one of the Post’s local pages recently. Seems that a mockingbird (presumably a female, but one hesitates to attach a sexual label these days) was “dive-bombing” federal workers at a building in down-town Washington. It is unclear who called for an anti-bird special-ops team (the building houses hundreds of State Department workers, the paper reported, and it would be invidious to speculate whether a member of that department was driven to desperation so easily). Shortly, though, workers from the District of Columbia animal control agency responded. It is a trait of the territorial mockingbird, the newspaper explained, quoting an expert source, to attack any passerby near its nest. So the workers removed three hatchlings from the nearby tree where the mockingbird’s nest reposed and, as the reporter delicately phrased it, they “were put to sleep.”
Well, fine, a cute trifle, of the kind that scruffy newspapermen of an older day would have characterized as, at best, a “barking dog saves family of four” story.
It was odd, though, to see it reported under a multi-column headline and at greater length than the average D.C. homicide is recounted these days.
But it was enough to make the sushi hit the fan. Two days later, this time under a bold four-column head-line, the Post informed its readers that the animal-control workers who zapped the hatchlings “are now subjects of a federal investigation.”
How did the feds get into it? one might wonder, and wonder as well whether the crack enforcers of wildlife protection didn’t have bigger fish to fry, so to say. A “spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said [the D.C. workers’] actions clearly violated the Migratory Bird Act Treaty of 1918, a federal statute designed to protect wild birds by making it illegal to seize a bird, hatchlings, eggs or nest without a federal permit.” Maximum penalties under the statute, the Post somberly reported, include fines up to $ 100,000 for individuals and $ 200,000 for organizations, and a year in the Big House.
D.C. animal control, it turned out, did not have a permit to remove and later “euthanize” the hatchlings. The Post went into Woodward mode in following the trail of the crime. The “chief of animal disease control for the D.C. Department of Health . . . declined to discuss the matter.” Neither would another “spokeswoman” for the department itself, “saying the incident is under review and officials will not comment until the review is completed next week.”
All of this awfulness could have been avoided, it seems, if the animal control workers had taken the three mockingbird hatchlings to a local rehabilitation center — federally licensed centers which care “for injured or orphaned wildlife and gradually reintroduce them to their natural environments.” The three tiny mockingbirds were killed because it was too late in the day to send them to federal rehab — or so the city flack-catcher averred.
Not so, responded a woman from the Wildlife Rescue League, which transports orphans and other of nature’s detritus to the federal rehabilitation centers. There were bird-and-bunny volunteers available, and she contended her organization was not called after the hatchlings were hijacked.
For any reactionary who might snicker at this piffling skein of action and regulatory reaction, she added, “[There’s] nothing funny about babies being killed.”
“Babies!” — three apprentice mockingbirds! Dear, dear. These weren’t osprey chicks or bald eagle nestlings. Has anyone heard that mockingbirds are on the endangered species list? And, anyhow, two of the three might have become cat snacks long before they arrived at a level of development to dive-bomb State Department helots.
It is admittedly a day now pretty much gone when “animal control” consisted of putting the latest litter of pups or kittens in a gunny sack and dropping them off the nearest bridge. And a good thing, too, no doubt.
Might there, however, be a teensy disproportion involved in this mockingbird affair — a six-figure fine, a year in the slammer, a major agency of the mightiest government on the globe invoking a 1918 treaty clause? And an intra-departmental “review” convened, consuming how many hours of meetings and how many pages of findings?
And all the while, the government officials responsible for sorting out this crime against nature are twitching, knowing the Post is out there . . . waiting and watching.
Woody West is associate editor of the Washington Times.
