Like you I’ve been following this Red Knot and horseshoe crab issue with considerable interest. You know. Red Knots fly thousands of miles to fuel up on horseshoe crab eggs. But horseshoe crab eggs have become depleted because most of the crabs have been scoffed up for bait. The result: Red Knot population crashes and burns.
Ecopundits say: “crime against nature.” Crab harvesters say: “we’re just making an honest living harvesting a natural resource that can be used for bait to catch commercially viable seafood.”
“Seafood,” by the way, means conch and eels. No, you won’t find them being featured on the menu of Cape May’s finer restaurants.
As you might imagine, I like birds. I am therefore predisposed to side with the Ecopundits and say: “save the birds.” But my old dad taught me to always try and see both sides of an issue (meaning his side, too) and after I thought about it I had to agree that the crab harvesters had a point.
I mean the main reason I like birds is because I like to watch them. That’s all.
When I look at something like a Red Knot do I say: “now there’s one of the planet’s most specialized long distance migrants” or “there’s a fragile strand in the web of living things that is our planetary safety net?” No. I say:
“Wow. There’s a real cool looking bird.” When I see a real cool bird it makes me happy. When I see a whole beach filled with Red Knots and Ruddy Turnstones and Sanderlings and Sandpipers do I say, “It is so incredible that one of the planet’s greatest natural spectacles is right here on our doorstop?” No. I say:
“Wow. This is a real cool natural spectacle.” It makes me happy.
Yep. That’s what it boils down to. It’s cool and it makes me happy.
Pretty selfish, huh?
It’s particularly selfish when you compare this to more epicurean motives.
What’s more important? Doing something because it makes you happy or doing something because ultimately something edible is going to land on somebody’s plate?
I know what Daddy Dunne would say. Dad really liked his victuals. He’d say that eating beats not eating. He’d say that unless you can eat it, it’s not worth its salt…
Or pepper, or horseradish, or Tabasco.
Much as I see the sense in this argument, I confess it does worry me a bit. I mean, there are a whole lot of things I like for no other reason except they make me happy. And if we apply an epicurean standard to the whole world, there are a whole lot things I really, really like that, when push comes to shove, are not going to prove to be not worth protecting.
And this is going to make me very unhappy.
The solution is obvious. If it makes you happy, make it edible. Then it will be important enough to protect and preserve. Here are some of my favorite recipes for my favorite things.
Rainbow Salad
Take one fresh rainbow. Slice it longitudinally, crossing color lines. Add one pot of gold, Dorothy, Toto; drizzle with glitter and serve over a bed of sunshine.
Sunset Soufflé
Preheat oven to the temperature of an old flame. Take one big, orange sunset. Add one beach, one ocean, one horizon-line, one memory filled with longing. Stir in melancholy to taste. Serve with the cry of gulls and the tug of surf on your ankles.
Spring Chicken
Take one fresh, young as you can be. Marinate overnight in a quilted bed without stirring. Rinse, dry, cut and run into a morning so beautiful it could break a Sphinx’s heart. Smell the air; listen to the birds; wander around the bend and when you get to a fork, take it.
Garnish with possibility. Serves two. Unless one of those seated at the table is Daddy Dunne. Then you better have lots of desert, too.
Next Steps to Protect the Red Knot -How you can take action to get the legislation passed for the harvest ban.