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I recently "rescued" a sea gull with a broken wing. I approached it while I was riding my bike on a very busy road filled with speeding wood-laden trucks and various other vehicles. The bird ran from me as well as it could, dragging its broken wing behind it; and as sea gulls are much more efficient at flying than walking, this was quite a feat. I managed to scare the creature off the road as well as I could, as I felt it was much safer in the fields beside the road, than on the road. Then I went home, feeling a little better with myself, as I believed I had helped the creature.

The next morning I was driving my Jeep to work along the same road, and lo and behold, there was the same (at least I think it was) gull wending its way along the road, a full 3/4 kms further along from where it was the night before. It had survived a full twelve hours on a very busy roadway. I was carrying a cat cage in the back of the vehicle, and I successfully captured the bird.

My philosophical quandary occurred shortly thereafter, as the local wild animal reserve, in consultation with the vet (who said the wing would never heal correctly, and the bird would be permanently disabled), made the decision that the creature should be killed by lethal injection. I, who had been the supposed hero, did not do anything further to prevent the death of the animal.

My quandary? Did I do the morally "right" thing in interfering with the "natural" course of events? Should I have "rescued" the bird again from the vet who was going to kill it, as I had already interfered in the "normal" run of events by rescuing the creature in the first place? I firmly believe that in some far future time we (humans) will attain a state where all life forms will be considered sacred, and the death of any creature, caused by another either by action or inaction, will be considered an immoral thing. Believing this, I know that any person "visiting" from that future time will be morally bound by their time, as anyone from today who "visited" the past would be still bound by our beliefs and laws about murder. How should I have acted?

November 7, 2005

Response from Joseph G. Moore on November 7, 2005
By my lights, both you and the vet did exactly the right things. You initially helped the bird help itself (by putting it out of harm's way), and then, when that seemed insufficient, took it to a place where you thought it could get medical attention. In my view, the vet also did the right thing in euthanizing the gull on his or her considered judgment that any other course of action would result in much greater suffering.

Your qualms seem really to be with euthanasia, and your role in enabling it. One question to ask is how you think the gull (or the world) would have been better had the the gull not been euthanized, but rather left, in all likelihood, to die much more painfully a few days later. Many would argue that the euthanasia maximized the quality if not the length of the gull's life. The gull may have died more naturally and with more dignity if let be, but this is debatable I think, and in any case difficult to weigh against the much greater suffering. We have to be careful here to strip away the sentiment we may attach to the different deaths.

I wonder also whether your visitor from the future--the one who holds that all life is sacred--would really disapprove of your actions. What does it mean in practical terms to consider the gull's life to be "sacred"? We might well argue that this is to care about the gull-- to consider its well-being when interacting with it. And taking actions (including euthanasia) that pre-empt significant and unnecessary suffering seems precisely to give the gull this type of consideration.

Having made this case, I don't mean to underestimate the complexities, emotional and otherwise, that arise from your encounter with the gull. That you and the vet did the right thing is my view, but that's not to say that one can take these actions without any qualms or or feelings of discomfort. It was, though, from the start, a sad situation--on any scenario, and any way of thinking about it.

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