We subscribe to a Yahoo forum for residents of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Usually the topics discussed are related to living here.
The other night Craig read the following entry to me.
"l am currently on my first ever business trip to China. This list popping up in my e-mail, with tidbits of mountain life from time to time is a wonderful connection to home whilst traveling thru this overpopulated cacophony.
I've always enjoyed the woods, the birds and the animals where we live… but when the birds crap on my stair railing, or the deer eat my flowers or my treasured Maples… I confess... I get a bit angered by them.
No more.
It took me a couple days to realize that there are no birds here. No birds, Zip, None, Zilch. I have not seen a single one. At first I thought it was the pollution… and in part it certainly must be. I have asked at least 10 people about this and they all say the same thing however. "People ate them." "WHAT?" "Okay" I ask, "when you go out of the city away from all this pollution there must be birds?" "No, no birds in China. Even when I go to my home town in the middle of China there are no birds." "What about other animals… deer, fox, etc.?" "No, no deer, no wild animals. People ate them all." I've been trying to tell them about the mountain lions, the deer that eat my maples that I go out and throw rocks at, the great horned owls in the trees that I hoot to... and they hoot back. Spring time when the air is alive with the songs of thousands of birds. The video camera we put by the birds nests to watch the chicks hatch. They look at me like I'm telling tall tales. "No, there is a bird park where you can go about 60 kilometers north of here where they have some birds." "They are protected so nobody can eat those birds." "I went to Germany once and I saw some wild birds...Swans in a park!" I am just flabbergasted. I didn't believe it at first, but have asked many people in several different places and I get the same response. "People cook . People cook everything taste good. But it all gone now." The entire environment cooked? Seriously?
No birds, and no sunglasses. I have probably seen 100,000 people in the last 2 hours, and not one pair of sunglasses. No need. The sky is brown. People look at me funny when I wear mine. I leave them in the hotel now. I can't see well with sunglasses at high noon. It's too dark under the yellow-brown lens of the sky.
OMG we live in a wonderful place. Next time a doe eats my fuchsias… I'm gonna invite her back for a second helping of blossoms. I'm not sure about the crap on the stair railings… can we find another place for that guys? … okay, if you must.
-Kevin"
I do recall reading that the early Communist government ordered people to chase the birds so they would not eat the crop seeds, but I would have thought they had returned by now.
I guess not.
