“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Gandhi
Keep that quotation in mind while reading. I'm a BIG animal lover...
Well I know I've been very vocal on the blog lately, probably overwhelmingly so, but there's just so much to share! And I couldn't possibly pass the chance to tell this story to everyone I can! It absolutely will warm your heart!
So my best buds and I are sitting in J street for dinner. We picked a table by the windows, as we always do, and had our first J street meal since before break. It was fun and we had a bunch of laughs and told stories about our days and our breaks, when suddenly, a slew of leaves falls from a tree right outside of the window, and lands on the brick below. Our table and the 2-3 around us all had a start, and then we looked a bit below to see that there was a squirrel in the pile of leaves, and it had fallen from the tree! We looked closer and it appeared to be wrestling something! We were all flabbergasted thinking this awful squirrel was attacking some poor defenseless birdies, when we realized--it was a squirrel nest, and that wasn't a bird, it was a baby squirrel! Moreover, the big squirrel wasn't attacking or eating it, she was the mommy trying to scoop up her baby who had fallen from about 20 feet above!
The mother scampered off with the baby in her mouth and we were relieved--but wait! There was another baby squirrel lying on the hard brick! People were standing all around, and had been for a while, one jerk (I used a lot more colorful language to describe him when the event was actually going on) was just standing over the poor animal with his camera phone shooting video. Upon seeing that, a couple of us decided we were going to go outside and move the baby to the mulch so that it wouldn't be sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, in harm's way. Our heartstrings had been gripped tightly and we just couldn't let go until we knew both babies would be safe.
But just as we began frantically scooping up our bags and garbage from the table, a saintly young woman (she deserves a medal!) comes up, has a quick chat with one of the guys that's just standing there, and the two of them scoop up the baby with some of the larger pieces of mulch twigs, moving the baby under a bush on the soft mulch. We were so thrilled!
This story isn't over yet though, because the mother, after presumably depositing her one baby in a safe place, came back for the second and couldn't find it, as it had been moved! The poor thing was desperately scouring the area, LITERALLY turning over every leaf to find her baby, and she couldn't! And to our dismay, we couldn't think of a way to guide her in the right direction, under the bush! "Our solution was to yell out, 'warmer, warmer--nonono, colder..." as though that would help at all, but we realized it wasn't quite working. We were just about to give up hope, when she scampered towards the bush and finally reunited with the baby! We all let out a huge cheer, and watched as she tore away with the little one.
The whole thing made me love nature and kindhearted people who help animals and animals who care for their young and I think that human nature is good, damnit! I mean, that woman could have just walked by and gone home after her hard day at work, but she stopped to help this poor defenseless creature, still too young to walk on its own! I just had to share this story, it absolutely lit up my soul. It really makes me want to go out and save the world (or some baby squirrels)!
... but first I need a nap. It was a tiring day, and not just on the zoological front. Soooo email me some time, I'll tell ya all about it! ShireenS@gwmail.gwu.edu
<3 Shireen
No comments:
Post a Comment