4 - Wednesday, August 10, 1994 - North Shore News A feathered metaphor Bob Hunter STRICTLY PERSONAL I WAS feeding a Canada Goose the ofher day, or, rather, trying to feed it, when the possibilities of this crea- ture as a metaphor for our poor, beleaguered country struck me. The goose was Ivitering near our picnic table. | threw it a chip from my plate sf french fries. ftturned its great neck like a giraffe, eyes swiveiling to follow the trajeciory of the food, but by the time the message about where the meal had landed had worked its way from the brain down that long, won- drous neck to the legs, a gull had darted in and stolen the morsel. The goose tured its head this way and that, confused. If it could have frowned, it would have. All it managed was a slight accentuation of its normal expression of dul! bewilderment. - ] tried again. This time, a Mallard duck charged forward from a nearby pond and snatched the snack while, again, the Canada Goose was swiv- elling its head like a periscope to take a fix. Once more it blinked and rather stupidly poked at the ground where the chip had landed. Nothing there. Gee whiz. It looked up at me to see if I was pulling a fast one. The third time I tossed something its way to munch, making sure I got it real close to my large, feathered friend's bill, a crow flapped out of nowhere, noisily plucked the nour- ishment from the grass and took off, while the goose looked around, dazed, wondering what the heck was happening. You begin to see the metaphori- cal potential. Here is this huge bird, surround- ed by smaller birds that get to the food faster. The harsh reality of evo- lution seems to be, it is not all that terrific at competing! Not compared with gulls or ducks or crows, at any rate. And these are relatively slow moving characters as winged entities go. How has such a dull-witted behe- moth of a bird survived through the ages? The few larger cousins it has have not fared well in the last few centuries, beginning with the Elephant Bird of Madagascar, which was wiped out by sgilors wading ashore to steal its two-gallon eggs. The eagles and herons and wild turkeys have had a rough go of it, too, although they are coming back nicely, thank goodness. You might have thought, just because it makes such an easy tar- get, that the poor ofd Canada Goose would have gone the way of the Passenger Pigeon, which was. after all, a tougher thing to shoot, or might at least be suffering from the same sharp reduction in numbers among those ducks unlucky enough to have friends like Ducks Unlimited. Presumably the nystery of its survival has something to do with the Canada Goose having fucked out in terms of taste. Which is to say. it is an unsavory pile of web footed protein. You de pot hear of people cele. brating religious festivals by cating Canada Goose. . Thy most ardeatly carmivorous phase, Prever once ate the species, although C sampled nearly every kind of duck, chicken, turkey, game hen, pheasant, partridge and dames: Hieated goose vou can nani. This Hits the profile of a survivor ina planetary food chain dominated by hamans, all right, (fT was giving advice to a species in the process of evolving. | would urge them: Taste bad! Canada, the country, apparently tastes something awful toa bis chunk of its Francophone citizens. Ahat Metaphors bave acertain inter nal consistency, don't they? But, far more to the metaphorical Bf point, the Canada Goose bas it easy, quite Gikely caster thar aay other bird in the workd. Nobody tatfies in Canada Geese. 3g There is no market for then as an exotic bird that can be putin a cage. Accordingly, nobody traps them, drugs them, and stuffs them in ertes § to be smugyted halfway around the phinet. The Audubon Saciety Field Guide to North American Birds notes: “When people speak of ‘wild geese’ it is generally this species they have in mind ... When danger approaches they sometimes crouch low with neck extended, depending on their coloration for protection.” This is surely a variation on the theme of ostriches burying their heads in the sand. although nobody makes crouching low with your neck #Y extended an example of idiocy, and nobody actually makes jokes (so far & ; as I know) about Canadians being - dumb, what with us having the high- 4: est standard of living in the world, and all. i suspect that if the Canada Goose had somehow been named the American Goose, its fate would have been different. It might be extinct, for all I know. Or it might be | : protected by an act of Congress. Certainly, in Mexico it is known as the Mexican Goose, or at least that is what my hosts down there assured me, (Maybe they thought I was a dumb Canadian.) I have witnessed the awesome spectacle of Canada Geese getting ready to fly south. They flap around in circles barely § above ground level, almost crashing ; into each other, making a tremen- dous noise, and leaving the ground covered with feathers and what-not. It seems utterly impossible that they will ever achieve any kind of 652 Pumps Sr (with new Prolite 3 blade) PERSONAL INJURY Pee Uotial Coormaalt atau Doughis We Lah CLARK, WILSON SNOT ae 2b eds order, but, justia chaos theery pre dicts. order does eventually emerge out ofthe apparent nimidless canta sion, and ott the Canada Geese Ay in neat iebaly hierurehival Vo forma lions, Maybe this is where we are in Canada’s history notatthe end, butimerely atthe flapping. honking, bumping into-cach-ather stage of getting up mito the ain and leaning to Mock wyether. But, God. we're lazy and well- fed. and what a mess we make! 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