Of seals and horses

Last month I saw a seal. A real one, a wild one, not in a zoo, not doing tricks for fish and the enjoyment of tourists. I was crossing a bridge, and I looked down into the water of the docks. I like seeing the birds swimming around among all the buildings, despite the moored barges and the darkness of the quiet water that seeps in from the river. There are seagulls, ducks, a sort of black birds with greenish-yellowish legs and even swans. So when I first saw the black shape floating, I thought it was a dark bird preening (as there was no head). But nope, a second later I realised there were these shiny orbs looking straight at me, nostrils opening and closing and that what was bobbing slightly in the dark water was the slicked-back head of a seal!

I was shocked, excited, and worried all at once. Shocked because there I was, in a dock in urban London looking at a wild seal in the water. Excited, because there I was, looking at this beautiful surprise and it was looking back at me. And worried, because it was obviously tired (I was not afraid it might be hungry, as there are plenty of fish there - there are even fishermen around an adjacent area of the dock), lost, as well as probably quite stressed by the whole situation. Yet what amazed me most of all was that, although we spent a couple of minutes looking at each other, no one else noticed! If they perceived me gazing down, they at most sent an absentminded glance which did not allow them to really SEE the seal.

The miracle I was witnessing was missed by them, yet I cannot feel sorry for them. They did not see because they did not care enough to think about the world around them; particularly, I believe, because it appeared to be a "mere" bird. Animals are, way too often, mere background, even expendable commodities. Unless an animal is one's own pet, people tend to ignore the suffering of others, to use and abuse them. How can we dissociate so completely? Even more to the point, how can we dissociate while we are so aware of it?

The Tony Awards this year celebrated the British play "War Horse", a tale about a young man trying to find his horse, "requisitioned" by the army during World War I. This is a story about a very real possible scenario at the time in a country well known for its love of horses, a country which set up statues to the memory of the animals that fell "while in service". Commendable remembrance, I agree, although I cannot help thinking it is (like all war memorials) a case of 'too little, too late'. The people who took and take those animals - horses, mules, dogs, oxen...- into the battlefield do it considering only human comfort, human need for transportation, bomb sensing, load pulling. There was no consideration for the animals' bewilderment at being in a situation they neither understand nor can reap benefit from; taken from their packs, their herds, their families, the familiar territories, they were taken for granted because they were property.

I often feel that we, as a species, have great responsibility: awareness of how we affect the world (now even the near outer planetary space) must pervade our choices, our actions. There is a growing awareness of environmental issues: clean energies, recycling, organic food. I am worried, though, that these might be like pets at wartime, and they should go out the window when the going gets a bit tougher for our man-made reality. Unless people look and see behind the issues, they will remain welcome to receive our scraps but little else.

I saw the seal's eyes. I will refuse to see the seal as a statue to sacrifice.