I got all PETA for a second there.
A month ago I flew 27 hours from Prague to the town I grew up in, Kingsburg, CA, for my grandfather’s 90th birthday party. The party itself was a great time and a wonderful occasion to catch up with members of my extended family who I don’t get to see very often (read: once or twice a decade).
Happy birthday Grandpa!
A few days after the party my mom and I went for a walk with the dog. Because the backyard of my parents’ home opens up to acres and acres of farmland, our version of walking the dog doesn’t include leashes or bags, just opening the gate and walking around in the country while the dog digs for gophers and smells/pees on stuff. Having grown up with this system of dog ownership, to this day I mostly just feel really bad for dogs that live confined in sterile city homes, and even worse for their plastic bag poop scooping owners.
On this particular day we walked the usual route from the house (A) behind the neighbor’s yards and along a shallow irrigation ditch. The Central Valley’s scorching summers are entirely rain-free and so the fields are fed with reserved reservoir water via a vast network of canals and ditches. It being early November the year’s crop had been entirely harvested and, with water no longer diverted from the river, the ditches were beginning to dry out for the winter. As I walked along the cement bank of our neighborhood ditch I noticed that one particular muddy puddle was rife with movement.
In a scene reminiscent of an sub-Saharan nature show, about twenty stranded perch had followed the water’s decent to its lowest point and were congregated around a boulder with their backs exposed to the encroaching air. Though I’m a remorseless eater of fish, and quite capable of watching even the most manipulative of late night Sarah McLachlan scored sad animal commercials without expending the slightest excess of emotion, it seemed like a waste for these fish to just dry up and die, and I, well, felt pity for Darwin’s losers. Also, once I pointed the scene out to my mom, she got pretty insistent we do something to help.
I walked back to the house, grabbed a couple five gallon buckets and a pool skimmer and drove back in our family’s truck to the stranded fish. Then I offered my now shoeless mom hearty moral support as she literally did the dirty work.
With the fish all scooped up, I slowly drove them a mile to the nearby Kings River.
A few of the fish stupidly jumped out of the buckets during the drive, but I saved them anyway, probably because my boundless empathy and compassion.
Swim free little fish! I hope you provide a larger fish or predatory bird with a magnificent meal!
