The Vultures of Lake Casitas and Cozumel

I Went to the lake today and watched the red, black and grey turkey vultures, Cathartes aura, circling above, celebrating life in the sky—silent in soft breeze, basking in winter sun; slowly gliding to earth and gathering on the water’s edge.

The vultures live long lives. Like Shanti and me.

In flight they spread their zigzagged grey-black wings that span an astonishing 70 inches. Pacifists and environmentalists, they thrive for decades without natural enemies, recycling the biosphere, cleaning up the mess of death.

I’m reminded of a week I spent in Cozumel 22 years ago. One morning I stumbled on a colony of vultures perched in the branches, overlooking heaps of garbage. I had seen ibises, roseate spoonbills, alligators and flocks of gloriously raucous red-lored Amazon parrots on that trip, but the vultures—up close and personal—were especially amazing. They sat hunched in their trees, aloof and dignified in the tropical heat, unperturbed by my sudden entrance, happy in their niche.

I return to Shanti in captivity, in his artificial habitat. My walks among the wild vultures and my memories of the Amazon parrot flock only make me appreciate him more.

I'm grateful to Shanti for his unintended sacrifice of the skies, branches and fruits and nuts of his African forest. Born in captivity, he’ll never experience the perfect fit of his species to natural selection. We owe our birds so much.

Birds are forgiving, as are we until we let our resentments and grudges boil and fester. The evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson says, “Forgiveness has a biological foundation that extends throughout the animal kingdom.”

We civilized human being make a big deal of forgiveness, codifying the concept into our value systems and our long-winded religious doctrines. Nonhumans, however, forgive naturally all the pokes, pecks and displacements of outrageous fortune.

How can we repay their trust and boundless affection?