Murder In The Utility Room
I feel like a murderer. Logically, I can accept that I’m not a murderer, since I’ve not killed anyone, deliberately or otherwise. Emotionally however, it’s a little more difficult since last weekend I deliberately killed a little birdie in the house which had never done me any harm.
There were some mitigating factors I’d like to raise in my defence: firstly, the bird was in a lot of pain, having lost several portions of wing, many feathers, some blood and appeared unable to move anything other than its head. Secondly, it was probably dying anyway. Thirdly, I thought it would be kinder to kill it as quickly as possible than to either allow it to die slowly or wait for the cats to come back in and finish eviscerating it.
So I basically hacked its head off. Unpleasant to imagine, even more unpleasant to do.
And then I carefully disposed of the carcass — and what appeared to be two more of the same species which were already dead — from the utility room.
Ick. Yuck etc.
The whole ethical aspect of it puzzles me though. Rationally, it feels like I did the right thing. Emotionally, I feel like I’ve killed an innocent little birdie and I’m some sort of horrible avian murderer.
Except of course that when it comes to avianicide, then my two cats are way out in front of me, having probably been averaging one bird a week between them for the four years I’ve had them. It’s really quite simple: any birds who don’t fly away immediately upon hearing a jingling cat bell don’t get to pass on their genes to future generations.
But to me, that’s fine. I’d rather they didn’t bring dead things home (the worst ones are when you don’t even know what it was), but to me that’s just cats being cats. It’s natural, there’s nothing wrong with it, and I can tolerate this behaviour.
I don’t particularly like birds anyway: pigeons are just rats with wings and the rest of them aren’t much better, crapping on the car and so on.
So why do I feel so bad about killing a little tweetie bird that was going to die anyway?
Hello. I am 
Well, if you eat chicken then you’re likely to be contributing to the systematic abuse of birds, and abuse which is much worse than your utility bird suffered. In a couple of months I’ll start killing perfectly healthy chickens to eat them - just as innocent as any wild bird, and born just to satisfy our desire to eat meat. I’ll make sure they have a swift and painless exit, and a safe and happy life before that, but I won’t feel guilty - otherwise how could I ever eat meat again?
As for your wee birdie, you did exactly the right thing in killing it. You’re just a big softie.
I know exactly what you saying I have this example; I was driving through a country lane in kent when I suddenly caught sight of sheep with it’s head snagged with barbed wire. It must had been in difficulty for some time as it had deep gashes all around its neck, and of course red blood on whitish fur only served to leave me feeling quite queezy I have tell you the whole event lasted hourse as I made calls to varioius people and seeking advice from friends and family I was saved from the ordeal of witnessing the sheeps ordeal by the farmer finally ariving on the scene. I know exactly what you saying, I have this example; I was driving down a country lane in Kent when I suddenly caught sight of sheep with its head snagged with barbed wire. It must had been in difficulty for some time as it had deep gashes all around its neck, and of course red blood on whitish fur only served to leave me feeling quite queasy I have tell you the whole event lasted hours as I made calls seeking advice from friends and family and various people. The farmer finally arriving on the scene eventually saved me from the ordeal of witnessing the sheep’s ordeal. After some inspection and deliberation he commented that the sheep would be better off killed and thanked for my help. I drove away with one though in my head - surely there was some other way besides killing the poor thing. It ruined the rest of my day. When I arrived home I relayed the harrowing experience to the rest of my family over dinner..You guessed it ‘Roast Lamb’ it’s all about thought process I guess!!