Helping or Harming?

I'm the type of person that rescues spiders out of the bath tub or ushers trapped flies back outside again. I always have been and I assumed I always would be.

Until, that is, an unfortunate situation last year made me think twice and a bit deeper about the balance of nature.

It was a warm summer day and I had been scrambling with a friend on the southern approach of Pen yr Ole Wen, a mountain on the Carneddau range in Snowdonia, North Wales.

About two-thirds of the way up the weather began to change as we entered the clouds. The wind picked up and a blanket of fine British drizzle swept across the jagged rocks between us and the summit.

From the rugged, faded outline of the ridge above us, we could hear what sounded like a baby crying. Surely nobody would bring a tiny child this far up the mountain?

We scurried up the rock face we were positioned on and stepping onto a plateau, we could clearly see what all the noise was about.

An adult sheep, in search of the perfect grazing patch, had wandered along the edges of the cliff and become stranded on a tiny ledge, bleating like crazy and unable to get itself back up to safety.

As we appeared over the ridge line, the sheep spotted us and mammal to mammal, it looked us right in the eyes and began bleating frantically as if in an attempt to ask for help. It was strange to see an animal, which typically keep their distance from hikers, wanting to be approached by a human so badly.

What stuck in my mind the most though, was the two crows that had spotted the commotion and were taking it in turns to aggressively dive-bomb the unfortunate sheep to quicken the death process.

There was nothing we could have done. We wanted to but the ledge was way down on the face of the cliff and we couldn't figure out how the sheep had even got down there in the first place. We were a good two-hour scramble back down the way we came to the nearest phone and even then, what would the farmer, if we could find him, be able to do?

Eliminating all possible conclusions other than the inevitable mutton, we walked away solemnly not being able to help the situation.

In an effort to make myself feel better about ignoring the cries of a fellow living creature in distress, I thought about the scavenging crows and how they have to stay alive on such a bleak landscape.

The more I thought about it, the more it rang true. We had simply witnessed natural selection being played out. The dumbest sheep versus the smartest crow right? and who were we to play God, and intervene?

Don't get me wrong, if it was a human, it would obviously be a different story!

I've been reminded of this story lately because for the last couple of weeks there has been a hawk landing on the grass verge outside my house, right next to the road and is happily being fed by the school kids as they walk back from the local shop.

This elusive predator is often only seen circling high above the fields and forests, not sat by the side of a busy road eating cheese and onion pasties.

My first instinct was to lure it into my garden with some raw chicken and hopefully have a regular visitor that I could show my son. But then I thought of the sheep and the crow situation and decided otherwise.

Who knows what domino effect we cause by acting blindly out of empathy and kindness.

This isn't a case of the smartest hawk, it's the case of the laziest one. Somewhere not far from here there is an army of rats and mice descending on a field of crops, unchallenged and potentially ruining a poor farmers year!

So, as nice as it is to see such a majestic bird up close, it should be doing what hawks do and not scavenging on the pavement, which means no chicken from me!

My empathy was weakened further recently when I read that even the Dalai Lama only gives a fly three chances before being swatted!

You'll be glad to know I still rescue spiders from the bath.

Thanks for reading and apologies for the grim post during the festivities!