PhotoDude.com

Wed. Dec 15, 2004

Nature Always Wins, Eventually

It’s been a week since the famous red-tailed hawk, Pale Male, was evicted from his nest of nine years at 927 Fifth Avenue.

There were those who had the opinion “How would you like a gigantic hawk’s nest on top of your house? It’s called private property rights. The Hawk will survive.” (um, so would your property if the hawk had remained). And we are talking about “roughly 10 people” who pay over ten grand a month in maintenance fees on their $18 million units.

You’d think a lowly hawk and his supporters wouldn’t have a chance against such a small group of hyper-rich people, who could easily insulate themselves from any kind of protest against them. But you would be wrong.

The New York Times reports “A week after it removed a red-tailed hawks’ nest from its facade and was met by a storm of protest, a Fifth Avenue co-op building agreed yesterday to requests by the Audubon Society to help the hawks rebuild.”

I have to be honest. I never figured this would happen. I saw some heartless rich people doing whatever they wanted, as heartless rich people have done since the beginning of time. No reason to think a simple hawk would change that.

So it is heartening to see that, even in Manhattan, your money won’t necessarily insulate you from your soulless acts. And as for the issue of “property rights,” you most certainly have them in this country, but when you exercise them in blatant disregard for your surroundings, your surroundings may turn against you.

In my opinion, the co-op board of this building reduced their property value with their soulless actions in the past week … far more than the hawk did in nine years. Now that the property value is back on the rise, perhaps those owners so upset about the nest can put their unit up for sale, and find new owners who will be proud to live in “Pale Male’s building.”

Because I’m now certain they vastly outnumber the “nest haters.” How else could this result have come to pass?

Two blots in this silver lining. Once it became know that Paula Zahn of CNN lived in this building (her husband appears to be the primary instigator of the removal), she justifiably started catching flack. I personally sent an e-mail to CNN. But one guy went too far, and harassed her and her children on the sidewalk outside the building. That person went to jail. When you terrorize a 7 year old child over the eviction of a bird, well, you’ve become the thing that you hate.

Finally, and most importantly, no one can predict if Pale Male and Lola will rebuild their nest once the pigeon spikes are replaced (replacing the old nest would seem very problematic … even if it was saved on removal, it’s now filled with strange scents). In the first days after the nest was removed, they attempted to rebuild, but without those spikes, the wind blew away the branches they carried to the ledge. It’s now a week later, and they may not try again. Even if they do, the last time Pale Male’s nest was destroyed, it was two years before he bred again.

Which brings the pointlessness of this act into focus. Apparently the only difference in the structure they will replace is that the nest area will have a protective cage of some type around it, to prevent debris falling to the sidewalk. Gee, I think you could have put that in place without removing the nest, eh?

But instead, you tried to wipe your building clean of Mother Nature. And, one way or another, eventually, Mother Nature always comes back. She’s got her own interpretation of “property rights,” and it’s been around a lot longer than yours.