Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 14:38:37 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Scott Michaud Subject: A Movie Star Who Favors Pigeon Meat Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed New York Times, May 31, 2002 By JOHN TIERNEY For some time now, Pale Male has been a subject best not mentioned in the company of pigeon-loving New Yorkers. But we can't keep avoiding him much longer. Pale Male is more than ready for his close-up. This red-tailed hawk, who has built a home and sired a family on Fifth Avenue near 74th Street, is the star of a new award-winning documentary narrated by Joanne Woodward, and he may be going Hollywood soon. Nora Ephron hopes to start filming a feature movie next year about the people who watch him from Central Park. To some pigeon lovers, these are welcome developments. They see any news about New York birds as good news, especially if it manages to depict the city's bird-obsessed humans without making them look too weird. In this case, there's no denying that "Pale Male," directed and produced by Frederic Lilien, is a beautifully made documentary about a hawk paterfamilias and the community of humans following him with binoculars, telescopes and cameras. But to other pigeon lovers, this is no heartwarming story. This is a pigeon snuff film. Mr. Lilien's script doesn't dodge the tough ethical questions even as it celebrates Pale Male's pioneering spirit. It describes how this young male arrived in 1991 and became the first red-tailed hawk known to settle in modern Manhattan. He chose a ledge a few floors above Mary Tyler Moore's apartment. "He was young, perhaps less than a year old," Ms. Woodward narrates. "Yet already he was bold, focused, self-assured. The bright lights and the big city did not intimidate him. This was a hawk with the right stuff. He had come here to hunt, and the Big Apple was a feast spread before him." The ingredients of the feast didn't know what hit them. "It's been uncounted generations since the creatures of Central Park have had to fear a predator in broad daylight," Ms. Woodward explains. "Now a serial killer is on the loose." Is this fair? "In a way," Ms. Woodward concedes, "Pale Male violates everything Central Park is about. It's supposed to be an experience of a romantic, utopian nature. It was never intended to harbor the real thing." The documentary shows Pale Male swallowing a rat and catching a squirrel, but the most dramatic hunting scenes feature him dive-bombing pigeons and bringing a victim back to the nest. The film shows one appalled pigeon-lover, Richard, who sprinkles pigeon feed daily in Central Park. He's not the greatest ambassador for pigeon lovers ? many of us think public feeding is way over the line and terrible for our image ? but he makes an eloquent argument: "This is not the wild, and it is not really a pleasant thought or sight to see city birds being attacked and devoured by the hawks. It's simply an inappropriate habitat for them. What I abhor and deplore is the attitude of people that say, `Well they are doing a good thing for the city by getting rid of pigeons, you know.' This is intolerable to me." Intolerable? I sympathize with his distress, but maybe it's time we learned to tolerate Pale Male. Even if pigeon lovers don't approve of his hunting, we have to admit that it's a better spectator sport than watching pigeons root around in garbage. And the more popular Pale Male becomes, the more public pressure there is to keep him and his family supplied with healthy pigeons. Several years ago, when some New Yorker was killing pigeons with poison, it wasn't until the chemical worked its way up the food chain and killed a red-tailed hawk that the poisonings caused much public concern. The hawks give pigeons a reason for living that makes sense even to the most cynical pigeon-hating New Yorkers, the kind of people who could barely sit through the "Circle of Life" number in "The Lion King." In his own way, Pale Male is saving pigeons' lives, and there's no danger of his hunting doing much damage to the species. He's been here for a decade, but there are still eight million pigeons in the naked city. _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================