Monday, August 27, 2007

A Tender Moment




This evening I spent some quiet time with nature. A mother and child treated me to this capture as they tenderly groomed one another.

Moments such as these are rarely seen or appreciated by “consumptive only” users of wildlife.

I am reminded of the wildlife criminals I have dealt with. Although that part of my life is now in the past, still I can find no compassion in my heart for them.

10 comments:

Chad Oneil Myers said...

I like your retrospective commentary about your time as a game law officer.

Jill said...

How sweet! You're so lucky to see this.

Unknown said...

Precious. I love to watch animals interact. They can be so gentle and caring toward one another. And you know its genuine and natural.

We two legged animals could take lessons from these gentle creatures.

Tom said...

A beautiful moment, and very well captured.

Shionge said...

Oh how sweet, it is like National Georgraphy :)

Mr. Mapper said...

enjoyed your photos. Thanks for taking the time to stop by my new blog.

Anonymous said...

Excellent shot. I wish we had them here but my backyard is so small for a city lot. I love wildlife and the people who portray it are almost always special.

lv2scpbk said...

Wonderful shot. Animals are great and they never take a bad photo.

Willard said...

This post brings a statement to mind that is a variation on the title of one of our favorite books and movies, "We Were Soldiers Once And Young".

It made me think that that the title for a portion of our lives could well be- "We Were Wardens Once And Young". As I travled to Shenandoah National Park today to photograph whitetail bucks another retired agency employee and I discussed your post and wildlife conservation in general.

I came to the conclusion that I would not have wanted to miss the opportunity to fight wildlife criminals, but now that that aspect of our lives is behind us and we are older I would not want to do it again at this stage in life, or at least by the methods we used as officers.

Many cannot comprehend what we saw and encountered in over twenty years as conservation officers, or the attitude that some have toward wildlife.

For example we dealt with many who would view sighting these animals as simply an opportunity to see if they could kill them both or if more were present, just how many they could put down at one time.

The area where these animals were photographed has been the scene of numerous violations over the years and most likely will be the scene of more in the future.

The typical scenario is that the violator drives to the area, sees deer and fires at them from the roadway, usually firing while still in the vehicle. This may or may not be in season, but it is always a violation of multiple regulations such as hunting by use of motorized vehicle, etc. not to mention that these deer are protected as this is an area posted against hunting.

The violators are never sorry about what they did, only that they were caught.

Lilli & Nevada said...

Oh it is wonderful to see the tenderness of wildlife, It always amazes me how someone can go out and do harm to nature, when you see things like this it makes you wonder how anyone can harm them.