Don’t turn away from the awful scene. Take a moment to reflect. To think about the life that was. It’s only right.

This whitetail deer died sometime in the last week. I can’t be sure what killed her. Was it a collision with a motor vehicle? Or was she shot by a hunter and what remained of her carcass left alongside this wooded side road? It’s big game season here, and it’s also mating season for whitetails, so the deer are on the move. They sometimes run in front of oncoming motor vehicles and are struck. Sometimes they die immediately. Other times not. There are a lot of them in this part of the country, and some folks consider them a nuisance. But whatever your feelings for deer, it takes a hard heart to not be moved when you come upon a scene like this one.

 
It was cold. Cold enough that I couldn’t smell the carcass. My first thought was that the deer had been hit by a vehicle and that was that. Then I looked more closely. It’s hard not to see when you’re on a bike and climbing a steep hill at 6 mph.

 
As I looked more carefully while catching my breath after the climb, it became apparent that the deer had been butchered. Her hind quarters were missing.

 
What remained of her rear half—her skin and fur—had been tossed against a cut-bank 15 feet away.

 
Gone forever. What does it matter? It matters to me. I hope it matters to you. After all, it could be someone you care about. Or it could be you.

 
Death is off stage for most people most of the time. We know it happens, and know it will happen to us. It’s one thing we cannot escape. But death is held at arm’s length, something we don’t like to think about or contemplate. Never more than when we drive the roads. How many animals do we kill when we drive? How many animals have you struck? Even the most careful driver is to blame for the deaths of living beings, from insects (who cares about those?) and frogs, to birds and mammals. How many do we unwittingly kill? I don’t know the answer to that question, but when I’m riding my bike I sure do see a depressing number of dead animals on the roads, and in many ways worse, I see maimed animals like turtles who are barely alive and suffering agonizing pain trapped inside smashed shells. I do what I can for the ones I find healthy and alive—I take them to the roadside, safe, I hope. I do what I can for those I find who are injured. Most I find are dead already.

It’s terribly sad to see their corpses. And I thought it was about time that people came face-to-face with the slaughter, that people step out from the climate-controlled vehicles that cause the unnecessary deaths. I’m not ghoulish. I don’t like shooting photos of these animals who are the relatives of the ones I have come to know. But I shouldn’t be one of the few who notices them, to see the gruesome bodies—or what’s left of them—and I shouldn’t be alone in smelling them. You don’t smell them as you drive past the flesh and bones at high speeds with the windows closed tight, the music blaring, and the air conditioner in full blow. I want everyone to see, to see the horrible wreckage that’s taken on an innocent population. It may make no difference to show these photos. You certainly can’t hear the flies buzzing nor can you smell the sweet, stomach-turning rot. These animals who have died doing nothing more than go about their business deserve a memorial. They deserve to be remembered. So before I take them to the side of the road among the colorful flowers and tall grasses, I’ll memorialize them with my camera. Someone should. For the living, the survivors.

 
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My article about a porcupine killed by a motorist struck a chord in Brazil. Cyclist Helton Moreas was moved to write and tell me about a friend, Lauro Haber, who cycled through Brazil from north to south, and who photographed this motor vehicle-killed tamandu´ mirim. Lauro has given permission for us to include his photo in our “Absent Friends” gallery.

 
The tamanduá mirim is a relative of the tamanduá bandeira, an anteater ranging from Mexico down through South America. The one Lauro photographed was quite young, and is considered rare in Brazil, possibly endangered. See the original version of Lauro’s photo at his Picasa photo gallery.

 
Thanks to Lauro for permission to reprint his photo, and thanks also to Helton for bringing it to our attention. Death is off stage for most people most of the time. We know it happens, and know it will happen to us. It’s one thing we cannot escape. But death is held at arm’s length, something we don’t like to think about or contemplate. Never more than when we drive the roads. How many animals are killed by motorized vehicles? Too many. It’s time we stopped and looked. These animals who have died needlessly and they deserve a memorial. They deserve to be remembered.

 
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The Expert looked at his watch, and gave his companion a thumbs-up. The job wouldn’t take long. A flight of finches exploding into the air. Neither man noticed. The Expert eyeballed the old pine. He didn’t see the red squirrel clinging to the trunk. He saw only the brown needles and the bare limbs.

“What good is a dead tree?” the Expert asked, not expecting an answer. His companion knew the question was purely rhetorical. And he marked the pine for removal.

The two men thought they were alone. But they were wrong. And the Others who were present did their best to answer the Expert’s question. He wasn’t listening, though. Perhaps he never had. In any case, his companion was anxious to get going. Time is money, after all, and the Expert had more trees to condemn.

Yet the dissenting voices of the Others continued to make their case, long after the Expert had gone. It’s too bad that no one stayed around to listen to them.

These jays would have told him that they took shelter in the pine whenever an icy norther blew down from Canada. As so would this Nashville warbler, …

Who often found a meal among the dead and dying branches, too. Nor were they alone.

The Others included red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatches, hairy and downy woodpeckers, rose-breasted and pine grosbeaks, black-capped chickadees, common redpolls, and yellow-bellied sapsuckers. Not to mention a chipmunk, …

And the red squirrel—the same red squirrel the Expert didn’t see.

The roots of the pine offered shelter, too. Just ask this shrew, …

Who’s snatching a quick drink from the remains of an old flowerpot.

What good is a dead tree? The Others know, even if the Expert does not. Their pine is a home to some and a source of food to many. It offers a refuge in storms and a vantage point in all weathers. And as it decays, it returns nutrients to the soil, nourishing the young pines that will shelter and feed generation upon generation of Others.

Another dead pine, not far away from the Others’ tree, give turtles a place to sun themselves after the spring has freed them from their icy prison. They tunnel up from the black ooze into the light. And then…

What good is a dead tree? Now you, too, can answer this question. The Others won’t be heard. You will, though. But only if you choose to speak.

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