When Clement, my youngest son, appeared at the doorway, he was holding a squarish clear plastic cover over a styrofoam base. I was about to go for my evening exercise but stayed on to see what he had been learning for his one-day life sciences course.
Inside the squarish plastic cover were two insects; a large black butterfly with bluish spots and a infant grasshopper, both affixed to the styrofoam base with pins.
I carefully examine the “dead” specimen and to my horror, the butterfly was still alive. Despite the huge pin that was rammed through its thorax, its abdomen was still cringing, needless to say, in excruciating pain.
“Clement! why is the butterfly still alive!” I queried. “Not only me, but others also. Maybe the person do not have the time to kill the butterflies as there were many children there too,” said Clement rather nonchalantly.
“It is not right, you know,” I said. What the “person” s
hould be doing is to kill the butterfly as quickly and as humanely as possible, and not to let it die in a state of “cruxification” with pin rammed through its thorax and wide-spreaded wings (a total of 7 pins). Clement and Mervyn (my elder son) who were around suddenly seemed to realise that what I am sayng does make sense. WE SHOULD NOT just mindlessly capture beautiful insects for our own amusement. The butterflies and bees are needed to pollinate the flowers for our continual existence. Doing this is like killing a rhinoceros for it horns, or mounting a lion’s head in the living room purely for personal amusement. AND THIS IS WHAT MY SON HAS BEEN SPENDING HIS WHOLE DAY DOING – to catch insects and mount onto frames, and worst still, regardless whether they are dead or not!
However, for research purposes sometimes, experiments are being done on animals like mice as “guinea pigs” so to speak. However, I presume that they are treated as humanely as possible and not a slow and excruciating death.
Likewise, we, human beings, are omnivorous. We eat meat like fishes, beef, mutton, pork etc from live-stocks besides vegetables. I want to point out here that unlike herbivorous, we do not have the abundant cellulase or long enough digestive tracts to digest the cellulose for our overall well-being. Our genetic make-up necessitates the need for meat. Even in the monkey families, not all are vegetarians. The baboons, for examples are opportunistic eaters and, fond of crops, become destructive pests to many African farmers. They eat fruits, grasses, seeds, bark, and roots, but also have a taste for meat. They eat birds, rodents, and even the young of larger mammals, such as antelopes and sheep. (link)
Ok, back to the dying butterfly that was entombed in a glass container. I slowly yanked out the pin from its thorax and placed the remaining six pins from its wings. It was barely alive and I placed it onto a box with tissues moistened with water and a few drops of honey as food for its recovery if any. As I had guessed, it began to flap its wings after a few minutes and the next day, it was well enough to fly away from the window sill which my wife and rested it upon. I am not sure if it was strong enough to fly away as I wanted to place it in a park but since it had already flown away as my wife says so, I guess it must be so.
Hence the more butterflies and bees that we have, the more forest we also have. And more more oxygen and also substenance of the vastly degenerating ecological system (link). God had indeed created many creatures for a reason and that they should be all different even within the same species and classes. Some “lower-life form human beings” have difficulty understanding that and normally two totally opposing groups adhere to extremist and unrationalized views of each others with no compromise at all! Instead they try to make everyone walk and think the same like them. Never will they believe that majority of the people oscillate in the middle. There will be alot of angst and hatred instead. We should try to educate them. Love is a good start. Start with yoursel first and then you can love others. If you start on a wrong footing, to hate others first, then you will get caught in a spiralling or vortex of hatred that will consume you till the end of days. Both will see each other in hell, so to speak.
As I write this, my gaze chanced upon a framed glass with six butterflies hanging on my living room wall. What! I have one of these! Ok, I remember buying this in Malaysia, a few years back when I visited either East or Peninsualr Malaysia, at a tourist site. And I remember thinking it was so beautiful. Now, perhaps as a parent, I seeing it in a better light. And the way it is being taught or implemented as a “Life Science” for my kid in school, is perhaps, all the wrong reasons or someone’s personal agenda which we should not partake. I should also not purchase such framed butterflies for my own amusement anymore to save the dwindling forests in Malaysia. The “eco-tourism” there is killing itself too.
Perhaps a better way for teaching life science is to catch them alive and release them back into to forest or a proper sanctuary as responsible human beings. We should simply just admire them from a distance …. the butterflies, the moths and the bees…. as they work to keep us alive!
Cheers!
