HELPING ALL OUR RELATIONS

1. Birds: You can always put up a bird feeder or two if you have your own land. What do you do if you live in an apartment building, though? There are some very small bird feeders available that could be put outside your window. It is better, though, if you can put a feeder over a grassy area where you will not have to sweep up the seed husks. Some birds can transmit a disease to humans called histoplasmosis through their droppings. If the seeds and droppings fall on the ground, though, you don't have to worry about cleaning them up, as they naturally decay.

Another thing you can put up in a tree for birds is suet. Suet is fat which you can obtain from any butcher, and provides high energy material for the birds.

Almost as important as the food is water. Many supplies of water freeze up during the winter, so having a birdbath kept full of water is very helpful for the birds. You can buy a small water heater, but you can also put a couple small plastic balls in the water. As long as any wind is blowing it will move the balls which will keep the water from freezing.

Bird food can be bought at the supermarket or at feed mills. A good generic food is sunflower seeds. Fruits can also be put out for birds. You might also want to consider bird houses if you have some trees where you live.

2. Squirrels: Squirrels do not really hibernate during the winter, and so they also have a need for food. You can put out nuts for them, and they will also eat some kinds of bird food. You can also put up dried corn for them on a stick, or just spread seeds out for them to eat.

Squirrels, by the way, have a tremendous intelligence and inventiveness, so if you have a bird feeder, expect it to be visited by squirrels unless you take extraordinary measures to prevent them from doing so. Squirrels have to eat too, you know.

3. Bats: Bat boxes can be put out for them. Now why would anyone want to help a bat? Because bats can eat about five hundred mosquitos a night, that's why!

4. Raccoons: Someplace where they can sleep in the daytime, including holes under sheds, etc.

For most of us, those are the main animals we will be dealing with. For those who live out in the country, additional animals need help. Hay can be put out for deer; table scraps and cat food for foxes; roosting boxes for owls; ice-free ponds for frogs, and logs and stones where lizards can hibernate.

Another thing that you can do for the animal kingdom is to consider joining PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. There is a great controversy about whether animals should be used in disease research. The controversy though, is often misdirected by anti-PETA groups. The main points are that (1) if it is not absolutely necessary to use animals, then they shouldn't be used, and (2) if they are used, then they should be treated humanely.

In addition, for those of you who have children in school, you can express your opposition to the dissection of animals. Not long ago there was an expose' on TV about one of the biological supply houses that supplies dead animals for dissection. Cats were shown being thrown into a device, to gas them to death. The device was not efficient, and many of the cats were still alive when the company injected preserving materials into their bodies.

There is no practical reason for dissection in the public schools at all! If someone wants to become a vet or a doctor, then they will be involved with it in college. At the high school level and lower, there is nothing a student can learn by taking apart an animal that they could not learn from a videotape or a computer program simulating dissection.

One experience I had did not really upset me at the time since I was then thoroughly indoctrinated into the "accepted" norms of college behavior. Now I feel I would protest in the strongest fashion possible the event. In biology the professor cut open a living frog so we could watch its heart beat.

Now, let's look at the logic of this. If a creature is alive (and it has the complexity to have a heart), then its heart will be beating. If its heart is not beating, then the creature is dead. No great intellectual genius is needed to follow that conclusion; thus, the cutting open of a living frog to show us its heart beating was totally and absolutely unnecessary (and cruel).

Also, there is no need to buy fur coats made from real furs. Coats made from non-animal materials are actually warmer than the "real" furs, and do not involve the deaths of thousands of innocent animals. This is quite similar to the massacre of thousands of buffalo by hunters who often extracted maybe the tongue, or at most took the hide of the buffalo and left all the meat to rot.

Also, if you have cats or dogs, make sure you have them neutered unless you want to have kittens and puppies running around. Other pets such as hamsters, birds, mice and laboratory rats should be protected from any drafts, especially during the winter. Also remember that your pets have their own intellectual side; most pets are inherently curious about their surroundings, especially mice and cats, and you should have various toys for them to play with. Little ladders to climb and miniature houses for mice, hamsters and rats are especially nice.

Being kind to nature involves more than just being kind to people. Be kind to all your relations!