Chuckles and Arabelle: Who They Are, Not How They "Taste"

Chuckles came to Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary in 2001; he was around 1 year old, and had been found wandering the streets in Northeast DC.

When Arabelle arrived at Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary last summer, she was a tiny baby, small enough that it took a few days before Terry and Dave were certain that she was a guinea hen, rather than a turkey. Yet the guineas weren't interested in hanging out with her, and so it was a gentle turkey named Gertrude who took her under her wing and raised Arabelle.

Though in those early days she seemed to move and act like her surrogate mother, and we wondered if she thought of herself as a turkey, Arabelle now spends all of her time with one of the other guineas, Chuckles. They roam their part of the sanctuary, always together.

When the sanctuary held a Farm Tour event recently, I volunteered to work in the chicken/turkey/guinea/peacock area. Early on, a man and woman asked me a few questions. Most of the birds were in the shade under the trees or in the barns, so there wasn't much for them to see until the guineas wandered into sight. "Do they taste good?" asked the man as his companion shook her head in embarrassment.

I explained to the man that this was a sanctuary, and we don't eat the animals, that we save them. By his "yeah, but..." response, I am not sure he understood, even after I explained.

What I found jarring was the reminder that he sees living animals and wonders how they taste. I see living animals and I see them as individuals, living their own lives, who should have every right to do exactly that. I watch Chuckles and Arabelle together, and I wonder why they're always on the move. When they have something to say, they're loud, and they don't stop for what often feels like hours. They have their own purpose, their own wants and desires, and even if I don't understand any but the most basic - the desire to live their life, the desire to eat, and the desire to have a mate - I respect them as individuals. I respect their right to live their life and pursue the things that are important to them, regardless of whether I fully understand what that is.

When I see life, I don't think about ending it. When I see Arabelle and Chuckles, I see two special lives that have been preserved because of people like Terry and Dave, and the sanctuary they started that exists for that purpose.

Though rescued years apart, Chuckles and Arabelle were both found wandering the streets in DC; likely they escaped being victims in Santeria rites. Instead they live at the sanctuary, where they can wander the chicken yard looking for goodies hidden in the grasses, taking dust baths if they want. The bond between the guineas is as close a bond as any of us could imagine. Seeing them more than a foot apart is a rare occurrence. Watching them move is like watching a tightly synchronized dance.

Birds are different from us, different from what most of us are used to in our more common companion animals, and that often makes them seem harder to read. Harder to understand. Alien. Other. Perhaps this makes it easier for people to justify when they kill and eat birds, even when they don't eat other animals. Perhaps birds seem so different from what we commonly understand that it is easier for some people to look at the living embodiment of the human-idealized mate bond and say, "Do they taste good?"

It is a question that is startlingly superficial and unobservant. Anyone who spends time with birds learns that they have distinctive and vibrant personalities, that they are as individual as any other animal, and that they are intelligent. Chickens have been shown to have cognition at the level of primates; if intelligence is a criteria for respect and consideration, birds should be at the top of the list, not the bottom.

Intelligence, as we humans define it, is not a criteria for me. Just as I wouldn't disregard the needs of a human with lower cognitive abilities, I don't disregard the needs of animals, no matter what their cognitive abilities are determined to be. In the end, "intelligence" is a meaningless distinction. What matters is that they, and we, are sentient. What matters is that we can choose to harm, or not.

When we watch the birds around us, there is much we can learn just by opening our minds and our eyes. There is much they can teach us, when we realize that they are not food; that they are individuals who enjoy living their life on their own terms. Just like us, but different.

All photos in this post by Deb Durant