Bless the beasts

We have an abomination duck in our neighborhood.  Or goose.  Maybe he’s a goose. 

He’s tall and bulky like a goose.  White body.  Orange feet.  And a big green mallard head. 

When you first lay eyes on him, it’s a bit like watching “The Exorcist” for the first time:  that famous scene when Linda Blair’s head rotates ever so slowly.  All.  The way.  Around.   

Your brain does a double take and your reflex is to squint and turn away.  Nothing’s supposed to look like that.  It’s wrong on so many levels.  

But you must look again.  What IS that?  Ewww!  An abomination duck! 

Something funny’s going on in the barnyard.  A recombining of critters.  A reordering of genes. 

The other “regular” geese make no distinction, bless their ecumenical selves.  But no true mallards linger in the vicinity.  Perhaps someone’s feeling sheepish about the consequences of his behavior.  Not to mix metaphors.   

Ugh.  More creepiness. 

I had the same reaction when I watched a Big Think Big Idea video on that crazy contraption, the internet.  Some scientist talking about “de-extinction.” 

Stewart Brand, of the Revive and Restore Project, is working with ecologists and biologists all over the world to “de-extinct” the passenger pigeon, among other long departed species.  “The world misses them,” he says. 

So these brainiacs collected the DNA of the extinct passenger pigeon (that’s right, there’s a bunch of deceased passenger pigeon bodies complete with DNA in a hermetically sealed jar on Funk & Wagnall’s porch), and they’re combining it with the DNA of the passenger pigeon’s closest living relative, the band-tailed pigeon.   

And voila!  A “nearly perfect” hybrid version of that passenger pigeon we’ve been pining for since 1912.  The one that flew across the eastern seaboard in flocks a mile wide and 400 miles long, blackening the sky. 

I don’t know.  I wasn’t there to see that spectacle, so it’s probably unfair to refer to anything like, say, locusts, or guano.  As usual, I’m superficially informed, so maybe our ecosystem suffers from the passing of billions of squab.  You’d think so.  It hasn’t made headlines, that’s all. 

And somehow, “nearly perfect” evokes that skin-crawly sensation of a Stepford-ish creation fluttering around the lab, “better” than the original, but flawed in an invisible way that we only discover, to our horror, when thousands of them assemble on the swing set outside the schoolhouse in Bodega Bay.   

Seriously, should we be doing this?  I mean after all, you’ve seen “Jurassic Park,” right?  “The Island of Dr. Moreau”?  And what about the abomination duck? 

Clearly, these guys are not moviegoers.  Like Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman, they’re blithely tripping along reviving an array of long-dead creatures, piece-mealing them together using the brain of Abbey Normal. 

They’re reconstituting the beast of the southern wild!  Yes, really.  The aurochs of little Hushpuppy’s nightmares!  Coming soon to a bad dream near you.   

Oh, I’ll admit my bleeding little heart is torn over this whole concept.  I certainly don’t want ANY more species going extinct.  It’s wrong.  We must stop trampling across the planet like so many arrogant and thoughtless clods, oblivious to the harm we inflict. 

And of course there’s the guilt.  The heart-crushing devastating shame and self-reproach we carry when faced with our record of snuffing out beautiful, irreplaceable animals.  But that’s what makes each one precious, isn’t it?  Once they’re gone…  

Are we absolving ourselves of the theft when we restore a nearly perfect version of what we stole?  They’re saying that the beast, the aurochs, will be returned to its ecological role of turning barren landscapes to productive meadows.  So that’s good.   

But something internal recoils in the face of reanimation.  Mary Shelley and all.  We’re not supposed to be messing with THAT, are we? 

Even the audience watching Stewart Brand shifted uneasily in their seats, applauding tentatively, doing their best to support their guy.  But he’s starting to look like Christopher Lloyd and sound like Dr. Strangelove as he paces on stage in front of a giant screen, clicking through slides of mystic creatures and fantastic scenarios.  

Yeah, we have to atone for our sins.  But not so literally, please.  Remember “The Monkey’s Paw”?  We don’t get “overs.”

Too Much Information at the Dinner Table

I guess I’m glad Performance Food Group of Richmond, Virginia, can trace the origins of my T-bone steak from the tip of the tines of my fork all the way back to the exact heifer that gave her all for my dining experience. It’s a good thing, right?

Yes, says PFG. It will pay off in multiple ways: DNA traceability of beef boosts consumer confidence. It ups the value of the meal.

Let’s just cast an eye on the details.

Restaurateurs commenting in the recent Associated Press article about DNA tracking of beef from kibbutz to kitchen, as the case may be, say the process is a “security factor” for the guest as well as the chef. Diners can indulge at the table with assurance that Bossy came from a happy home on a range pinpoint-able on Google maps.

Did Farmer Phil treat Bossy with kindness and feed her well? Did she win blue ribbons at the County Fair? We’ll know. Family photos? Well, probably not, but now it could happen.
This could convert a person to vegetarianism. Trace the filet at my lips back to the ranch and even the precise animal it came from? I don’t want to be that well acquainted with the origins of my meals.

My cousin Terry back in Oklahoma raised steers, showed them at the Tulsa State Fair, and then swallowed them medium rare with new potatoes. I followed instructions on my annual vacations in the country, never naming the big-eyed beasts. But I talked to them, communed with them, made psychic connections. And when the fair left town, I went hungry while Terry chomped on #42.

I know I’m a hypocrite in this. I can eat the steak but I can’t kill the cow. Chicken? Yummy. But gone are the days when I had to sit on an overturned bushel basket with a hen flopping around underneath after my sadistic uncle swung the bird by its neck. I’m not sure why that didn’t put me off poultry long ago.

When I was a kid my family lived in the Middle East for a while. We had a houseboy, Majid. I loved Majid. Among other things, he helped me care for my pet rabbit, Fluffy (of course). Fluffy had bunny babies, providing great fun for my brother and me.

But, next thing I knew, we sat the dinner table and I found out, mid-bite, mid-chew --- Hey this is pretty good what is it? Majid fileted and deep-fried Fluffy! But it didn’t put this Okie off eating rabbit. Just my rabbit. For me, DNA tracing runs the risk of bringing the donor too close to the donee.

The benefit of “upping the value” of a meal sounds like doublespeak for raising the price of dinner. And sure enough, part of the market research backing the implementation of DNA tracking showed consumers will pay $2 or $3 dollars more for the same cut of beef if the proprietor adds various “pleasers” to its descriptors on the menu.

What’s a “pleaser,” you ask? Words and graphics added to menus to draw diners’ attention to a higher quality of meat, for example. Yeah, we’ll pay for that. But I suggest going light on the graphics. What can you show us anyway, a dairy cow’s double helix?

Another pleaser - our waitperson can now educate us as to our bovine friend’s ante-mortem diet. Better intake equates to better output. Sure, we Okies can joke about Nebraska’s corn-fed beef, but that’s when we’re talking about their football team. This is serious. This is chow.

With DNA traceable beef, the chef’s assurances come in the form of the first wave of malpractice insurance for purveyors of fine food. Another “pleaser” for the menu at Buffalo Bob’s Barbeque and Waterin’ Hole: “Guaranteed: No mad cows in this joint!”

Which brings us to the true benefit of this newest of technologies: DNA tracing cuts the time needed to track recalled meats. If E-coli breaks out, in hours instead of days or weeks, DNA tracing can identify the multiple sources of meat used in a 10-pound box of ground beef, for example, which may include up to 1000 animals.

Too much detail? Yeah, for me too. But more and more we want and need to know the information is available to someone whose job it is to look out for us at Sizzlin’ Sirloin.

So you go, Performance Food Group! ‘Cause I don’t wanna know.