Mild weather prevailed again this morning. The rain was not present, as the weatherman had said it would be. Since this was a hunt in the middle of the week, I slept in a little while. I wasn't worried about anyone stealing all of my spots in Burbank.
On my way to my favorite blind, I noticed something unusual in the bay to my right; something that is not normally there. There was a mass on the horizon and appeared to be a boat. I flashed my headlamp at them, as duck hunters normally do to avoid setting up too close to another group. I received no "we see you" signal in return. I moved on to my spot for the day. As I set up, I watched the boat to see where it was heading. It didn't move the whole time I set up. Finally, I finished and sat down. I kept an eye on the boat and came to the conclusion that it must be a hardcore fisherman who had anchored up for the night and was sleeping; albeit in a horrible spot.
Just before 7:00, another boat showed up with a huge spotlight and seemed very interested in the other boat. As the sun rose, I watched a couple of guys exit the boat that had pulled up. They seemed to be hooking a rope to the dormant vessel. Turned out, they were. I watched as one boat pulled on the other one with everything it had. The stuck boat didn't budge. The pulling boat continued to struggle until the rope snapped, barely missing the guy in the water. The boat suddenly gained momentum without its load. Another boat showed up and went through the same process, except this effort saw two ropes snap. The fellow in the water was standing a bit too close when the ropes snapped again and he got smacked. A little while later a third boat showed up, and apparently he had more ropes. Slowly but surely, the big boat freed up and was out in the main channel of the river. By the time this folly was over, my watch read 9:30. Needless to say, there was not a whole lot of duck action until the stuck boat was freed.
By about 10:15, I had watched a raft of birds building directly in front of me. I could hear the usual coots and wigeons, but also some gadwalls and mallards. I watched the raft as it slowly worked its way upriver. I hoped it would come closer and present a shot. Then the thought occured to me; there is too much collective wisdom in that group of birds to come any closer to shore. The huge group of birds would stay in the middle of the river and remain untouchable. I had to laugh to myself, though, as I thought about the collective wisdom of the group of jackasses that were trying to get the boat unstuck earlier this morning. Instead of understanding and heeding the dangers of a snapping rope, they proceeded to endanger themselves anyway-repeatedly.
For years I have said that humans are the only creatures on earth that actively try to manipulate the "survival of the fittest" theory. We coddle our weak and dilute our strong. Today, I watched the results of these efforts unfold in front of my very eyes. The animals (who live by the survival of the fittest credo) were smart enough to collectively decide what was safe and what was not, while the humans (who think we are smart enough to alter the survival of the fittest way of life) collectively decided to endanger people's lives not once, but twice in order to retrieve and expensive material object. Now...you tell me. Who is really the smarter group? The animals or the humans? The prey or the predator? I think you know my answer. The ducks had a much, much stronger collective wisdom than the humans.
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