Lunch With the Iguana
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This lizard is worth $10. It can feed a family of four for a week once it is turned into an iguana soup. The meat tastes like, well, crocodile. Somewhere between scallops and veal. Its mouth is wired together with a nylon string punched through its cheeks. If it bites a finger, you lose a digit. Its legs are hobbled. The man who caught him is lucky to catch one a week. The man has all his fingers. He has caught more than 200 iguanas and sold them all, usually to people who throw them in their trunk and give them to the maids to cook in the bigger towns toward the south.
In Chihuahua, I bought falcons for $10 a pair and let them go after driving a few miles along the highway to keep them away from their captors. I always insisted on buying the cages, which I would destroy and hide. The military pulled me over one day and an officer screamed at me about trafficking in wildlife and I screamed back that it shouldn’t be my fucking job to police the open-air market in falcons just two miles around the bend, and I’d be happy to go tell my version of the story to any general he chose. But to the birds, privately, who lay on their backs with their claws up in the air, between them and me, I had a sharp rap on the beak and a warning to not be so stupid and fly back into the trap because I won’t be here next week. Didn’t matter. As they flew away, I knew they blamed me. And next week they will be in somebody’s broth.
Turtle eggs sell for $3 a dozen. A ridley can lay 100 at a time. A full-grown Ridley can make a lot of soup, and needs a half-dozen whacks of the machete to be decapitated. I filmed a pretty scene for a movie on a beautiful beach in Mexico two years ago, and a week later some boys came on the beach and killed 80 mother Ridleys in an act so wanton it made the top five stories on Yahoo.
And yet, none of these creatures is any different from a Chicken McNugget or a Big Whopper. They live lives of some freedom, after all, searching for mates and scrabbling for households, so who cares how they get caught up in the food chain?
Why don’t I fly into a rage and liberate chicken coops? Or stick to soybeans and tangerines?
Can I trick myself into thinking the freedom I buy for this stupid lizard makes me any less the hunter?
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You can see a small sequence of my interaction with falcons at Anxious Moment, Part 7. This is an unfinished exercise in video, and you'll have to put up with some sophomoric philosophy about existence, but there are falcons!
In the story My Secret Nicaragua.
32 Responses
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On 16 April 2008 claudia luthi gave props:
this story sure goes under my skin, seanie
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On 16 April 2008 Alexis Gerard gave props:
Blue again. Thank you.
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On 16 April 2008 Dennis Blauer gave props:
very thought-provoking commentary!
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On 16 April 2008 Dennis Blauer said:
and yes, i think it does make you less the hunter. he who frees the chickens or cows may call the roach stomper or mosquito swatter bad and he who steps around bugs may call the weed uprooter evil and where does it really stop? the line between acceptable and unacceptable must be drawn somewhere because the extremes will leave us frozen or mad.
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On 16 April 2008 Laurent Chantegros gave props:
nice shot! you have my vote
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On 17 April 2008 Paolo Pizzimenti gave props:
Good shot and fit for the theme. You've got my vote
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On 17 April 2008 Nelson Campbell gave props:
Seanie - I have had to come back to this stunning photograph and story after many hours of thinking about it, and this is all I can tell you in how it has affected me.
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On 17 April 2008 Paolo Fani gave props:
My vote
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On 17 April 2008 David Rocaberti said:
Great documentary, good story
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On 17 April 2008 "Peggy.Sue" Harrington said:
Intense. Sad. I can't show or read this one to Isabella, she will cry more than I did. She loves all animals, especially reptiles (turtles mostly). Very good story Seanie. It's so great to be reading you again. :)
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On 17 April 2008 Gary Fudge gave props:
Tremendously powerful documentary here Seanie. I personally would find it very hard not to purchase and free every animal, but to what effect. One market, one town.....How do we make a change? I have no idea. And I so wish I did. I voted the Green party in the last general election in the UK, most people will think I'm barking. I recycle, virtually everything.........and yet am I peeing in the ocean. I can feel it, but no one else will notice?
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On 17 April 2008 Chris Whitney said:
Seanie-this is one of those stories that has no answer. But, it kind of hurts trying to think of one. When I was a kid, I loved fishing. But now, I can't imagine taking a beautiful fish out of the Rock Creek Lake. And, I love sushi and regularly eat fish from the market. Contradictions are everywhere.
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On 18 April 2008 Rachel McKinnie gave props:
How do you do that? Make so many people think so deeply, about a question with no answer?
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On 19 April 2008 Pilar Coll i Gatells said:
Como siempre, tus reflexiones son buenas!
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On 19 April 2008 marshall gave props:
nice photo, it grabbed my attention and i wanted to know more. thanks for taking the time to write about it, so many jpgmag community members don't seem to recognize that many viewers of photos want more info!! and what a story. wow. thanks for sharing it. thanks for looking at the world and trying to do something to better it. thanks for looking into yourself and sharing this introspection with the rest of us. thanks.
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On 21 April 2008 Lisa Slifko said:
Wow.....I don't know what else to say....you're story has left me speechless. Sad yet liberating. Thanks for sharing.
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On 21 April 2008 Ronnie Ginnever gave props:
There are lots of tears to shed and a lot of good to do. You are an artist, a storyteller and a messenger.
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On 24 April 2008 Bryan Jozefowicz gave props:
Great story great pic!! My vote.
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On 24 April 2008 Michele Randell gave props:
Great, Great, Story and image Seanie - Your words are always so thought provoking and so damn good !! :)
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On 24 April 2008 Konrad Ragnarsson gave props:
Yeah,it rocks!!!!!!!!!!!
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On 26 April 2008 Courtney Brown gave props:
I love the story you put with the fantastic photo.
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On 27 April 2008 judy fouse gave props:
Yeah, this photo is great and the story greater--but you guys should check out his 'Anxious Moment Part 7'. Seanie, I am way too simplistic and I know it. But as long as there is a bird to sing, I will never commit suicide. LOL Judy ;)
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On 29 April 2008 Mario Scattoloni gave props:
U truly R a great photo-journalist...thanxs 4 the pixs & stories..glad 2 C U stuck around regardless of the JPG corps politics.. it really is those that post that truly makes it worth the journey...
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On 1 May 2008 Amanda Means gave props:
It is great photography and stories that make you such a critical part of JPG. So happy you have decided to stay. Your photography and stories make me want to do more and better. Always an inspiration!!!
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On 10 May 2008 John Linton gave props:
Yeah! It rocks!
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On 11 May 2008 Christophe Le Canne added a link:
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On 11 May 2008 judy fouse gave props:
It is a matter of the heart. And each positive thought and action matters
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On 14 May 2008 Paul Lavallee gave props:
thoughtful questions raised
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On 22 May 2008 wisnu broto gave props:
That's great!!!
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On 30 May 2008 Vladan Djordjevic gave props:
Great color, details, pov.
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On 9 June 2008 Pascale Claus said:
What Dennis Blauer said... You projected so well the sense of powerlessness we all feel when considering the enormous complexities of some of these problems we face today. Good work. Got my vote.
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On 22 June 2008 Anne McGinn gave props:
I saw iguanas like this in Nicaragua. I remember seeing one hanging from a long pole. Two men carried the pole and the lizard was hogtied and dangling between them. I wanted to die. It looked intolerably cruel. I never forgot that image. Reading your story brought it all back. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I concur.
Also by seanie blue
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