Lunch With the Iguana
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.
34 responses
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claudia luthi gave props (16 Apr 2008):
this story sure goes under my skin, seanie
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Alexis Gerard gave props (16 Apr 2008):
Blue again. Thank you.
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Dennis Blauer gave props (16 Apr 2008):
very thought-provoking commentary!
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Dennis Blauer said (16 Apr 2008):
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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Laurent Chantegros gave props (16 Apr 2008):
nice shot! you have my vote
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Paolo Pizzimenti gave props (17 Apr 2008):
Good shot and fit for the theme. You've got my vote
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Nelson Campbell gave props (17 Apr 2008):
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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Paolo Fani gave props (17 Apr 2008):
My vote
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David Rocaberti said (17 Apr 2008):
Great documentary, good story
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Gary Fudge gave props (17 Apr 2008):
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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Chris Whitney said (17 Apr 2008):
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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Rachel Mckinnie gave props (18 Apr 2008):
How do you do that? Make so many people think so deeply, about a question with no answer?
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Marshall gave props (19 Apr 2008):
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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Lisa Slifko said (21 Apr 2008):
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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Ronnie Ginnever gave props (21 Apr 2008):
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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Bryan Jozefowicz gave props (24 Apr 2008):
Great story great pic!! My vote.
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Michele Randell gave props (24 Apr 2008):
Great, Great, Story and image Seanie - Your words are always so thought provoking and so damn good !! :)
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Konrad Ragnarsson gave props (24 Apr 2008):
Yeah,it rocks!!!!!!!!!!!
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Courtney Brown gave props (26 Apr 2008):
I love the story you put with the fantastic photo.
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judy fouse gave props (27 Apr 2008):
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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Mario Scattoloni gave props (29 Apr 2008):
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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Amanda Means gave props (1 May 2008):
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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John Linton gave props (10 May 2008):
Yeah! It rocks!
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Christophe Le Canne added a link (11 May 2008):
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judy fouse gave props (11 May 2008):
It is a matter of the heart. And each positive thought and action matters
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Paul Lavallee gave props (14 May 2008):
thoughtful questions raised
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wisnu broto gave props (22 May 2008):
That's great!!!
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Vladan Djordjevic gave props (30 May 2008):
Great color, details, pov.
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Anne Mcginn gave props (22 Jun 2008):
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.
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Jim Robertson said (25 Aug 2008):
My wife used to think it was funny how I would stop my car on a country road to pick up a tortoise trying to cross knowing the next car might be its end. I would put that tortoise in the back seat and take it to hopefully a safer location elsewhere. I still perform this ritual. Your experience here reminds me why. Because I can. But Isn't it just a tortoise? Isn't that enough? They don't have to be grateful but I can. You can't save them all. I still love a cheeseburger, just not as many these days. Save what you can.
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Jacob Sikais gave props (2 Sep 2008):
the story is just as captivating as the image
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Clint Harris said (2 Sep 2008):
You know, I always hear that something taste like chicken. Maybe that's the problem here, Iguana taste like chicken.
Maybe someone could give them chicken and then they wouldn't need to eat Iguana.
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David Eastham said (16 Sep 2008):
Seanie, you are a master of words and photos. I look forward to each one.
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John Linton gave props (20 Sep 2008):
Oh yeah! It rocks!
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