Dang, today's Washington Post story on the California condor beat me to the punch on the Monty Python reference. My fellow blogger Andrew Wetzler has already ably characterized the situation in California, where we're counting down the hours until midnight on October 14th--the last day for Governor Schwarzenegger to sign or veto a bill to get lead ammunition out of the condor range. Condorman, where are you when we need you?

Condors aren't exactly my bailiwick, being as they have yet to evolve gills, but I'm drawn to the saga of a bird that's just trying to help us complete the circle of life, as it were. How often do we take time to give thanks to the decomposers, the composters, the most elemental recyclers on earth? Even Disney celebrated the hyenas, albeit giving them a slightly Machiavellian role. In India, the precipitous decline in vulture populations is leading to public health concerns as cow carcasses pile up at dumps. The same story in the Economist also describes the predicament of Parsees, who traditionally offer their dead to the "birds of the air" in lieu of burial but must now jury-rig other methods as vultures disappear.

Death feeds crabs and mushrooms and, eventually, us, one way or another, through the carbon cycle. It's natural that we are drawn to protect the cute and furry, even from the animals that depend on them for food. We should not forget to offer the same protection to the wildlife with less glamorous jobs and titles.