Samantha Swindler, a features writer with the Oregonian, visited me last week. She thought I could provide some background about the Applegate in connection with a podcast she's producing.
The story concerns Cosmo, a pet crow of a woman in a small Applegate neighborhood. Cosmo slept in the house, asked to be let out in the morning, came when called, and was as beloved a pet as any dog.
But one neighbor (we'll call him Neighbor B, to distinguish him from Cosmo's "owner," Neighbor A) said the bird terrified his children—swooped down on them, attacked them, even drew blood. He said Cosmo terrified and chased his dog. This man grew so irate he called the cops, who told him that he could, legally, kill an annoyance animal. Neighbor B threatened Neighbor A to do just that.
Instead, he and Neighbor C, who also considered Cosmo a menace, managed to capture the bird and take him to Wildlife Images, an organization that takes in injured wildlife. As soon as the folks there determined that Cosmo was neither sick nor injured, they released him, whereupon Cosmo flew to an elementary school and terrorized the children on the playground.
Somehow Cosmo got back home (I'm fuzzy on the details here), where he slept in the house of Neighbor A and terrorized the neighbors' children, as before. Not much later, Neighbor D, who liked Cosmo, saw him at her house at about 4:30pm. At 6:30 Neighbor A started calling Cosmo to come home. No Cosmo.
No one has seen Cosmo again.
Neither Neighbor B nor anyone else will admit to having killed Cosmo.
There is no body.
It is an unsolved murder (seemingly) of a pet bird, as there is no evidence of foul play by a dog or another wild creature or of collision with a moving vehicle.
At first I thought the story was petty—fun for an amateur sleuth like Samantha, but not important. The more we talked, however, the more I changed my mind.
In the first place, it's a good parable for why we shouldn't make pets of wildlife. No matter how friendly they become, wild animals are still wild animals.
In the second place, it's a parable for human relations. The four-household neighborhood is now rife with suspicions and accusations. For instance, when Neighbor D's dog went missing, then came back wounded, she accused Neighbor B of having shot him. (The vet said it was not a bullet wound.)
It's also a classic example of the importance of empathy. Cosmo's "owner" couldn't see that her pet was a horror for someone else. ("Not my sweet-tempered Cosmo!") Neighbor B couldn't empathize with Neighbor A's love for her pet. ("It's just a damn bird!") No one apologizes to anyone because no one tries to step into someone else's shoes, and anger and suspicion fester.
Samantha is willing to arrange a mediated meeting among the neighbors, but that doesn't look likely. Neighbor B won't talk to "that lady from the press" any more. At this point, Samantha doesn't have an answer to her murder mystery, and in the neighborhood hatred and distrust live on.
How are we ever going to make this a better world?
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