animals

Of all the animals in the world, bushbabies are among the most huggable. Looking part cat, part monkey, these nocturnal creatures are all huge eyes, teacup-sized ears and fuzzy coats. They’re like a 5-year-old child’s drawings come to life.

Lucky for my friends and me, we stayed at a lodge where the bushbabies come out to play every night. At 7 p.m. on the dot, tiny hands reached out from behind tree branches. Next came the tiny feet, tiny tails and finally huge ears. The bushbabies were ready for dinner!

The owner of the lodge handed us slices of fresh banana. We’d hold a slice up and a bushbaby would tentatively, carefully approach us, then snag the fruit from our fingers. It was awesome.

I was giddy.

Cut to two nights later, when we were camping out at Kruger National Park. Our campsite was encircled by electric fences. And beyond those fences, the hyenas were waiting.

They were there with good reason. Many campers cook on site. Then, not wanting to leave the food scraps by their tents, they toss everything over the fence.

Over time, the hyenas have learned that good food can be found there, quick, easy and without any effort. This behavior has been reinforced by the actions of other campers, who purposely toss the hyenas a bone or two.

Clearly, that is wrong — and not just because the park will slap you with a huge fine. It’s wrong because those hyenas have picked up bad habits, they have lost some of their wildness and they will likely become more aggressive toward humans because of it.

Then I started wondering what makes that so different from feeding bushbabies. Does it matter if the animals are more adorable and less threatening? Have I been acting selfishly?

Or, to get more to the point, is it always wrong to feed wild animals?

Unfortunately, I think the answer is yes. As much as I try to justify the bushbaby thing — because they’re so sweet and because it was something I really, really wanted to do — it doesn’t make it right.

Sometimes it’s incredibly difficult to put my cuddle instinct aside and act in the best interest of other creatures. But as someone who truly loves animals, that’s what I need to learn to do.

Our first morning in Bulungula was the start of The Very Bad Smell.

It was a briny and acrid scent, kind of like fish and garbage and feces, all tinged with the sourness of death.

A man from the village explained simply, “Dead whale.” He said it with a shrug, as if it happened all the time.

“Oh, of course,” I said. I shrugged in return and nodded, as if I should have known better.

The mammal had washed on the beach about three weeks before that, but it had taken some time for the decay and bacteria to form an horrible stew.

The villagers pillaged this gift from the sea, sawing off layers of fat, meat, bone. The rest of the carcass remained next to the surf, all rotting blubber and organs, bleached by the sun, washed by the waves, slowly returning to the ocean — a massive beast turned smudge on the shore.

The Very Bad Smell wriggled its way into our huts when the wind blew a certain direction, which, thankfully was not often. When it did, I only shrugged, as if being downwind from a gutted whale corpse was just a typical part of my life.