Does A Picture Say A Thousand Words??

Some may ponder about my previous Kevin Carter's photo. What has it got to do with the Cheetah's story?

Admittedly, there isn't much of correlation between them. It was the mentioning of the vulture that led to the derailment.

The only point I want to bring out is that because of my past experiences/encounters(though not physically up close) with vultures , my mind was "conditioned" in such a way that I formed a negative schema (ruthless, prey on weak, nasty, ugly) about them.

Therefore, when I first saw the Kevin Carter's photo, my first initial feelings were a mixture of hate and sympathy.

Many may have agreed with me that Kevin Carter's photo portrayed a situation whereby the girl was either in great pain or dying soon, and the vulture was eagerly waiting in anticipation(if you have thought of this, you may already has a schema about vulture) to devour or attack the little girl.

The sense of injustice, sympathy or the thirst to kill that vulture may well from within you. I had that too.. initially.

Looking back, reorganizing my thoughts and feelings, I would like to propose certain views, and this may not go too well with some of the readers.

First - Vultures are one of the misunderstood creature in the animal kingdom. They have this gift of spotting motionless creatures on the ground. They are able to differentiate between a sleeping animal and a motionless animal. When a motionless animal is spotted, they will circle above it, and land to further inspect and verify. In fact, some of the predators rely on this circling signal to find their food. If the animal is not injured or dying, they would take flight.

Second - This means that the vulture in Kevin Carter's photo (denoted as vulture KC) was merely inspecting the girl. Attacking/eating the girl is a possibility, but so is the reverse of this, depending on the situation.

Third - It may also means that vulture KC was inspecting some other creature nearby, but it wasn't caught(deliberately or not) by the photographer. An alternative report by Joao Silva reported that the girl was left alone briefly as the parents went to the plane to get food and supply aids, and the vulture eventually flew off. Hence the vulture may be interested in the commotion or enticed by the food supply.

Fourth - The picture shows the inequality of the world. And the people who sympathize these poor people are the people who in the first place create a social system and structured in a way that may be disadvantage to most of these people.

Fifth - Dying, may not be a bad option for the girl. I'm very sorry. But if I were to put myself in her shoe/situation, I would choose to die than suffer.

I would elaborate more on the 4th and 5th point in my coming entries...