Oil Soaked Pelican, originally uploaded by Sage Lewis.
A pelican is cleaned at the Fort Jackson Bird Rehabilitation Center, Buras Louisiana on July 19, 2010.
This is the kind of image you always see.
Being a person who only ever saw these kinds of pictures on tv, I get that perspective.
I mean, come on, its a bird. How many chickens did we kill in this country for McNuggets today?
But there is a dynamic that tv doesn’t do a good job at portraying.
I met a man who left work, bought a boat and was heading out to see if there were turtles that needed help.
I met a group of young people who came from northern Louisiana with a trailer full of pet food because they heard people couldn’t afford to feed their pets.
The story of this picture has more to do with that woman’s face than the bird.
There are people in this country that care more than I can imagine caring.
Can you imagine seeing a mother watching her child get hurt or even killed?
You feel that kind of pain in these people.
These are local people helping local animals. Their pain compounds the tragedy.