I killed a rabbit once.

I didn't intend to kill it. Far from it. I just wanted to get a closer look at it.

We were in a field, my friends and I. Two sides of the field were bordered by fences, and two sides by roads. The grass was high and full of secret places. We probably went to the field to look for lizards and toads. I can't remember exactly. I can't even remember how old we were. Maybe 10, or maybe a bit younger.

Suddenly a rabbit appeared there in the waving grass, all wild eyed and alert. We gave chase immediately. I don't know exactly what we were thinking, or if indeed we were thinking at all. Maybe it was more instinct - the instinct of the hunter. Look! Small animal! Small animal run! Me chase it and catch it!

We didn't catch it. It darted back and forth for awhile, looking for an escape route. We closed in and it shot away.

Into the road.

The meaty sound of the impact stopped us in our tracks. We watched as the rabbit was flung back towards us. We hovered over its still, bloodied form as its fluids leaked into the gutter. I still remember the unseeing eyes and the redness of its ruined body. Another perfect creature reduced to meat.

I think encounters like this colored my subsequent interactions with wildlife, and my approach to life in general. I know that nothing is forever. Beauty fades. Tragedy happens. Plans don't always come to fruition. It's part of life. We learn much more about ourselves from these unforeseen moments than we do from the times when things go as planned.

Of course, that doesn't mean we have to like these moments. Like it or not though, they are part of what make us who we are.

The field was killed sometime later. It was ripped away by a different kind of pursuit - the eternal quest for profit. The waving grass gave way to the fixed ugliness of condominiums. Every other living thing in that field perished, and I'm willing to bet none of the deaths meant as much to the perpetrators as that one rabbit's death meant to me.

It is sometimes said that one death is a tragedy, but many are a statistic. Perhaps when the number of deaths is great, it is too overwhelming to deal with in any sort of human way. More likely though, the people responsible didn't view it as a tragedy at all. They viewed it as a necessity.