The FECal Story

Once upon a time, in a forest far far away, there lived wild animals just like the ones that inhabit any forest. But they were unlike other wild animals because they had brought in a new fangled idea of living under mutually agreed and created rules and regulations.


The rules were mostly concerned about eating and being eaten, because nothing else concerned the animals - not money, property nor jobs - just the question of who can eat whom.

The reason for making this rule was that some far sighted older animals realized that their forest needed to be self sufficient else they’d all be forced to step out into human habitations for food and would eventually get killed. So these elders set the rules that the carnivores could eat whoever they wanted to as long as that particular species wasn’t driven to extinction. For example, tigers couldn’t hunt and eat deer if there were too few of them to sustain the deer lineage. Else there wouldn’t be any deer left in the forest and the next generation of tigers would never get to even see a deer let alone eat one.

A regular census was taken to identify the species nearing extinction, so that they could be spared till they multiplied and abounded to a sufficient degree. Such species came under the FEC (Facing Extinction category).

Now the FEC enjoyed certain privileges not given to the rest. These privileges were originally meant to enable the beneficiaries to multiply without any hindrance, till their population got back to normal. Privileges like easy access to food and shelter, sometimes arranged by the predators themselves, were given. Also, if a predator violated the rule and killed FEC animal, it would be banished from the forest.

Now this system would have worked perfectly. But it soon got misused, first by the pigs. The pigs had multiplied back to normal population but they were inherently lazy and hated having to run from predators. Also, they had got used to the FEC privileges, gluttons as they were, they got more food provided by the non-FECs, than they could arrange by themselves.

So they started hiding during census time so as to hide their true population. When this didn’t work, they “bribed” the census agents by giving personal favours that pigs are good at. Soon this spread amongst other FECs.

Initially the system worked as planned and everyone was happy. But soon, the herbivores realized that certain herbivore species were enjoying the privileges despite being so numerous, while their own species was always hunted. Soon every herbivore fought to get its species into the FE category. This didn’t stay restricted to grass eaters; it eventually spread amongst the carnivores too, starting with the jackals, which aren’t anyways known for their principles.

Eventually the only animals left “uncategorized” were the birds which were too high up from ground realities, the lions, the tigers and the wild goats. The wild goats didn’t fight for the categorization because they’re too wild spirited to care about rules and regulations. They lived on steep rocky slopes and were too nimble to be hunted down easily. Unfortunately, they’re also the sudden favourite of all the predators.

One day, a pack of young wolves (also FECs) chanced upon a lone goat meditating on a rocky hill top. It was a fully grown adult goat with strong, sharp horns and long legs. As the pack surrounded the goat and pounced upon it, the goat fought back, throwing the ill-balanced young wolves off the hill top and fatally injuring 2 with its horns. National Geographic and Animal Planet channels would have run a feature on this encounter praising the goat for its survival instincts and fighter spirit, but the wolves cried oppression. How dare a wild animal attack the youngsters belonging to the FEC? The case went to court.

The goat claimed self defense, but the wolves argued back that their young ones were hungry and seeking food. They had as much right to eat the goat as the goat had rights to eat the plants. They argued how a fully adult goat brutally attacked the unarmed, young wolves with its horns. After all the goat had an extra weapon (the horns) which the wolves didn’t, so it was a one-sided assault.

Now the lion king, who had to pass the judgment, knew that the FEC rule was ineffective and that the goat was innocent. He tried to acquit the goat but the wolves took it as discrimination, after all the lion too belonged to the non-FE category. Soon the case pulled in all the animals: the other animals in the FE category, instigated by the jackals of course, demanded that the goat be put to death. The goats were target everywhere; they were attacked, assaulted and killed by the FE animals, even by the deer that were like goats except for the beard and horn design.

The lions and the tigers saw the impending threat on their species too. They compelled the lion king and eventually he had to not only award death sentence to the goat, he had to declare the entire goat community as terrorists and a threat to the wild life. Not only were goats banished from the forest, they’re also to be killed at sight.

A few weeks later, the lion king decided to scrap the entire FEC rule and return back to a wild lifestyle. But the foxes, who wanted to replace the lions as rulers of the forest, saw the goat incident as a ripe opportunity, and again instigated the animals to force the king to keep the rule. But since there were only 2 categories of animals left in the forest: the FEC’s and the lions and tigers, it was decided to remove a few animals from the FEC. This was to be decided by a mutual consensus amongst the FECs.

The carnivorous FECs used brute force and threats and eventually a unanimous decision was made and all herbivores were removed from the FEC, except for some like the pigs.

Photo courtesy: http://www.lewiswaynegallery.com/john-scott-orig-mountain-goat-painting-winchester-p-4013.html