"Anthony Wall - The Eden Mission (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wall Anthony)

Singly or in small groups the bedraggled creatures stumbled to land. A
three-foot gannet, normally brilliant white, pecked feverishly at its ruined
plumage until a rifle-shot rang out.

By nightfall a two-ton pile of dead sea-birds had been collected on the shore.
Someone set it ablaze. Sparks crackled amid whirling smoke. Excited,
cherry-cheeked children ringed the bonfire; only the older ones understood
that this was no celebration. For several nights to come there would be plenty
of bodies to feed the flames.

Ninety miles inland, nothing broke the forest hush. A full moon silvered the
treetops and light leaked down to the snow-covered floor beneath. Scraps of
mist seemed caught on prickly branches.

From the shadows, a ghostly shape glided into a clearing. Two amber eyes
searched the dappled darkness. Stealthily the wolf advanced. Hunger had driven
him from his snug den. He knew where to find a good meal. Not the mice and
birds he had lived on lately, but a hare he had killed and buried in the
frozen ground to keep it fresh and safe from crows and ravens.

As the dog-wolf wound through the trees at an effortless lope, which could
carry him as far as 120 miles in a single day, his thick brown-grey-yellow fur
gleamed in the moonlight. He was a fine big dog: 5┬л feet from nose-tip to
tail-tip, weighing a hundred pounds. In a pack he would have been leader. But
there are no packs now--men had seen to that.

Wolves were regarded as enemies. Yet, like other predators, they performed a
useful service by controlling the numbers of animals which destroyed farmers'
crops. They made loyal pets if raised from cubs, and led a communal life that
was a model of harmony and co-operation.

The wolf trotted on, nearing his food store. Strangely, since he was capable
of detecting a smell from 1┬л miles and could hear loudish sounds more than
four miles off, the wolf failed to notice a figure fifty yards away.

The man was half drunk, angry after a quarrel with his wife. He had stormed
out of the house, taking a gun. He felt like shooting something. Suddenly the
wolf appeared in front of him. The law said he must not pull the trigger. But
he did--again and again. At that moment a cloud smothered the moon. The big
dog dropped dead ... leaving just four wolves alive in the whole of Norway.

Five thousand miles to the south-west, on the edge of Newfoundland, great
glistening rafts of ice jigsawed the Atlantic. From above, each piece revealed
a pattern of dark clots. Harp seals. Mothers and babies.

At birth the pups had seemed too small for their baggy yellow coats. But a
diet of rich, mayonnaise-like milk soon filled them out. Then they had changed
their fur - to a dense woolly white. Dazzling. In all nature there could be
few prettier, more appealing sights. The pups were curious and trusting.