The Seagull and the Wild Boar – An Environmental Fable

By Giuseppe Cristiano

Humans have caused the world around us to grow ill. Within that illness, animals have found themselves struggling to survive. This stunning story tells the unlikely partnership between Boar and Seagull, both affected by human cruelty, and both trying to make it to the sunny shores of the coast line, where they hope to finally find their happily every after.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seagull Editions
• Release date: May 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215232323

Book preview

This book is dedicated to every animal that has been displaced over the years, and all those who have done their best to try and save, solve, or fix the pollution that now clings to our world. From the scientists to the conservationists, to the little hobbyists who are trying to turn their backyards into natural places for the wild animals to return too – it is going to take all of us, as a collective whole and effort, to ensure that there is a planet we can continue living in.

Chapter One

When Boar Met Seagull

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Once upon a time, there was a city.

It used to be a pretty thing, with a lovely park that was filled with wild berries, soft green grass, and many, many trees. There had always been humans in the city, but they used to be of the sort who liked to share things with nature. Old men who would come out and feed the crows and the blue birds, young women that would bring their children out to watch the squirrels, and rowdy little boys that would grow very, very still when they spotted a wild, white rabbit.

In the old times of this city, there was always something happening. People would hold festivals in the park, where they would bring their families, and at these places, there were always fresh grown vegetables. Children would be allowed to play in the mud, and they would often come out and play with the animals in the forest.

Most of the park was filled with trees with dirt trails that wound through it so that people could find their way about. And on those trails, they would find all manners of things, like turtles that had come up from the stream, deer that had wandered out, and other such amazing things. Animals were leery of humans but they were not afraid of them, and in that leeriness, they would often find a way to connect with each other.

Even the animals like possums and raccoons had once been around in a way that humans didn’t mind. Oh, they were never happy when those critters got into their trash, but that just meant that they would need to be more careful about when they put their bins down at the curb, and what it was that went into each trash bin.

The animals were never met with anger and madness. They were never met with cruelty and hate. Humans liked having them around. Some of them would even come out to the park just to see them! They would sit on the benches in the morning, watching the birds and the deer and hoping to find something else, something more.

These were things that Boar had never seen himself. His parents-parents told him stories about it when he was just a young little piglet, about how the humans had been kind once, and clean, and the park at the heart of the city had been a refuge for animals.

His mother had not seen it either, and neither had his father, but his parents-parents, they knew about it. They knew that once, a long time ago, humans had the capacity to be kind. But something had happened over the years that had twisted the humans into something else, evil and dark, so that they became a different sort of being.

They used to be kind. That’s what the oldest boars in the woods said. The humans used to like watching the piglets come out to look for mushrooms. They used to like watching the piglets, and they would speak kindly to the mothers, and they respected the fathers. 

Boar had never seen those things himself.

By the time that he had been born and raised, the humans had forgotten what it was like to be kind to the animals around them. They had no care in the world for deer, so they certainly had no interest in the boars.

Deer were, by human standards, pretty and soft things. Long, graceful limbs and big eyes, and sweet little spotted babies. And yet even the deer were chased out of the city, for they were nuisances that ripped up a park now meant, not for animals and humans both, but strictly for the humans.

And boars, they were not pretty and soft things. They were big and solid, with tusks and tough hide. The males would