They say when Albert Schweitzer was in Africa and ants would make a path toward a morsel of food he’d accidentally left on his table, he’d move the morsel to redirect, rather than kill the insects.

All right Albert! My hero! I too believe in sparing all life — well, except those lives determined to cause me suffering to any degree, such as hornets, crocodiles, enraged rhinos, anything that enjoys chowing down on human flesh, particularly mine, and certain species of fish with really large mouths containing hundreds of really large pointy, saw-toothed teeth. And yes, I eat hamburgers, wear wool coats, leather shoes and used to pretend I was Marlene Dietrich while prancing about in Aunt Adelaide’s real feather boa, never once wondering how many birds gave up their lives for that fluffy, beautiful fashion statement.

Spiders, wonderful creatures, pig out on really loathsome insects, making them very agreeable entities. I can never kill one. Except, however, for those times when they crawl into my nightgown to snooze while it’s on a bathroom hook, and they bite the cruppolas out of me when I put it on, usually in a fairly tender spot I’d prefer no insect ever use as its personal attack tarmac.

My poor beleaguered family rolls their eyeballs in patient resignation at the endless array of upside-down glasses all over the house with all manner of creatures under them awaiting their freedom, although my dear family have asked, well maybe begged, that I scoop up the varmints immediately, toss them outside and get the glasses into the dishwasher, because their stumbling over those glass jails is not anything they especially enjoy doing, particularly in the dark. They’ve patiently observed my rescue of worms, salamanders, squirrel babies, moths, butterflies, birds too many to count, once a horned toad in Texas, countless wooly-bears, a skunk, once a really filthy pigeon under a truck in New York City, (he repaid my kindness by leaving a substantial thank-you note in our sugar bowl) mice, a barn swallow about to be hawked in mid-air, turtles from highways, frogs from everywhere and a small toad from a snake’s jaws. And yes, I understand all about nature’s laws but oh, that imploring look on that dear little toad’s face as he stared into my eyes while being slowly muscled into that snake’s craw. I had to intervene. You’d have done exactly the same thing. Yes, you would too. I know you would.

I do however, regret one thing. I caught a box turtle once in New Jersey and painted our phone number (in small numbers) on its shell and set it free — and then worried for years I’d made him too conspicuous for predators. Eight years later the phone rang early one summer evening.

“Hello?” I said, which is pretty much my standard phone greeting.

“Fownjuh toy-uhl,” said the voice. I drove to the man’s home giving no thought to his maybe being a serious bad guy, collected my old friend in a plastic tub, (I would not run the risk of his getting stuck under my car seats) took him home and painted dark brown over those now quite faded numbers, drove him miles away, walked deep into a very dark ancient forest and bid him a sad adieu. He never looked back. It was better that way.

I recently met a woman who shares my feelings about the sanctity of life. (Oh okay, my sometimes sanctity.) She’d managed to rescue a colony of bats. Yes, bats. They were up in the attic of her spacious home, and she knew she had to be rid of them. Friends advised her of many extermination procedures, but this kindly lady would have none of it. These were living things, after all, they were relevant, and in her eyes, they were sweet faced, beautiful critters, soft to the touch, essential to the balance of Nature; good things all around.

She pondered this situation and finally had an epiphany. One dusk, the time of day when bats awaken and get ready to fly out of their roosts or whatever bats call home, so they can catch and swallow billions of mosquitoes for dinner, she and her husband sat outside at opposite sides of the attic and counted the bats flying out for their mosquitoes du jour.

The couple did this for a few evenings, and when they were certain they’d gotten the bat numbers down exactly, (47,) the next night they armed themselves with stuff with which to jam into the bat’s attic openings. They counted the bats as they flapped away into the twilight, and certain all 47 were safely out, quickly stuffed the holes. The dispossessed and indignant bats returned at dawn, flapped and crashed frantically around my pal’s home trying to get back inside and to bed, and exhausted obviously from their nighttime hunting and feeding, could find no way to get back to their roosts, and finally in a great snit, flew off and never returned. I did inquire about their attic’s guano issue.

And then there’s the local businessman who keeps chickens on his property, loving the fresh eggs and the sense of “country” the fat, clucking birds give him. Many months ago, he went out to feed his faithful layers and found his beloved girls in a cannibal state of mind. Making no bones about it, (sorry,) his chickens were pecking one of their own quite nearly to death. Her name was Mildred, and the poor, bloodied fowl was learning the hard way the definition of “pecking order,” and she did not much care for it. Mildred’s heretofore benevolent sisters had as a flock decided the menu that night should include Coq a Mildred.

Horrified, the businessman reached into this disorderly gaggle of murderous hens and rescued the frightened, bloodied Mildred, and brought her into his business establishment. And, except for one or two times when he’s tried to reintroduce her to her former coop-mates with near Donner Pass results, Mildred has been living there ever since, unperturbed by humans, and brooding wherever she pleases. Mildred strolls around and perches nonchalantly on countertops, desks, copy machines, water coolers and business briefs, and never turns a wattle at her new life of luxury, dropping her ova and other offerings into ashtrays, coffee cups and out-baskets in appreciation for being allowed to live away from her murderous, pecking sistren, and for presumably never having to be Sunday dinner.

One of our dearest friends, an Indian (far Eastern) told me once why we really ought not to kill any creature if it can be avoided, because the object of our homicidal intent might very well be a gone-before-us relative with a really bad reincarnation Karma — a relative who’d made a great botch of things while here on earth and is having to pay back the Nirvana gods for all his many earthly infractions. She suggested that if we stomped an annoying cockroach for example, we might be interrupting someone’s atonement time on this planet, and they’d have to be reborn and start the whole process all over again. How tedious is that?

Who am I to dispute beliefs eons older than I? I can think of a relative or three I’d have no trouble stomping if I could be absolutely certain they were the thing crawling across the kitchen floor. That cockroach may in fact be gross old Uncle Vinnie in his new life trying to atone for being the total creep he was in his old one. And, while kicking the life out of him might very well benefit humanity, I just can’t do it.

Unless, of course, Uncle Vinnie was coming at me waving his big set of toothed pincers preparing to do me ill. Then, hey, it’s stomp time big time. Hasta La Vista, Uncle V.

LC Van Savage is a Brunswick writer.