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In Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," a ship strays into uncharted waters and an albatross appears out of the mists, guiding it to safety. At first a savior, the albatross is soon blamed for the ship's misfortune, and the mariner shoots it with his crossbow. A plague of terrors visits the crew, dice are thrown to determine the mariner's fate, and he is finally cast ashore to wander the Earth, doomed to recount his deed to wayfarers along the path.
Over time, countless animals have died for our sins, our greed, our wants and our desires, and we bury the stories, for it is impossible to have them in our hearts. Every now and then, however, someone is cast forth to not just deliver the news but also to act on behalf of the wild ones. In recent years, our mariner has been Rod Coronado, whose story is told in the important, fascinating new book "Operation Bite Back" by Dean Kuipers, a Times editor. Haunted by the fate of wild things endlessly pursued, trapped, farmed, flayed, caged and tormented for their pelts, their organs and their secrets, Coronado believed we were all culpable in the obliteration of animals if we did not intervene on their behalf. For him, that meant heading directly to the front lines of the war against what's wild, freeing the four-leggeds and then returning under the guise of another persona to publicize the deeds -- a schizophrenic situation that led...