10/28/2023
BANYAN'S STORY - Part One
My name is Karen Edgerton. I am an animal communicator and the owner of The Emotional Animal. Whenever possible, I do pro bono work for animal rescues. I received this picture of a canine that was seen at a West Texas feedlot. I immediately began trying to communicate with her. She responded and the first thing she told me was her name - Banyan. The Banyan is a tree whose branches produce their own root systems thus one tree can influence many acres of habitat.
At the time, we believed Banyan was a domestic dog that had been abandoned at the feedlot by her owner, an all too often occurrence in this state. During our initial contact, Banyan presented an image of when she was just a pup, jumping and playing in a kitchen with dog bowls tucked in a corner. I saw several feet moving around her. Then I felt a sharp pain in her paw, heard teeth snap and a child began screaming.
The next image was of Banyan, alone and terrified, left to fend for herself at a remote feedlot in West Texas. From there came scenes overlain with fear and confusion as she traversed the area searching for both food and shelter. She finally found an open door to an office that was no longer used and settled in as best she could.
According to the workers on the lot, Banyan would stand just outside their reach when they ate a meal outside. The men never fed her directly, but she quickly learned where leftovers were tossed. She discovered mice in the grain silos, new plant shoots after the rains and occasionally, to avoid starving, she consumed the meat from cows who passed on the lot. She stated she never hurt any birds or small mammals that also sought sanctuary on the feedlot, and it deeply pained her to eat the cows who died. Banyan was also extremely proud of the animal friends she made there.
By the time we learned of her, starvation had reduced her to a walking skeleton and the lack of nutrition and filthy conditions on the lot invited mange. Banyan was terribly thin and almost hairless, and she lost several teeth trying to retrieve food from the rocky ground. She wasn’t going to live through another hot Texas summer.
Several people had searched for her but the men who worked on the lot taught her to be wary of humans and no one had seen her for weeks. I was speaking with her hourly about allowing herself to be rescued. My partner Sheila went out to the lot, and we looked for Banyan together. Then just as she was about to leave, Banyan came running by her and out the front gate. With the direction she came from established, we found the empty office she claimed as her den.
Sheila left fresh cooked food and clean water outside Banyan’s man-made den. A camera with night vision was set up in the hope we could get a closer look at her to prepare for what she would need if capture became possible.
The first night brought grackles, skunks, foxes, raccoons and the two cats who also lived at the lot to the feast Sheila brought. I was in constant communication with Banyan during this time, and although I coaxed and coaxed her, she would not go to the food. However, on the second night, just an hour before sunrise, she came, and we sat glued to the camera watching her eat her fill. On the third day we left a wire catch trap hoping we could entice her to enter.
We kept watch. I communicated with Banyan as gently as I could while still trying to convince her to enter the catch trap. On the morning of the fourth day, I decided to try another tactic and had a brief conversation with one of the grackles that appeared to be both familiar with Banyan and trusted by her. About nine hours later, before the sun set on the feedlot, Banyan stepped into the trap and her future.
