They say America is a religious country, and after a month of nonstop Christmas who can doubt it? Sometimes it’s fair to wonder, though, just what religion is being celebrated. Take, for example, the Church of Pale Male.

In case you haven’t heard, Pale Male is a red-tailed hawk that took up residence amid the cornices of an exclusive Manhattan apartment building overlooking Central Park about a decade ago. Since then, in consort with various female hawks – the latest of which has been dubbed Lola – he had spawned several new generations of hawks and his nest had grown into a 400-pound, 8-foot-by-3-foot behemoth, a sort of Trump Towers of the hawk world.

But the co-op’s residents, who include CNN anchorwoman Paula Zahn, were growing irritated. Pale Male had a nasty habit of attacking and devouring the local pigeons and rats, then dropping their bloody remains on the sidewalk below. Yuck, declared a majority of the residents, who seemed shocked by Nature’s refusal to abide by civilized standards.

So the co-op board, headed by Ms. Zahn’s husband, quietly voted to remove the nest in early December. When news of the decision got out, however, the environmental faithful were outraged. It was as if Joseph and Mary had been turned away from the inn. So they picketed the co-op, brandishing placards recommending, among other things, that passersby “Honk for Hawks.” The high priests of the Audubon Society demanded a sit-down with the co-op board to explain its sins. Editorials pointed out the saintly characteristics of the animal world as opposed to the greedy world of wealthy co-op owners.

In the end, the co-op’s board saw the light and reversed itself. Pale Male’s nest was retrieved from the garbage bags and carefully reconstructed 19 stories above ground. An architect was even hired to design guardrails that would prevent the hawks from tossing coagulated corpses and other sacrificial detritus over the side to the pavement below. Whether Pale Male and Lola, last seen making lazy circles over Central Park, will actually return remains to be seen. It’s widely suspected that the co-op’s change of heart was less than sincere, and that the board knew that once the nest had been destroyed, even temporarily, the hawks would move on forever. This isn’t like 1993, when a prior move to evict Pale Male was nipped in the bud by threats of lawsuits under a 1918 treaty – the first of the environmental gospels – to protect migratory species.

Now, Pale Male and Lola are doubtless magnificent creatures. And nobody seems to mind that New York City’s pigeons and rats are being depleted. Animal rights belong only to those species that humans deem worthy. Indeed, the peregrine falcon, once thought to be close to extinction, was recently taken off the endangered species list thanks in part to the efforts of private groups to “plant” them on urban skyscrapers, which mimic their usual cliff side roosts, where they have a virtually endless supply of less worthy creatures on which to dine.

But let’s not worry about Pale Male. He can easily find a more hospitable skyscraper somewhere in Manhattan, if he chooses. And the hawk world as a whole is doing just fine, partly because an earlier member of the Audubon Society, a wealthy society matron named Rosalie Edge, in the 1920s personally endowed a sanctuary in Pennsylvania along a flyway used by migrating raptors. (The Audubon Society, then mostly interested in songbirds, refused her request to help out.)

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is still a favorite with birders, who pay $7 to watch hawks and eagles soar south every fall along the Kittatiny Ridge.

As for New Yorkers, they reflect much of modern America’s love-hate relationship with the natural world. Far removed from their rural, agricultural roots, they tend to romanticize the natural world in the abstract – indeed, make of it a kind of religion – but then are shocked to see the food chain at work up close and personal. Could Pale Male be trying to tell us something about modern environmentalism?

Mr. Bray is a Detroit News columnist.