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Sunday, December 7, 2008

In "Nature, Nuisance or Worse?", Peggy Orenstein writes:

"Awww," my 5-year-old daughter would say, catching sight of a tom on our way to the playground, "isn't he cute?" We would pretend we lived in some distant past, that we were the first humans to set foot on this land. That is, until the day we rounded a bend to find a gang of fowl marauders glaring at us as if to say, "What are you looking at, pal?" The birds had a good three inches on my girl. I stepped between her and them, and with a bright, "It's O.K., honey," which fooled neither avian nor child, hurried past.

Since then, we've taken a different route to the swings.

It's only a matter of time before the turkeys complete the circuit from novelty to nuisance. Until they become like the deer who ate $300 worth of landscaping. Or the geese who have turned jogging around a nearby lake into a trip through a sewer. Or worse: in October a raccoon slid open a screen door of a house across the street, jumped up on the bed where my neighbor was napping with her newborn son and bit her. Although we haven't had the rabies outbreaks that are common in the East, the nursing mother had to endure a series of injections just in case.

She concludes that the solution should come from above

As much as I would like to wring the birds' necks, I'm not a homesteader. Not even close. I'm a middle-class, coast-dwelling, urban lady prone to hives when I brush against anything green -- exactly the sort, according to a classic study by Stephen Kellert, a professor of social ecology at Yale University, who most abhors hunting....So what to do? I find myself sympathizing (almost) with Sarah Palin -- Sarah Palin! -- who encourages Alaskans to gun down wolves from helicopters.

What does firing on wolves from helicopters have to do with rambling raccoons and fussy turkeys?

I have to wonder - doesn't anyone take their kids on camping trips anymore? Learning how to deal with animals and green stuff, learning how to light a campfire, set up a tent, paddle a boat and hike through the woods gives urban kids a sense of usefulness and accomplishment that they don't get at home. Some even learn how to say 'shoo' (and mean it) to walking foodstuffs who taste good with gravy.

When they're over 10, they can even learn how to fire their Daisy Red Ryder air rifle - without shooting an eye out.

1 Comment

You just can't parody this. These leftards pride themselves on their green creds, and they are afraid of anything that, you know, actually lives in the green stuff.

Hilariously, the solution to suburban deer and turkey is as simple as three words: Bow and arrows. Additionally, you get the benefit of real, natural, nature products for food, and deer and turkey has almost no cholesterol.

The original environmentalists were hunters and fishermen, and we're still the only ones who make any sense.

Silly leftards. Pathetic beyond reckoning.

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