For a while I feared that one of my favorite non-fishing blogs had gone the way of all flesh, but Ranger Gord’s back with a story about “killer squirrels” that illustrates what happens when morons feed wild animals.
The animals always lose, and I want to go on record as advocating for a reversal of that policy.
For example, bears develop a taste for human food because humans apparently can’t be trained to keep food out of reach.
Rather than kill the bears, I say we train the bears to attack any human offering them food, thereby eliminating both the problem and the offending genetics.
Sure, it’s a radical solution to a complex problem, but I’ve had it with wild animals being killed because of someobody’s Disney-fied view of nature.
Ranger Rant
In the same vein comes an end-of-the-season post from a park ranger, who has some interesting insights into the changing role of the Park Ranger.
They’ve gone from being naturalists to cops, and they’re more likely to be responding to a domestic dispute at a campground than caring for the park or its inhabitants.
A pet peeve? The people that can’t get away from it all without bringing it with them. Leave the big-screen TV at home, it’s the outdoors…
[tags]ranger, bears, camping, parks[/tags]
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Mike 10.17.06 at 8:22 am
Here I was all ready to go off on ol’ Ranger Gord.
I posted on his site a couple or few months ago about his whining. He didn’t post my letter immediately and after waiting three days to see if he would post it, thought he dumped me like the CA ranger site did. I checked back in after I read this and by god, he DID post it after all AND wrote a nice polite response.
So…I’m eating a few words though the message I wrote stands.
I like the site, even more, I enjoy it.
Still looking for an Orvis Kevlar fishing vest though. Too much SoCal fishin’ time, too much AZ backwoods pot habitat fishin’.
Mike
Tom Chandler 10.17.06 at 10:44 am
Those moderated blogs (where comments are held until approved, which doesn’t always happen quickly) make discussions difficult.
And as for the “Killer Squirrels” in the original post; they’ve apparently encouraged enough people to stop feeding them that the problems seems to be going away, and plans to trap and euthanize the rodents have been shelved.
Who’d have thunk it…
Warren Long 10.19.06 at 7:17 am
What’s this all about? “wild viscous animals”? :-) Ranger Gord needs more than a spell checker…
Tom Chandler 10.19.06 at 8:07 am
I wonder if the squirrels aren’t multi-viscosity?