Tree Ratsand Sea Rats

 

Rats, tree rats, and sea rats, and exploding populations of pests in general are the subject of this blog so bear with me for a couple of sentences.

Several western states like Washington State and California, have an initiative process. Petitions are passed around, signers stupidly say,' I don't know anything about this, but let the voters decide.' The voters decide based on the ballot title. Often a yes vote means 'reject this bill,' but more often a deceptively or poorly written bill is passed because voters think they understand what's in it. A bill that sounds good. Reasonable.

Then the next thing you know you can't buy a rat trap in Washington State.

That law passed a decade ago, but the state legislature, the people we pay to carefully consider all the possible draw backs and details of a bill, rarely does anything to change something that has been passed directly by voters. That's why you could get a ticket for driving in the left hand lane of I-5 if the state patrol ever decided to enforce that thirty five year old law. But that's a different subject.

What voters thought they were passing was a ban on leg hold traps that were used to kill big-eyed fuzzy creatures for fur coats. What we got was no snap traps of any kind.

Now this might sound like I'm changing the subject, but I'm not.

Sea lions cluster around the bay end of the Bonneville dam and feast on salmon. When the population gets big enough to do serious damage to the fish population, wildlife officials kill them. No, not with that violent clubbing that is associated with seal pups in the Arctic. They use lethal injection.

Or they used to. I read something in the paper this morning that defies my ability to make fun of it. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has halted sea lion killing because the people, as well as sea lions, take salmon so why should sea lions be killed while fishermen roam free? Okay, it wasn't worded just that way, but that's what the court ruled.

I wouldn't mind the Earth is our Mother movement if they didn't pee in the deep end so often. Rats, squirrels, sea lions, and any other species overpopulates due to environments created by humans need to be killed. Fine, humanely if possible, but some animals need killing.

I have to stop this blog and put out some poison bait for the squirrel that dug up my crocus bulbs last week. I'm just glad I don't have to use a trap. And if the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals would like to rule on that, I would just like to say that crocus have a right to live and grow too.

Which makes me wonder, since there is PETA for animals, maybe there should be a VETA to protect vegetation? I'll give that some thought and get back to you.

Nancy Sherer

 

 


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