Troubling news today from different places and directions. This blog entry will thus be divided into three short sections:
"No Standing"
Apparently the public has "no standing" to sue USDA Wildlife Services for massive destructions of wildlife. This is supposedly because it cannot be proven how such slaughters "harm" us:
And yet our government shells out billions every year for treatment of depression and other human emotional maladies. How exactly are these "proven?" Obviously, the government believes these conditions exist.
Perhaps when most of the natural wildlife is wiped out in our nation, we can simply put in claims for anti-depressants to make us all deal better with our "learned helplessness" and feel better.
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Alabama the Southern Version of New York City?
No sooner do we learn of the recent roundup and killing of 41 geese from Fairhope, Alabama when there are a whole slew of other articles discussing plans to "cull" geese from different parks in Birmingham, Alabama.
Rather than post all of the article links here, I am posting the link for a new Goosewatch FB page that has just been set up for the people who care about protecting the geese in Birmingham. (This page contains all the article links.) Anyone reading this blog and living in the south is especially urged to "like" and join this page:
(Please also note, the special and general Call of the Canada Geese FB page that contains articles and information from all over the country. (25) Call of the Canada Geese .)
It seems what started out in New York City as effort to "watch" out for and protect our local resident geese is now having to go national.
Numerous Goosewatch FB sites now exist in different areas of the country and it is sadly expected that many more will need to be formed over the coming years to confront what now seems an epidemic "war" on Canada geese.
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What We Cannot Dominate, We Destroy
As officially an "old" person now, I am not shocked by too many things.
However, I have to admit to being truly shocked when watching "20/20" last night and its report entitled, "When Animals Attack."
According to this piece, some 70 million "exotic" animals are owned by Americans.
These include predators such as deadly snakes, alligators, bears, lions, tigers, wolves and even (though not considered a "predator" as such), chimpanzees.
Of course, I was aware of those "nut jobs" who keep such animals in homes or even apartments (as one young man kept a tiger in a New York City apartment some years ago). But, I was not aware of the actual numbers nor that it was apparently so easy to obtain what are otherwise wild and potentially dangerous animals.
Once again, one is forced to wonder how and why in a human culture so otherwise advanced in all other ways, we have so degenerated in our relationships with the other animals on this planet?
Many of the species now being captively bred and sold in the United States for profit are being wiped out and facing instinction in their native lands due to destruction of habitat and illegal poaching.
But, are we soon approaching the day when these rare animals will only exist in cages, completely subjugated to the will of humans?
What truly stunned in this report was the way government is so seemingly lax and accepting of people keeping wild predators as "pets" while coming down hard on anyone attempting to keep a Canada goose or wild duck.
Somewhere in the logs of the Call of the Canada Geese FB page is an article from about a year ago of a woman who rescued an injured and orphaned Canada goose gosling, raised and kept the goose as a pet, along with her pet dog.
The woman had a home, property and I believe, a barn.
And yet, government came down on her and almost forced her to give up the beloved goose because it was a "wild animal."
It was only through favorable press, petitioning and social media that the woman was finally allowed to keep her rescued goose -- but not without a whole lot of stress and haggling in court.
And yet the goose was a threat to no one.
All of these incidences seem to point to a baffling intolerance towards independent wildlife that poses no actual harm to humans, while at the same time, encouraging or at least accepting human "ownership" of predatory animals who rightfully belong only in the wild.
Once again, the human tendency to willfully dominate, "control," subjugate and ultimately victimize other animals takes precedence over responsibility, ethics and even common sense.
(Sometimes I wonder if perhaps some species of animals are actually better off going extinct than sticking around for further human abuse?)
We, as humans, may be highly progressed in the sciences, the arts, athletics and all manner of intellectual pursuit.
But, truly in our associations and understanding of animals, we have not "progressed" beyond the cave man days.
Rather, the attitude seems to be, "What we cannot dominate, subjugate and control, we destroy."
Such is the seeming attitude towards Canada geese and perhaps best explains our murderous actions towards them in particular. -- PCA
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