Category Archives: Environmentalism & Animal Rights

Government’s Critter Kill List

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics, IMMIGRATION

Central planners and their scientists, especially the liberal ones, like a perfect natural world. To that end, they’ve developed a utopian idea of the natural world and will kill, kill, kill to achieve Order at all costs. Thus, when a remarkable flock of conure parrots made San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill its home, radical environmentalists wanted this flock—which has a complex and highly evolved social life—exterminated because it was not indigenous. It took a remarkable man to save these precious parrots.

While animals may not deviate from the preordained natural order, unless part of the indigenous human population, established human populations must be destroyed by centrally planned, human mass migration.

Of course, bureaucracies under Republican are no different in the critter kill lists they develop. Via Mother Jones:

… Department of Agriculture’s tally of every animal it killed or euthanized over the last fiscal year [is] … 2,713,570 … from 319 different species. … The culling, conducted by the agency’s Wildlife Services division, is controversial. That’s because—much like the actual kill list—the USDA’s operations are shrouded in secrecy, prone to collateral damage, and symptomatic of an approach that often uses force as something other than a last resort. (A 2012 Sacramento Bee series explored the problems with the USDA’s methods in detail.) One of the problems with culling wildlife is that once you’ve gotten into the business of killing some animals to save other animals, it’s awfully hard to get out of it.
The contradictions can be glaring. To wit, the USDA killed cats (730) to save rats, but if you’re scoring at home, it also killed 1,327 black rats, 353 Norway rats, 74 Hutia rats, 7 Polynesian rats, 4 bushy-tailed woodrats, and 3 kangaroo rats. It slaughtered more than 16,500 double-breasted cormorants to save salmon. It’s shooting white-tailed deer (5,321) to save various plant species and the small fauna, like rabbits, that eat them. But the woods aren’t safe for Thumper either—the agency bagged 7,113 cottontail rabbits, plus assorted varieties of jackrabbits, swamp rabbits, and feral pet rabbits. The USDA killed 322 wolves and 61,702 coyotes to save livestock, perhaps in an attempt to atone for the 16 unspecified livestock it killed by accident.

Via RT: “The Obama admin accidentally killed 113 porcupines last year.”

And:

Avoiding controversy can lead to cover-ups.

Gary Strader, a former USDA employee, told the Sacramento Bee he once discovered a federally protected golden eagle dead in a trap.

“I called my supervisor and said, ‘I just caught a golden eagle and it’s dead,'” said Strader. “He said, ‘Did anybody see it?’ I said, ‘Geez, I don’t think so.’”

“He said, ‘If you think nobody saw it, go get a shovel and bury it and don’t say nothing to anybody.’ ”

“That bothered me,” said Strader, whose job was terminated in 2009. “It wasn’t right.”

Motherf-cker Mugabe’s Menu

Africa, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics, Race, South-Africa

Question: What do you call a “person” who butchers and barbeques baby elephant?
Answer: A motherf-cker.

Lowbrow Robert Mugabe, as Foreign Policy has reported, “celebrated his 91st birthday followed by a lavish party with an exotic menu, reportedly including barbequed baby elephant. The brazen celebration was yet another reminder of the stark contrast between the increasingly venal lifestyles of the country’s politically-connected nouveau riche and regular Zimbabweans, who are now poorer than they were when Mugabe came to power nearly 35 years ago.”

A much better analysis of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, in general, and the significance of the unqualified support Mandela and his predecessors have lent to Mugabe over the decades, in particular, can be found in “Mandela, Mbeki, And Mugabe Sitting In A Baobab Tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” the title of Chapter 4 in “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa.”

Read “Just A Girl With A Gun; Not A Gratuitous Killer,” for the origins of the quiz in the post’s lead.

UPDATED: Slow! Critters Crossing

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics

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A delightful little opossum graced us with a visit the other day. Opossums are shy, nocturnal creatures, so it was indeed a treat to watch him and snap him drinking from the bird bath. My mother’s was the keen little eye that spied him.

Sadly, while out for a constitutional, I spotted the little guy. “When attacked by predators, opossums ‘play dead’ or ‘play possum’ by collapsing and lying still.” This little critter, however, was dead; roadkill of a careless driver. Probably a speeding kid.

Signs that read “Slow: [bloody, rude] kids crossing” are everywhere around the neighborhood.

These gentle critters deserve the same consideration.

UPDATE: In reply to the Facebook thread:

Fred, I hardly think that these sloth-like, slow and shy Marsupials can by their nature do the damage you describe. Sounds like nonsense on stilts. You must mean racoons; they are aggressive and quick to pounce. The creature that wreaks the most havoc on little critters in the wild is the common household cat: voles, shrews, birds: they don’t stand a chance. I recall once reading a study in Scientific American, I think (but unsure) about the eradication of small species by cats, feral and other.

UPDATE II (5/6/017): SeaWorld SUCKS (Secede From It)

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics, Ilana On Radio & TV, libertarianism

The issue, however, is this and this alone: It is worse than cruel and barbaric to keep a giant, sentient creature possessing of a sizable intelligence and complex social needs, in a small enclosure, for the mere amusement of the masses.

While this libertarian would never suggest any state regulation; she does advocate vigorous, voluntary attrition, and NOW! Stay away from SeaWorld! I’m with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals):

Animal rights advocates outraged that a SeaWorld float is included in next week’s lineup for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade unveiled plans on Wednesday for a naked protest outside the landmark store.
Demonstrators wearing nothing but black and white body paint to resemble orcas will squeeze into a bathtub outside the midtown Manhattan store on Thursday to mimic orcas held in captivity and to repeat last year’s demand – which was denied – that the float be excluded, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said.
“It is unacceptable to confine orcas to barren tanks that, to them, are the size of a bathtub,” said Delcianna Winders, PETA’s deputy general counsel.

And just this once, I’m with CNN, which screened a devastating documentary, “Blackfish,” on what befalls the huge and highly evolved Orca, when kept in a tiny tub of water.

Understand, I have no doubt that SeaWorld imagines it treats these animals as “humanely” as possible under the cincumstances. As the silly SeaWorld spokeswoman Aimée Jeansonne Becka has promised, “SeaWorld’s animals are well cared for and their health and well-being is a responsibility we take extremely seriously. We are proud of our world-class standards of care.”

To those gung ho readers who disowned me when I penned one of my favorite columns, “Just A Girl With A Gun; Not A Gratuitous Killer, remember this: I’m also the writer who had written—I hang my head in shame—in defense of Michael Vick (I & II). While I regret the columns that got me on the Sean Hannity nationally syndicated radio show, I have not changed my views on natural rights. I have, however, become convinced about our moral and ethical obligation to treasure animals and the natural world and to shun those who don’t.

Secede from SeaWorld.

UPDATE: Facebook Thread:

James Huggins: Animals were put on earth for us to use and preserve. Not use and abuse.
10 mins · Like

Ilana Mercer: Why does the Orca need to be “used” by human beings? Haven’t we evolved enough to entertain our effing selves?

UPDATE II (5/6/017): Voluntarily withdrawing patronage from circuses that display these large sea mammals is the libertarian way. But I won’t be grieving France’s ban of “captive breeding of dolphins and killer whales.”