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Continuing on My Series About the Food Chain

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So I saw this today and wanted to make a quote of the day but just couldn’t figure out how.  The stupid is so heavy it hurts.

An Irvine resident is requesting that the city install a sign to memorialize the hundreds of fish killed in a traffic crash in early October as they were being taken to Irvine Ranch Market.

In the letter, Dina Kourda, on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, asks the city’s street maintenance superintendent to place the sign at the site of the crash on Walnut and Yale avenues.

I think my favorite though was this quote from the boy genius himself:

“Research tells us that fish use tools, tell time, sing, and have impressive long-term memories and complex social structures, yet fish used for food are routinely crushed, impaled, cut open, and gutted, all while still conscious. Sparing them from being tossed from a speeding truck and slowly dying from injuries and suffocation seems the least that we can do,” the letter continued.

Tell me, what hands do the fish use to pick up their “tools”?  They were food there sport and while you may be well intentioned, the fact is, death is a part of life and humans are omnivores.  That’s right, we eat both plants and animals.  You do realize a plant is a living organism too right?  It is the behavior of people like you who have created an environment where things like this occur.  Today I got a new one to add to the list.

Berlin authorities say they shot and killed a 120 kilogram (265-pound) wild boar after it attacked and injured four people including a police officer in a residential neighborhood.

I’m sure that Mr. Kourda weeps for the wild boar, that could have easily killed someone, and I’m sure he wishes that they erect a sign to remember the boar time immemorial.  This is what happens when animals stop viewing you as a predator.  We, as a species, have progressed to the point where many just go to the store and pick up food.  Many, like Mr. Kourda feel that it is no longer necessary to kill animals for food.

Well, here’s a random though, that pile of grain you eat because it’s not from the back of an animal?  How many mice were killed to prevent them from eating it so it can be on your table?  Say you avoid producers and go “organic” which doesn’t use pesticide or kill the little vermin, the reason for the higher costs, which not everyone can afford, is because the lower crop yield due to the pests.

Tell me, what about mouse infestations in your house?  See I live on the edge of town surrounded by farm fields.  The little bastards have chewed their way into my crawlspace and now into my house.  Would you like to put up memorials for all the mice I’ve had to kill Mr. Kourda?  They bring with them disease and damage to property.  Hire an exterminator I hear you say?

Well I’ve done exactly that, and they poison the little bastards so that people like you can think that they’ve just ran off to live somewhere else.  That way you don’t their handy work, or in this case my handy work.

We have been steadily removing ourselves as being a predator in the pool of animals.  Many, like Mr. Kourda would like to forcefully prevent those who still act predatory to stop.  The thing is, just because we stop being predatory, doesn’t mean other animals won’t view us as prey.

If you would like to voultarily vacate your position at the top of the food chain, that’s your choice.  Me, I’m going to stay right here at the top and keep my family and my self free from disease and vermin while keeping them healthy and well fed.

Remember, She Can and Probably Does Vote…

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Honestly I hope this is a joke, but I don’t think it was.  Also worthy of rememberence is not only the fact that she can vote, but she’s also probably reproducing.

h/t To the Wife on this one.

The War on Mice

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Those who know me know I hate varmints and vermin with a passion.  We had a small problem last year but we quickly got it taken care of and didn’t have any further issues.  Well this year they have returned, with a vengeance.

Our cats clued us in to their return as they started staring at the access panel to the Jacuzzi tub again.  We opened it up and there was evidence galore they had recently come back.  Down went the kill traps and the wait began.

Yesterday morning I woke up to this:

The other trap had been set off but evidently they got lucky and didn’t take a metal bar to the face.  I reset the traps and away we went.  The wife got home and informed me of the following:

That’s right, two more of the little buggers took metal bars to their necks.  I reset the traps and not even 3 hours later I’m informed by the wife, they’re full again.

Now I’m saying, holy !@#$ Huston we have a problem.  I clean it all up.  Reset the traps and add in two more.  I wake up this morning to find the sneakiest bastard of the bunch:

The little bastard tripped three out of the 4 traps and some how didn’t get snapped… Well the 4th trap broke his neck and ripped open his nose.

Earlier in August the wife and I signed up for pest control which thus far had worked well.  Took out a couple of larger wasp nests that were forming in areas that were difficult for me to get to.  We’ve seen fewer creepy crawlies overall.  At that point we hadn’t seen much in the way of mice signs so they didn’t do much at that time.

Well now that harvest is in full swing, and I’ve killed 6 in 24 hours, they’ll be back out on Thursday.  TMW is less that thrilled right now though because I’m leaving with Joe tonight for Mecca and then we’re headed to Reno for GBR tomorrow morning.  So that means if there are any more of the little buggers she gets to clean them up and reset the traps.

As an FYI, just about everyone has mice problems this time of year in the area, even brand new construction.  It’s the down side of basically living surrounded by wheat fields.  I would poison them, but the last thing I want is for them to die in the crawlspace.  The house would stink to high heaven and then finding the little buggers would be an interesting venture all of it’s own.

Yet Another Lesson in Wild Animals

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When you are in the wilderness you are not in a Disney movie.  The animals do not think of you as their friend.  You are either food, a threat, or something to be watched.  So with those things in mind, if traveling in the wilderness you need to be ready to deal with animals that may find you a nice dinner.

A 43-year-old professor says she fought off a grizzly bear that stalked her and her nieces by throwing everything she had at it – including a package of macaroni and cheese.

This woman though isn’t alone in her mistaken belief, preview this list of incidents previously discussed here:

So yet again we have the oh so familiar incident where a couple of people.  I think my favorite was she used bear spray and it continued to charge.  I think this is the money quote:

“All I could think about was this bear is so close to me I can see its teeth,” she said. “I could have kissed it. I wished I had a gun.”

Carry your damn guns.  You never know when you may need it, two and four legged varmints are both dangerous.

h/t Mad Rocket Scientist

Another Incident with Wild Animals

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Wild animals are making the rounds as of late.  It started off with a man attacked by a bear, then another one got into get in a pissing contest with a Bison.  Then information came out about a coyote problem in Seattle.  Now we have an incident involving some of our tree-dwelling cousins.

 The chimpanzees dragged the man for more than a mile, under a fence and into their enclosure at Jane Goodall Institute Chimp Eden near Nelspruit, The Telegraph newspaper reported.

Armed escorts were required for the paramedics who went to treat and rescue the victim.  But they’re just smaller animals that couldn’t possibly be a danger to humans right?

“These chimpanzees have six times the strength of a human being so you have to respect them and we certainly do,” he said.

So if you still think that wild animals, no matter their size, don’t present a threat or danger to humans, remember that’s your choice and opinion.  Facts state that humans are not on the top of the food chain by PFM.  They are there because of their tools and without them they are nothing but walking meat popsicle. If you choose to go into the wild unarmed, or even around suburbia, that is your choice and you can live with the consequences of your choice.  You have no right to force your moral choices though on anyone else.

On Being on Top of the Food Chain

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So Tuesday I mentioned an incident where some enterprising individual thought he would stand his ground with a bison and lost.  I stated the following:

When armed however we are far superior to those other predators.  It’s tools that make the difference and for that reason your position on the top of the food chain is considered negotiable to mother nature.

I have also previously talked about how we are self demoting ourselves and our position on the food chain.  Well the situation isn’t getting any better.  Actually it’s going down hill fast and it appears it is showing no signs of stopping.

Like several other neighborhoods in West Seattle, the Seola Beach area is sandwiched between ravines and greenbelts, so it’s not surprising that coyotes live there. But in the last few weeks the animals have been showing up more and more, and residents say the coyotes are taking an aggressive stand.

The solution to this problem isn’t to kill the varmints.  No that would be bad.  The answer is to live trap them and relocate them.  Which is funny when you see the following shortly there after.

And the neighbors aren’t just worried about their own safety, either. Many believe the coyotes are killing off pets.

"Neighbors have talked about losing cats and dogs," said Kristi Coluccio. "Good dinner for coyotes, too."

The situation actually is bad enough that parents are fearing for their children and keeping them inside.  If you’re that fearful, why don’t you deal with the problem permanently.  Relocating the animals is only temporary.  Even then the animals no longer fear humans.  They have no reason to.

The animals are acting aggressively towards humans because they do not appear to be a threat, and actually appear to be walking 180lbs meat popsicles with much smaller juicier varieties that haven’t aged as much.  When their buddies bob and frank don’t eat dirt after being around humans they don’t associate humans as being dangerous.

For a long time wild animals avoid humans because by god if we saw them, we killed them.  Animals learned, and rightfully so, who the top predator was.  We have shoved our predatory status to the side though, and now many are acting surprised that wild life are learning there is no longer a need to fear humans.

Why should Wiley E. Coyote fear humans when a bunch of hippies have run to the state whining about how animals should be protected.  How humans shouldn’t be allowed to hunt them.  How the animals just want to live in peace and are not a threat to humans.

Yeah listen up there sparky and shut your patchouli eating ass up for a second and listen to me.  Any wild animal if given the chance would kill you, doubly so if it is any type of predator.  It is our tools and our history that causes animals to give us wide berth.  You’re meddling with the system has lowered our status on the totem pole and has opened up innocent people to animal attack.  Not only attack though but disease and pestilence carried by the animals is now left to spread unchecked.

Don’t come crying to me as this gets worse, and it will.  Mice are already problems in DC, and what’s that, you can’t kill the mice?  Mice that can carry bubonic plague and other diseases.

Do I like animals? Yes. 

Do I kill animals for the “thrill of the kill”? No.

I kill them for many reasons ranging from food, to pest control, to effective conservation.  Conservation? I hear you ask.  Yes conservation since over population actually weakens a herd as a whole limiting available resources limiting the overall health of the animals.

Besides, none of you tree hugging hippies can say a damn thing to me.  You know why?  Because while I try to act ethically and put an animal out of it’s pain and suffering, you tree huggers made sure I spent an extra 45 minutes waiting to get the O.K. from the state.  Why?  Because you were delusional about the condition of the deer and what needed to be done.  Yeah, who really cares about the animals again?  Not to mention hunters spend way more on conservation than you tree huggers.

My suggestion to the residents, get some of these and start shooting the damn things.

h/t Ry via email.

Wild Animals are Wild!

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Seriously folks, nature is not a Disney movie like some would have you believe.  Wild animals are exactly that, wild, and you need to keep your distance or be prepared to suffer the consequences.

Officials in Yellowstone National Park say a Massachusetts man was gored by a bull bison that threw him 10 feet in the air and then pinned him to the ground.

The man, who is in his mid-50s, suffered a broken collarbone, shoulder blade, several ribs and a groin injury in Saturday’s encounter near the Norris campground. He was airlifted to an Idaho Falls, Idaho hospital and is expected to recover. His name was not released.

So the man didn’t taunt the animal which is a plus, but he let the bull approach and then refused to move away.  Eventually the Bison got tired of said moron being in his territory.  Being a larger animal than this puny human, unsurprisingly the Bison won.

For those who think somehow being on the “top” of the food chain makes you magically superior, let me enlighten you.  We are not on top because of some pure fanciful magic*.  Humans are on top because we figured out how to make tools.  We figured out how to manipulate the environment to our advantage.  It was our intellect that placed us at the top of the food chain.

Given that it was our intellect, not our brute strength, you better bring a tool with you if you decide that you’re going to challenge another creäture within the chain.  Without the tools we are but a walking bipedal warm Popsicle for things that have claws and brute strength.  Most predators could kill us without as much of a batting of the eyes if we are unarmed.  When armed however we are far superior to those other predators.  It’s tools that make the difference and for that reason your position on the top of the food chain is considered negotiable to mother nature.

This man is very lucky, he decided that he was going to try to stare down an animal larger than himself.  Why he chose to do that we may never know.  It was obviously a very poor idea, doubly so since he didn’t bring any tools for the fight.  What the hell did he think was going to happen?  The Bison would just shrug it off, seriously what the hell is up with you city slicker folks?  This is almost as bad as the woman who tried to pet the moose.

*The F in PFM doesn’t actually stand for fanciful, but I’m sure you can figure it out.

Sometimes it’s a 4 Legged Varmint…

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Carry your gun, it isn’t just two-legged varmints that go bump in the night.

The unidentified 30-year-old man was sleeping at 5 a.m. when the black bear attacked him at Ponderosa Campground in the Tonto National Forest just off Arizona 260 about 12 miles northeast of Payson.

The man’s fiance escaped from the tent with her child.  During her escape the bear left and wondered into another campsite.  This time Yogi chose poorly.

The bear went to a nearby campsite, where a camper shot the animal several times with a 9mm handgun, and the bear disappeared.

Certainly not ideal for a bear but I would take that over a sharp stick without a doubt.  Evidently within the area this is the third attack within a month.

This should serve as a strong reminder that we enjoy our place at the top of the food chain not because of strength or agility, but because of our tools.  Firearms are a tool that levels the playing field quite well, especially with regards to an animal that can quite easily kill you without trying.

Also, remember while in bear country use bear boxes or bear bags and remove all foods and things could attract bears.  Also a suggestion, when in bear country where bears might be more prevalent due to wild-fire, don’t use the garbage cans in an actual campsite.  Yogi is more than happy to knock them over to get at the soda bottle tossed inside.  Even if it’s relatively close to your tents.  I speak from experience on that later incident… Thankfully it was just a yearling and a solid “Ya bear Ya. We don’t want you here” scared him off and we didn’t see him again.

Be careful out there and the life you save could just very well be your own, so carry your damn guns!