Earthtalk

 12-28-18

We lived on the northern Oregon coast for two years just prior to moving to Boston and saw elk frequently but I think they are even more numerous now.  I have little to no sympathy for humans when it comes to encounters with wildlife.  How many elk are killed by cars each year, and hunters?  Turnabout if fair play.  When you shrink their habitat and plant tasty flowers etc. and then get your panties in a wad when elk come into your yard and feast every morning, well boo-hoo.  The same goes for coyote paranoia out here.  Cats are tasty and the pickings are easy so stop fretting and marvel at the coyote's ability to adapt to urbanization of their habitat (and keep your cats inside at night).  We once shared a cabin with a family of skunks (they lived in the crawl  space) and learned not to annoy them and enjoyed watching them and their young climbing our woodpile on the porch.  We also shared a small cottage on the Oregon coast with skunks that learned how to open the door to the attic at the top of an exterior stairway.  Shortly after moving in we locked it to keep them out since they had been living up there for years and used one end as a toilet.

I once knew a man (now dead) who lived in Rockport and went to great lengths to keep squirrels away from his bird feeder.  He stretched a 40 foot wire between two trees and at the midpoint suspended a 5 foot line down on which was attached his precious bird feeder.  He said the squirrels still got to it so he started trapping them with Have-a-Heart traps which I thought was commendable.  When I asked him where he released them he pointed to a bucket full of water and said "in that".  I was disgusted, drowning squirrels!  That was the end of our relationship which was professional (we were in the early stages of planning a coauthored book).  We weren't seeing eye to eye on the book anyway.

As a young  boy living in rural Oregon, I owned BB guns and pellet guns and eventually a 22 and a shotgun.  I slaughtered wildlife until I was about 16 when a robin I had shot died a slow and agonizing death while I watched helplessly, out of BB's.  I could see the pain and terror in its eyes as it struggled while blood bumped from the hole in its chest.  Made me sob and I quit shooting birds and other small animals.  Stopped hunting ducks and pheasants not long after that but kept my shotgun right up to my second year of graduate school at Kent State.   A day or two after the killings on campus I took my shotgun and axe out back with plans to cut it up but Maggie stopped me for fear it would upset the neighbors.  I sold it to the guy who rented upstairs in the farmhouse we lived in. He was a gun freak and paranoid and was in the National Guard and I saw him on campus during the shootings, but he was not in the group doing the slaughter. He was thrilled to get the gun and gave me almost double ($25) what I asked for it ($15).  He gave the gun to his nephew.  I sort of wish I had chopped it up instead.

# posted by Rockdoc @ 3:38 PM