Squirrel Detonation

I don't know if this is making national news, but Spokane, Washington is having problems with an overrun squirrel problem in their arboretum. To solve it, they're blowing up the squirrels!

The parks department has hired a group called Rodenator, which pipes oxygen and propane into tunnels created by the squirrels. Those tunnels then blow up and collapse, killing the squirrels. 

The Humane Societies of both Spokane and Seattle have come out against this method, saying it may not be a pain-free way to kill the creatures. 

I used to live in New York; I certainly understand the need to rid yourself of unwanted pests, and I'm not entirely educated on just what damage the squirrels are doing to the Spokane Arboretum ... but I can't get over the idea that blowing them up is excessive behavior. 

Poor Puffer Fish

Sorry for the graphic picture. ... We had a death in the work aquarium today, and I thought it was sad ... in a sort of, I realize it's a fish and let's keep it in proportion, kind of way.

My office has a large salt-water aquarium. After several re-orgs of office space, I ended up volunteering to feed the fish—since I was one of the few people working near the tank before and after desks and cubes got moved around.

The fish have an automatic feeder that dispenses some food three times a day. The supplemental food I was giving was mostly for a large puffer fish, although all of the dozen or so fish in the tank would eat it. The puffer fish was super animated; it had so much personality for a fish. It's fins looked like they spun around like little propellers when it moved through the water.

When I go to feed the fish—stinky, dried krill that I drop in from the top of the tank—the puffer is the first fish to come up for food. He didn't come for krill, and none of the other fish seemed too excited to eat. I knew something had to be amiss. I looked around and found him dead, wedged between two pieces of coral (as in the picture).

Initially I was concerned that my feeding had upset his balance. Fish can be so sensitive, since they live in an entirely contained environment. But the aquarium expert who came to take care of his remains and clean the tank thought he had just died of old age. He was around three years old, and apparently that's a decent lifespan for an aquarium fish. Also, I found out that the fin movement I thought was so cute was actually over-activity due to stress in the aquarium environment, and that stress may have shortened his life some. Sigh. Poor puffer fish.

Remember savetoby.com?

Poster Jackie Lynn brought this up in my previous post about suburban/rural rabbit hunting. Do you all remember the website Save Toby? The site was notorious in 2005 because its author threatened to kill a cute little bunny named Toby if visitors to the site didn't donate $50,000 to his paypal account. (You could give to the cause by simply leaving a donation or by buying merchandise that said "Save Toby.") Had the money not come in by June 30, 2005, he said he would take Toby to the butcher's to be slaughtered for food.

If you go to the site now, you'll see a notice that Toby is safe; enough money was raised. ... But remnants of its controversial days remain. There is a picture of Toby in a pot, presumably one which he would have been boiled in. There are recipes for different ways to prepare Toby.
Here's an article from MSNBC about the controversy—I don't think it will surprise anyone that animal rights activists didn't like savetoby.com.

I guess I thought the site's owner was joking all along, and it got blown out of proportion. I never took it seriously. But maybe he really would have killed Toby. If that had been the case, maybe it makes it a little better that he planned to eat the rabbit, but it still smacks of extortion if it all was real.

Shhh! I'm hunting Wabbits

This past weekend, my boyfriend and I were at a birthday party in suburban Seattle. The home hosting the party had a beautiful and large garden. Just like you'd expect in the Northwest—full of hostas, ferns, evergreen trees, lots of leafy, green, vibrant plants. And as I walked in from my car, I noticed a little athletic gray bunny with sharp ears and a sassy expression that said, "I'm not afraid of you, human."

I told the woman of the household—a dynamic, energetic, powerhouse in her 60s who loves her garden—that I had seen a bunny in her yard on my way in, and she said, "Did you kill it?" I was a little taken aback. But I've heard enough horror stories of rabbits and deer destroying yards to understand what she was getting at. Apparently, the sweet little fuzzy one ate all of her irises before they even had a chance to bud, and now he's moved on to other prized blooms. So, not being a natural hunter, she was reluctant to fully "attack" the problem and didn't quite know how to handle it.

Well, today, there is an article in the New York Times about other gardeners with the same problem. Here's a quote I liked:

"Finally, [he] decided he would have to shoot the animals. First, though, he went to each hole and made an announcement.

'I said: ‘I intend to kill you. You have 24 hours to get out,’' he recalls. 'I wanted to give them fair warning. I said, ‘If I were you, I would find another place to live.’ I also promised them I would not take a shot unless I knew it would be fatal.'"

Image from the article as well.