From: no_offline_contact@example.com   
      
   On 2026-02-16 3:54 p.m., Adam H. Kerman wrote:   
   > BTR1701  wrote:   
   >   
   >> CALIFORNIA:   
   >   
   >> The Governor of California is jogging with his dog on a nature trail. A   
   >> coyote jumps out and attacks the governor's dog, then bites the   
   >> governor. The governor starts to intervene, then reflects on the movie   
   >> BAMBI and realizes he should stop because the coyote is only doing what   
   >> is natural.   
   >   
   > While the story made me smile and there is plenty of truth in it, one must   
   > assume the coyote is rabid and is not doing what is natural. Why didn't   
   > the dog alert?   
   >   
   > I tend to walk my dog overnight. I don't wake up in the middle of the   
   > night every night, but when I do, the dog is always ready and willing.   
   > We have encountered juvenile coyotes. The dog always alerts but acts   
   > more like encountering another dog being walked than danger. In an   
   > afternoon walk, we have encountered foxes. I have no idea if there are   
   > wolves around here but we've never encountered one.   
   >   
   > The most reaction I get from the dog is upon encountering the most   
   > dangerous creature of all, a squirrel.   
   >   
   >> TEXAS:   
   >   
   >> The Governor of Texas is jogging with his dog on a nature trail. A coyote   
   >> jumps out and attacks the governor's dog. The governor shoots the coyote   
   with   
   >> his state-issued pistol and keeps jogging.   
   >   
   > He shot the animal? Doesn't he know that you drop an anvil on his head?   
   >   
   >> The governor has spent 50 cents on a .45-caliber hollow point cartridge. The   
   >> buzzards eat the dead coyote.   
   >   
   >> And that, my friends, is why California is broke and Texas is not.   
   >   
   >> (h/t to anim8r for finding this for me.)   
      
      
   Ontario is much closer to California as these things go. When I lived in   
   London (Ontario), there was a provincial park not too far away that   
   regularly had deer and some of the locals noticed that the deer were   
   rather thin and scruffy-looking. They had also seen Bambi and decided   
   that these poor deer were hungry so they needed to be fed. Before too   
   long, the government was putting out food for them and, what do you   
   know, the deer population positively boomed! (A result even an idiot   
   could have predicted: put deer on welfare and there are going to be more   
   deer!) So much so that London started seeing much larger number of deer   
   than it was used to seeing. (A guy in our book club had his backyard   
   backing on to Sifton Bog which was an area where lots of deer gathered   
   and I saw them myself.) Soon there were so many deer that they started   
   becoming a problem, knocking down fences and damaging property so that   
   they could get at backyard gardens. The property damage upset many   
   people and they demanded action from the municipal government. Most of   
   the sentiment seemed to be in favour of a cull. The government, of   
   course, had to listen to activists who were dead set against a cull. The   
   activists argued for relocation of the deer but the cost was   
   prohibitive. They argued against the use of poisons for fear that other   
   animals might be inadvertently poisoned. (Fair enough.) They were beside   
   themselves when someone proposed that hunters be allowed to take the   
   deer with hunting rifles because guns are icky, always and in every   
   circumstance, and besides, they were noisy. Then a group of bowhunters   
   came forward and offered to do the cull but the activists shot that down   
   too if I'm not mistaken. I don't know if a cull ever happened or if the   
   council simply let itself be bullied out of every possible solution.   
   Maybe they just put out more food so that the deer population could   
   increase still further?   
      
   [Research break] I just found this chronology showing what the Upper   
   Thames Valley Conservation Authority did about the deer. (The river   
   running through London, Ontario is also called the Thames River.)   
      
   https://thamesriver.on.ca/parks-recreation-natural-areas/londons   
   esas/sifton-bog/white-tailed-deer-in-sifton-bog/   
      
   Pathetic! They first noticed the problem officially in 2000. Nine years   
   later, when the report ended, they seemed to have done absolutely   
   nothing but study the matter without coming to any conclusions except   
   that a small bow hunt to test the feasibility of that approach should   
   NOT be done and that maybe a fine for people who fed the deer should be   
   considered although they never implemented it. A classic example of   
   "moving at the speed of government"....   
      
   --   
   Rhino   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)