From: no_offline_contact@example.com   
      
   On 2026-02-16 6:50 p.m., BTR1701 wrote:   
   > On Feb 16, 2026 at 3:28:46 PM PST, "Rhino"    
   > wrote:   
   >   
   >> 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!)   
   >   
   > Years ago when I was working visits at Camp David, the Marines there talked   
   > about how the deer population was so out-of-control that they were literally   
   > clearing the forest floor of all new growth. They'd eat the sapling trees and   
   > bushes before they could get big enough to survive and as a result, other   
   than   
   > the old growth trees, the forest was completely bare, which was a problem   
   > because the thick forest undergrowth is a significant security feature for   
   > Camp David. It blocks lines of sight to the presidential cabin, etc. and now   
   > it was gone, so the Secret Service and the Marines wanted to do something   
   > about the deer. They put out a solicitation for hunters in the area to hold a   
   > mass cull.   
   >   
   > Of course PETA and the other eco-kooks threw a fit, claiming it was kinder to   
   > the deer to let them starve and freeze to death than to cull the herd down to   
   > a manageable level and donate the venison to local homeless shelters. They   
   > held protests and threatened injunctions, basically all the crap they   
   normally   
   > do to get in the way of normal life.   
   >   
   > Rather than fight it, the government publicly conceded, waited a few months   
   > for the whole thing to blow over, then quietly brought in the ATF at night   
   > with silenced rifles and NVGs and had them shoot hundreds of deer. They   
   loaded   
   > the deer into big freezer trucks and took them halfway across the country   
   > where a sudden influx of venison at shelters wouldn't draw any notice and   
   > within a few months, the forest started growing back.   
   >   
   > The only problem is that by using stealth mode, PETA was able to claim   
   victory   
   > and say, "See? If you just leave nature alone, it solves its own problems."   
   >   
   >   
   Don't you just want to rub the smirk off their uber-righteous little faces?   
      
   But good for whoever authorized the stealth cull for finally solving the   
   problem properly. I was surprised that London UK also has a deer   
   over-population but they do an annual cull and it doesn't seem to bother   
   anyone despite the country being famously full of animal lovers.   
      
   --   
   Rhino   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)