What a few days for domesticated and wild critters! In Delmar, Maryland during this past weekend, a young man in a drunken stupor stumbled onto a poultry-raising farm. The young man doesn't remember anything - how he got there, what happened, etc. - until he awoke in the local jail. He somehow got into the shed with all of the power controls, and, apparently (we're guessing here...), tried to turn on what appeared to be a light switch. What he turned OFF was the ventilation system and cooling fans for 70,000 chickens that were due at the market a day later. Without the ventilation and cooling systems on, the birds began to die from heat prostration within a period of 15 minutes. Less than 300 chickens survived from the 70,000 affected. (Demon rum wins again! ... Sorry, I just had to type that line! Rotten, wicked, little me.)
Near College Station, Texas, a family feeds their cats outside on a porch that is beside the kitchen. For the last several weeks, a skunk has been happily eating its' fill each night. Finally, the wife had enough, and said she was tired of spending money on food for the cats that a skunk was eating. She has a license for a concealed weapon, and when the skunk made its nightly appearance, she went to another room to get her .45 pistol. She exited the house through a side door, and crept up on the skunk. She then shot it - but she somehow missed. The skunk sprayed her as it hurriedly left, and her shot ricocheted off the porch, through the kitchen door, and ended up in her husband's abdomen. Luckily, since the bullet was pretty spent, it did not penetrate deeply into the husband. Both the husband and wife were stinky, bloody messes when they arrived at the local hospital.
The Department of Wildlife officials here in Boulder killed a mountain lion last night, and scared off another. Both were sighted by the DoW, and identified as adolescent cats - just old enough to be out on their own, and acquiring their own territories after leaving the family den. The youngster who ran was first spotted laying on the top of a hot tub cover, six blocks from my apartment. The one that was killed was spotted one block further east. The hot tub cat, when he spotted people, ran. DoW will try to trap and tag him, hoping to ensure he doesn't become a nuisance. The young male that was killed was in an apartment area back yard, and had killed and eaten a domestic house cat. When DoW arrived to look at this youngster, he allowed people to approach him within a distance of 6 feet, before he crept back. Since he was allowing such a close approach, it was decided that he was too desensitized to humans to trap and relocate. (I hate it when this happens!) So he was shot and killed on the spot. I live in, essentially, downtown Boulder. The mountain lion that was killed was in the back yard of an apartment complex, and next to the Dairy Center for Performing Arts - it is a heavily trafficked area, and there are a great many children, both in the complex and visiting the Center. I understand the need to make sure the area is safe, but I don't like the loss of the mountain lion.
Boulder is so terribly proud of all of the green spaces, and open areas, and wide creek and bike paths - however, folks need to realize that they are an open invitation to wild wildlife. I don't mind looking out into my back yard and seeing raccoons, chipmunks, squirrels, birds, foxes and the occasional deer. I wouldn't mind seeing bears or mountain lions either. But we need to find a way of living together equitably!!
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