Naturally speaking.

I read a lot of stupid things that people write. There were two opinions in the San Diego Union this week that vie for the title of most imbecilic waste of ink. The first is Roger Hedgecock's moronic piece, Humans are the natural world too. If anything captures the full scope of the limited reach of the antediluvian mind, it is this article.

"All living organisms on this planet have an impact on all other living organisms. We live in an ecological system that is constantly changing as species interact with each other.

In other words, species come and species go. Do you really miss the carrier pigeon?  Or the dinosaurs?"

In a time that species are being lost at an incredible rate, and with the human species and all other lifeforms being so inextricably woven together, this type of primitive thinking encapsulates in a nutshell the problems that we face if we hope to survive on this planet.

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The other article is by the Union's outdoor and horseracing writer Ed Zieralski. Z has been a longstanding apologist for those folks that get their kicks killing other animals for trophies for their walls. This article is titled Another possible blow against game management.

Once again, California’s politicians have caved to animal rights zealots and made a decision about game management that could impact the state’s wildlife in a negative way.On Monday, the California Senate voted 22-15 to end the legal use of dogs to hunt bears and bobcats, two of the state’s top predators. Just like mountain lions, which are protected, black bears and bobcats prey on young deer. Bobcats are stout enough to bring down mature bighorn sheep.Animal rights activists contend the use of dogs is “inhumane and unsporting,” according to Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.The legislation, co-authored by Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, will move to the state Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee.But what the politicians and the animal activists don’t get is that they’re taking away another very useful tool from California hunters, who, by their very nature and methods, help control the predation by bears and bobcats on other animals such as deer, bighorn sheep and game birds like turkeys, quail and pheasants. And what is overlooked is that hunters, by helping to control the population of these predators, also help in preventing these animals from venturing into neighborhoods to eat pets or cause problems. The bigger the population the more chance one of them will be kicked down to somewhere like Santa Monica, where a mountain lion was killed Tuesday morning on the corner of Second Street and Wilshire Boulevard.Let’s hope the California Assembly members have enough common sense to see through all the propaganda and defeat the bill. Let hunters, who pay big dollars for the right to take care of apex predators, help control these populations of bears and bobcats. Otherwise, the state will have the same problem it has now with mountain lions, and that’s having to pay state and federal hunters to kill them when populations expand to the point where they start showing up in folks’ backyards and eating their pets, or in the case of bears, raiding the garbage cans and threatening public safety.At least these animal rights activists haven’t gone after the right to hunt wild pigs with dogs. How that escaped them I don’t know. Wild pigs also eat young deer fawns and even cattle. And right now the ever-growing population of wild pigs in San Diego County is a lot more of a hot-button issue than bears (of which we don’t have any) and bobcats, of which we have thousands.At least these animal rights activists haven’t gone after the right to hunt wild pigs with dogs. How that escaped them I don’t know. Wild pigs also eat young deer fawns and even cattle. And right now the ever-growing population of wild pigs in San Diego County is a lot more of a hot-button issue than bears (of which we don’t have any) and bobcats, of which we have thousands.Hunting any predator or wild pig with dogs is a useful tool that allows a hunter to get close enough to make a quick, fatal shot at a mountain lion, bear or bobcat that has been treed or cornered. And it also allows the hunter to decide whether the animal is the right one to kill. If you don’t believe this, ask any federal or state hunter about the best way to hunt apex predators. They do their best hunting at night or with dogs during the day.Today, in the wake of this ill-advised move by the California Senate, one that, as usual, lacks any form of common sense, there are more fears, justifiably, among the state’s hunting advocacy groups that this is just another step by these animal rights zealots to end all hunting with dogs, including duck and upland bird hunting, in our once-great state. Eventually, their goal is to end all hunting in California, and judging by what they convinced the Senate to do, they’re getting there.

There was a great letter in the paper yesterday that probably answers Ed better than I can which I can't currently find online. I will try to dig it up. In Ed's way of thinking, the only animals that count are those game animals that hunters can kill. Zieralski has always been a fierce advocate and taken one sided stances on these issues, a strange position for a supposed journalist. He was a fierce defender of State Fish and Game Commission President Dan Richards' freebie trip to Idaho to kill a mountain lion for a mount.

I have lived in a wild place for most of my life and have never feared mountain lions or bobcats. There was a lion at the end of the road at Tanner's place two weeks ago and I see bobcats all the time. People might lose an occasional poodle, tragic but that's what it means to live in the country. I am not a hunter and have no problem with the hunting of deer and game but don't get people that get their jollies taking down bears or lions or little bobcats.

Apex predators have existed and have been killing game animals since time immemorial. It's called nature. They aren't mean or evil, they are serving a vital function in a complex ecological chain. We don't need to interfere or manage anything. Nature does a damn good job by itself and doesn't need our help, especially not the help of a bunch of testosterone addled yahoos chasing down poor wild animals with dogs.

“Today’s vote was about partisan politics.The Legislature is trying to restrict liberty and change the rural lifestyle of many Californians.”
State Senator Doug LaMalfa, California 4th District