Who intentionally set off fireworks under a blackbird roost in Beebe, Arkansas on New Year's Eve killing at least 200 birds? In some warped homage to last New Year's when at least 5,000 blackbirds perished?
Do the killers think their prank is funny or
that the birds are nothing but pests?
The killers have a lot in common with the US
Department of Agriculture, In 2009, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (APHIS) says it poisoned 489,444 red-winged blackbirds in
Texas alone and 461,669 in Louisiana. It also shot 4,217 blackbirds in
California, 2,246 in North Dakota and 1,063 in Oregon according to its posted
records.
That is in addition to the starlings, crows,
ravens, doves, geese, owls (yes owls) hawks, pigeons, ducks, larks, woodpeckers
and coots the government kills to benefit ranchers, farmers and other private
interests. And squirrels, rabbits, badgers, bobcats, beavers, woodchucks,
coyotes, opossums, raccoons and mountain lions.
The he-men at the Wildlife Service also shot 29
great blue herons, 820 cattle egrets and 115 white-faced ibises in 2009,
despite the known dangers of approaching shore birds.
It's hard to know which is worse: government
agencies like APHIS, Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Department of
Agriculture and Forestry helping private rice farmers and landowners with our
tax dollars. Or the scorched earth baiting of their rice fields with poison
"until blackbird populations are depleted," as LSU's Rice Research
Station News puts it.
APHIS even uses caged red-winged blackbirds as decoys to attract wild ones
says Audubon magazine and "pre-baits" an area with unpoisoned food to
ensure the most takers.
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