Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/299259
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 6 8 We spend hundreds of millions trying to save dozens of species of small birds and mammals under the Endangered Species Act while enabling a deadly efficient, non-native predator to kill them by the billions. This is not kind, not smart and it's sure as heck not natural. Yet society at large supports or at least permits emotional cat lovers in maintaining feral cat populations. We allow tax monies to be spent on feral cat feeding. We pay to have them captured, neutered, vaccinated and then returned to the streets and fields to continue their bloody, painful attacks. And not just cats. Thanks to us humans, even "native" predators are out of balance with the natural world, because they benefit so much from our human world. Historically, coyotes were rare to nonexistent east of the Mississippi. But now that we've logged, plowed, dozed, planted and otherwise messed things up, coyotes are eating their way through every corner of homes in barns, culverts, crawl spaces and even manmade rock piles from which they pad out to devour the eggs and chicks of ground-nesting birds. Red foxes rejoice and pig out when we plow up mice and throw out half-eaten hotdogs. Then, refreshed, they lope afield to sniff out quail, grouse, cottontails, meadowlarks and mallards. It's a dog eat everything world out there, and we are enabling it. Of course, predators and predation are normal and natural. So are humans and human activity. After all, we evolved here just like all other mammals. But when our activities adversely impact prey species while benefiting predators, it is our responsibility to correct the imbalance. I don't hold out much hope that we'll stop plowing our grainfields. Nor will we replace vineyards with native brush or strawberry fields with pine forests. But we could act to reduce the unnaturally high levels of predators that we've created. While doing so we could simultaneously reduce our carbon footprint by utilizing biodegradable, naturally produced, free-range, sustainable, perpetually renewable fur. That's right. Fur. Real, wild fur that, unlike faux fur and polyester, does not depend on oil wells and refineries that scar the ground, foul the air, pollute the oceans and release carbon. Real fur that would save the lives of millions of ducklings and chicks and bunnies. Fur that would end hours and years of painful animal suffering. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Killing animals to reduce animal suffering. But it works. More importantly, by reducing artificially high numbers of predators, we help many beleaguered prey species to recover. This does not mean blanket persecution of predators. Reasonable levels of them truly are natural and necessary. But when human meddling creates unnatural imbalances, it's time to reduce their numbers and minimize animal pain and suffering. This isn't 1800 anymore. the Lower 48, gobbling up woodchucks and cottontails, pheasants and fawns, even killing calves and sheep. And when they can't find enough wildlife to eat, we help them out with backdoor pet food, road-killed deer and various grains and vegetables even while we hinder prey species by destroying the habitat they need to survive. In 1800 the prairie pothole region of the Dakotas was filled with grass, water, bison, wolves, badgers, plovers, ducks, geese, sandpipers and sharp-tailed grouse. We came along and drained half the wetlands, plowed most of the grasslands, shot out the wolves and bison and laid out a welcome mat for red fox and raccoons. We even planted trees so predatory crows, hawks and horned owls would feel at home. And they certainly do. According to biologists, a red-tailed hawk atop a 50-foot cottonwood will kill every nesting duck within a 200-yard radius. Raccoons find snug