Endangered Sanity
In our classic essay, Save the Elephino [here], we poked fun at the lunacy of “protecting” bizarre hybrids:
This is wrong (in many respects). If wolfotes and wolfogs are to be “protected,” then sparred (or botted) owls should be, too.
And why stop there? What about beefalos? It seems highly unevolutionary, biologically speaking, as well as inhumane, to sell beefalo meat in grocery stores right next to the salmon, for instance. Shouldn’t beefalos be allowed to roam free and commune with Mother Nature, freaks of nature though they might be?
And what about ligers, zebronkeys, and jackalopes? This old world is big enough for all God’s creatures, isn’t it?
We want our favorite hybrid listed: that rare cross and the answer to nearly every question that can be asked, the elephino.
Life imitates art, as they say. Our favorite hunter-blogger, Tom Remington of Black Bear Blog, send a heads-up: now enviro-wackos want wolfotes and wolfogs put on the Endangered Species list [here]:
Northeast Environmentalists Want To Protect Interbred Canids (Dogs)
by Tom Remington, Black Bear Blog, March 20, 2009
Where will the absolute insanity stop when it comes to efforts by extremists to end hunting, fishing and trapping, close off lands to human use, strip us of our rights and destroy our god given right in the pursuit of happiness?
It has gotten so bad that a group, made up of representatives from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and New York, have petitioned the Department of Interior in order to place protections under the Endangered Species Act for any interbred species of dogs, coyotes, wolves or any combination of the above, claiming these all to be unique species.
The goofy group consists of John M. Glowa and Walter L. Pepperman of the Maine Wolf Coalition, Christine L. Schadler, who has done “research,” Joseph Butera of the Northeast Ecological Recovery Society, and Jonathan G. Way of Eastern Coyote Research. Their Petition to the Government reads, in part:
In accordance with the Administrative Procedures Act and/or the Endangered Species Act, we hereby petition the U.S. Department of Interior and the Service to regulate the commerce or taking, and treat as endangered species in the States of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts, coyotes (Canis latrans), coyote/gray wolf hybrids (Canis latrans x Canis lupus), eastern wolves (Canis lycaon), eastern wolf/gray wolf hybrids (Canis lycaon x Canis lupus), coyote/eastern wolf hybrids (Canis latrans x Canis lycaon), and coyote/eastern wolf/gray wolf hybrids (Canis latrans x Canis lycaon x Canis lupus) because of their close resemblance to the federally endangered and protected gray wolf.
In accordance with the Administrative Procedures Act and/or the U.S. Endangered Species Act, we also hereby petition the U.S. Department of Interior and the Service: (1) to establish a Northeastern Gray Wolf Distinct Population Segment consisting of the States of New York, Vermont New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts; and, (2) to develop and implement a Northeastern Gray Wolf Recovery Plan.
They really mean a Northeastern Wolfote, Wolfog, and Elephino Recovery Plan.
But guess what? That’s not what the ESA was set up to do. The Petition is not in accordance with reality. Hybrids are hybrids, not endangered species. Even the less-than-perspicacious functionaries of the USFWS know that.
Note: look it up!
Ah well. Sanity is a rare commodity these days, along with common sense, rationality, and the ability to tie one’s own shoes.
Save the Zebronky. Do it today.
